Tag: album review
-
Eels – Souljacker
…And then, for their fourth LP, Eels would offer their fans something completely different. Before this point in their catalogue, the band has remained fairly passive and artful in their compositions as well as in the presentations of them (it was all very alt-) but, on Souljacker, the band takes a much more forceful and…
-
The Lumberjack Feedback – Blackened Visions
This French instrumental outfit first got my attention with their two-song Hand of Glory EP in 2013—mostly because of their bitchin’ band name. The Lumberhack Feedback have put out a couple more EPs since, which I haven’t heard, but Blackened Visions is their full-fledged debut album, with six tracks spanning 45 minutes and change. “No…
-
Eels – Electro-Shock Blues 2LP
It may have occurred by accident or it may have happened by design but, regardless, few alt-rock albums made in the late Nineties (a.k.a. the peak of the compact disc’s reign as the recorded music format of choice) were so ideally suited to being pressed on vinyl as Eels‘ Electro-Shock Blues. The pacing of the…
-
The Body – No One Deserves Happiness
Pop goes The Body!? On this record, they’ve set out to create the “grossest pop album of all time,” adding 80’s synths, dance beats and female vocals to their two-pieced sludge attack. This might be where you’d accuse them of selling out… but does anybody really wanna buy this? Oftentimes, the overall effect is more…
-
All Them Witches – Dying Surfer Meets His Maker
Above all else, the first thing you need to know about All Them Witches is that nothing is exactly as it seems. If all you saw was the album cover, you could justifiably assume it was the work of a metal or stoner rock band – but you’d be wrong. If all you heard was…
-
Publicist UK – Forgive Yourself
It’s always nice to hear new music in the form of yesterdays or decades gone by or in terms of genre. This may be even more true in the case of musicians who come from a background of extreme metal. This is just the case for Publicist UK, who have created a post-punk era album with some…
-
Arakk – Self & Distance
Self & Distance is a 25-minute piece of droning doom from Danish quintet Arakk. Originally released digitally in June 2014, Aonair Productions has given it the physical release it deserves. Casting light and shade over a desolate landscape shaped from a tortured soul, S&D tests the endurance of anguish against a backdrop of soul-withering atmospheric…
-
Yidhra – Cult of Bathory
Countess Elizabeth Bathory has been the muse of many a black-metal band, from Venom onwards, but this is the first time I’ve seen her name attached to a doom-metal record. Mind you, L.A. outfit Yidhra are no strangers to the occult; they’re named after the dream witch in H.P. Lovecraft lore. This four-song, 10” EP…
-
We Lost the Sea – Departure Songs
What drew me to Departure Songs, the third album from Aussie post-rockers We Lost the Sea, was the concept. All of these songs are about people who died helping others, from deep-sea diver David Shaw to the two men who shut down the Chernobyl reactor; they’ve even got a two-part epic about the Space Shuttle…