Tag: retro
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High Reeper – Higher Reeper
After putting out a smokin’ Sabbath/Saint Vitus-inspired self-titled record about a year and a half ago, Philly’s High Reeper is already back with album number two. Why get high when you can get higher, bro??? The eight-song, 40-minute effort picks up right where its predecessor left off, with “Eternal Leviathan” serving up a solid slice…
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Electric Wizard – Wizard Bloody Wizard
Much like Lee Dorrian rallying against occult doom while simultaneously profiting from it with Rise Above Records, something about the pre-release press for this new Electric Wizard record has rubbed me the wrong way. It seems Jus Oborn has also jumped on the “modern metal is lame” bandwagon, hailing the new album as a “return…
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The Night Flight Orchestra – Amber Galactic
Sometimes the degree of talent involved in a project leads you to expect that the said project will be at least as great, if not as good as the sum of its parts. Sadly, despite the competent musicianship displayed here (hence the five out of ten for that), this is music created by committee. The Night…
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Anciients, Dead Quiet and Muffler Crunch @ Hard Luck Bar, Toronto, 18 August 2017
If you aren’t familiar with Anciients, you should be. The British Columbia-based band recently took a swing through southern Ontario as part of their Voice of the Void Canadian tour with Dead Quiet. Hellbound welcomed them to Hamilton for their performance at This Ain’t Hollywood – a night of top-notch live metal also featuring local openers…
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Saturn – Beyond Spectra
This latest release from Rise Above Records comes from Swedish band Saturn, an outfit that treads a similar path to Witchcraft and Graveyard. What, were you expecting goregrind? Beyond Spectra is the band’s second album, following their debut, Ascending, from 2014. The 46-minute effort begins on a retro-metal note, with “Orbital Command” sounding like vintage…
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Heavy Glow – The Filth & the Fury/Pearls & Swine and Everything Fine
With this San Diego psych trio, Heavy Glow, now signed to German imprint Kozmik Artifactz, both their last album, 2014’s independently released Pearls & Swine and Everything Fine, and their rarer 2010 EP, The Filth & the Fury, are being properly reissued. Not sure if they’re being sold separately or merged onto one recording, but…
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Satan’s Satyrs – Don’t Deliver Us
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. “Retro, throwback, ’70s rock worshippers with occult-themed lyrics…” But wait, this isn’t just the same old song ‘n dance. For one thing, this Virginia outfit isn’t female-fronted, nor are they merely Electric Wizard clones… although they did open for the Wizard on its North American tour. Rather,…
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Demon Eye – Tempora Infernalia
Not to be confused with Demon Lung from Las Vegas, this Carolina quartet takes its name from a track offa Deep Purple’s Fireball record. Suffice to say, they’ve got a throwback, ’70s sound, albeit with a healthy dose of proto-doom mixed in. On their second album, the outfit serves up the tunage with shades of Priestess,…
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Transmaniacon – The Darkening Plain
Now, this is a band-name well chosen, for ‘Transmaniacon’ is a track from Blue Oyster Cult. Blue Oyster Cult are a criminally overlooked act in the inspiration stakes, with most people just knowing them for the track ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper.’ This is in part due to it being featured in films like Halloween (the…
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Blues Pills – Self-Titled
I’ve been hearing a bit of buzz about Blues Pills for some time, albeit predominantly from the other side of the pond. Though not a super group by any stretch (I think their bassist was in Radio Moscow or something), this multinational outfit unites an American rhythm section with a French guitar prodigy and a…