Tag: review
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Biblical – The City That Always Sleeps
Last time I saw Biblical live, at the Silver Dollar farewell shindig, I mentioned that they were long overdue for a new album. Little did I know that their second full-length record was on its way—on Tee Pee Records, no less! The City That Always Sleeps offers eight tracks in roughly 37-and-a-half minutes, kicking off with…
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Neurosis / Converge / Amenra at the Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, 2 August 2017
Amenra Crushing hypnotic sludge. Screamed vocals. Very Neurosis-like in style. Slow parts and catchy melodies. Nice black and white visuals. Clouds and nature with burning and smoking landscapes. Maybe close to as punishingly epic as a cult of Luna show. Lots of feedback and ringing and sustained notes and riffs. Echoing bass and drums can be felt…
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Southern Accents LP
Throughout music history, many albums have been made which are said to be conflicted due to the tensions apparent within the band coming out in the music. Some of those albums turn out to be phenomenal – there was conflict brewing in Nirvana and it came out in In Utero and it was great. The…
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Downcast Twilight – Under the Wings of the Aquila
Hailing from Russia, but with lyrics in English, Downcast Twilight are most accomplished musicians and could compete on any international stage. Their song-writing is strong, the tracks all cover various periods in history, and clearly a lot of work has gone into their production. It is death metal with folk influences, but really it has…
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Long After Dark LP
In the first half-decade of their association together, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had already hit some pretty spectacular highs and lows on a condensed timeline. Virtually from day one, the group established that they had some great potential to write hits (see “American Girl,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Refugee” as easy and fantastic…
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Decrepit Birth – Axis Mundi
Axis Mundi is certain to become a staple of the death metal genre and a classic of the scene, I have no doubt about this. Decrepit Birth‘s 2017 output is very possibly the best death metal album of the year and without question it is undoubtedly my favourite release of the year. After the awesome…
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Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – Hard Promises
When it comes to making a follow-up for a career-defining release, the catch is that whatever comes can often feel like a diminished return no matter how good it might be – because the new music simply does not have the same spark which ignited the breakthrough of the previous album. It’s kind of heartbreaking…
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So Let It Be Written: The Biography of Metallica’s James Hetfield
Authored by Mark Eglinton Foreword by Chuck Billy of Testament Published by Lesser Gods This book works better as a history of Metallica than it does as a biography of James Hetfield. The author has not been able to do the extensive interviews with Hetfield that would be needed to produce an in-depth biography. Thus,…
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No Funeral / Livid split
From the frozen tundras of Minnesota comes a spiritual successor to that Noothgrush/Corrupted split from 20 years back (which was recently reissued by 20 Buck Spin). Though I’ve never heard of either act before, both No Funeral and Livid both play sludge metal the bad ol’ fashioned way, stretching just three songs over 37 minutes…
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Damn The Torpedoes LP (reissue)
It might sound like a grandiose claim to say something like, “Truly and genuinely rare is an album like Damn The Torpedoes – it has really introduced some of the biggest and most respected institutions in the modern music industry,” but those who might think so simply do not know the whole story of the…