Tag: album review
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Snailking – Storm
You know you’ve been listening to this shit for a while when you start seeing bands named after some of your favourite albums. Y’know, like the Polish band Dopesmoker or Dopethrone from Montreal. Hell, there’s even an outfit named after the Truckfighters tune Desert Cruiser—though I guess that one shouldn’t be such a surprise. In…
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Opeth – Pale Communion
Pale Communion is a richly appointed collection of progressive rock that continues the approach of 2011’s Heritage, while refining and expanding the style that characterized that troubling (to some) transitional album. Everything on Pale Communion—the production, the material, the performances—hangs together more logically than on Heritage. The songs travel through candlelit corridors, sidestep into a…
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Bastard Sapling – Instinct is Forever
I’d heard a lot of good things about Bastard Sapling’s debut album, Dragged From Our Restless Trance, but their newest offering, Instinct is Forever, serves as my introduction to the band. And what an introduction it is! The Richmond, VA quintet displays remarkable vision and execution on this sophomore effort. Working off a base of…
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Earth – Primitive and Deadly
I was certainly intrigued by this latest Earth album. Although their newer stuff has been more Americana—not that there’s anything wrong with that—advance singles offa this one indicate somewhat of a return to heaviness. And that includes not one but two guest vocalists, with one being Mark Lanegan. Actually, I’m not sure if they’ve had…
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Gob – Apt. 13
As of this writing, it has been seven years since Gob‘s last album of new material came out. That’s a pretty long time to go with no new material for any band who likes to be seen as an enduring, creative entity but, for a pop-punk band like Gob, an absence so long might as…
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Norilsk – Japetus
This is an excellent three-track introduction to a very worthy band. On the title track and “Potsdam Glo,” the band show a talent for strong, original atmospheric doom. My only criticism is a constructive one: I’d like to see the vocal more forward in the mix. Interestingly, what sums up Norilsk the best is their…
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Sorxe – Surrounded by Shadows
Though I haven’t heard of them before, Sorxe is part of the same Arizona sludge scene as the likes of TOAD, Godhunter and North — not to mention the Southwest Terror Fest, which I hope to attend some day — so that’s good enough for me to give ’em a listen. “Steamroller” comes rolling out…
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Accept – Blind Rage
I did not need to hear any of the advance singles to know this was going to be good. Three albums into Accept’s latest comeback, any skepticism about Udo-soundalike Mark Tornillo on vocals has melted away. Far from being over-the-hill dinosaurs, these guys have tapped into the sound of classic Accept, making this the Metal Heart to Blood of the Nations’ Fast…
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Bastard of the Skies/Grimpen Mire split
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never heard either of these British bands before, though they’ve both been around for a handful of years. But that’s what’s great about splits—they’re a bite-sized introduction to acts otherwise unknown, without putting you through the paces of a 72-minute album or something. And while I’m not…
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Disparager – Timeless, Ageless
Passion and sincerity are what matters most in music, and Disparager have an overabundance of those. Opening with “Pictures,” the band show themselves as technically adroit but never at the expense of the actual song. “Tuesday Love” is raw in its emotion; this is an antidote to the fake music that clogs up the airwaves…