Tag: album review
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Rush – Signals LP
Just one year after they began to challenge both themselves and their audience with new songwriting ideas and compositional presentations on Moving Pictures, Rush elected to ride that wave of inspiration with Signals – their ninth LP and second of a new era. Right off, there’s no question that Signals takes its lead from Moving…
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Hooded Menace – Darkness Drips Forth
When they told me that Darkness Drips Forth was Hooded Menace’s “most gruesome work yet,” I knew I was gonna hafta give’r a listen. Don’t get me wrong, death/doom ain’t really my cuppa—but hey, gimme Autopsy, Coffins and Winter’s Into Darkness any day. (I’ll admit, the latter has grown on me a bit since I…
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Adrenechrome – Tales from Adrenechrome
I quite liked the debut album from these Northern Ontario rockers, which reminded me of Mastodon and Baroness before both bands sold out. These guys are easily the heaviest thing to come out of Orillia since… OK, I got nothing on that one. Anyhoo, album number two starts off in somewhat unfamiliar fashion, with “A…
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Mountain of Wizard – Casting Rhythms and Disturbances
This NOLA quartet, Mountain of Wizard, is best known for having the drummer who replaced Joey LaCaze in Eyehategod. Unlike some other outfits from the area, they aren’t really known nationally… at least not yet. And they’re not really your standard sludge-metal outfit, either. For one thing, this album is entirely instrumental, featuring some up-tempo…
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Whore Paint – Ultra Sound
I can’t quite recall how the second album from this Rhode Island post-feminist, post-rock trio, Whore Paint, came to my attention, but colour me intrigued. Ultra Sound packs eight tracks into less than 38 minutes, and with over half of these songs bestowed with non-descript, one-word titles in true noise-rock fashion, it’s hard to detect…
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Rush – Moving Pictures LP
It is often regarded as an inconvenient truth, but the fact is that it becomes increasingly difficult for a band to change or take artistic risks as they get further into their career. A lot of that difficulty may come from the band’s perceived responsibility to their fans; the people watching and listening were the…
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Tylor Dory Trio – Carried Away
If I were to try and summon up Tylor Dory Trio’s sound in a soundbite, it would be that they are a cross between Opeth and Alice In Chains. But that doesn’t do justice to the depth of their music. As you can gather from the name, we have here the classic power-trio format in…
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Xaemora – Kingdom Venom I
The first thing you’ll notice about Kingdom Venom I by St. Louis based symphonic black metallers Xaemora is their logo. It’s Cthulu-esque appearance translates well to the otherworldly beast you’ll find within. KVI is blatantly vicious and cold. Bitter, militant chugs power through symphonic melodies while vocals full of true black metal hate raise the…
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False Flag – Nest of Vipers
False Flag‘s Nest of Vipers is an excellent EP that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Four tracks of prime groove metal. Reference points are Lamb of God, Exhorder, and of course, Pantera. What gives this its own identity is the level of musical virtuosity of the band members. There is also a genuine band dynamic and sincerity there.…
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Cryptopsy – The Book of Suffering (Tome 1)
Say your piece, objectors: yes, Lord Worm is still out of the band, which leaves Flo Mounier as the only original member, and he’s the drummer to boot; yes, their undisputed classic, None So Vile, is twenty years old; yes, they chased trendy deathcore and ran their name into the ground in 2008 with The…