Tag: review
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Neurosis – Fires Within Fires
A new Neurosis record is always a noteworthy occasion, especially since they don’t come around all that often. Their last album, Honor Found in Decay, was released nearly four years ago to the day, and its predecessor, Given to the Rising, came out in ’07. But you can’t accuse this outfit of making the same…
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Third Island – Dusk
Irish post-metal? Sign me up. The debut EP from Third Island takes listeners on a journey through the night of an insomniatic protagonist. Dusk is a wonderfully woeful concept album that uses sonic arrangements to portray the feelings and affects of the restless. Waking dreams, auditory hallucinations, and possible insanity come through as the album drives…
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Serpent Crown – Incantations of Vengeance
Oakland certainly has no shortage of blackened, thrashy sludge bands, from the likes of High on Fire and Black Cobra going back to some of the pioneers of sludge and doom—Noothgrush, Neurosis, Sleep et al. This particular outfit, Serpent Crown, has been around since ’08, but they’ve completely flown under my radar until now, as…
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Old Corpse Road – Of Campfires and Evening Mists
In the metal genre we all love, a band’s artwork speaks volumes as to their intentions. The splendidly named Old Corpse Road’s evocatively titled Of Campfires and Evening Mists features a fire-lit forest with their logo superimposed over it. The said logo features such symbols of nature as a wise owl and horns, and of…
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The Wounded Kings – Visions of Bone
Album number five from British doomsters The Wounded Kings is slated to be their last—the band announced they’d be breaking up a couple weeks before its release. While their two previous albums featured female vocals, they welcomed their original frontman back into the fold for this Candlelight Records swansong. Visions of Bone begins with 14-minute…
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David Bowie – Let’s Dance LP
To begin with, I have to confess that I disliked Let’s Dance from the time I first heard it until early 2016 – right around the time I first saw the Five Years documentary. In Five Years, both Let’s Dance and the album’s producer, Nile Rodgers, played significant roles and seeing that presentation was what…
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David Bowie – David Live 2LP
It’s incredible how good, interesting, revealing and even informative an album can be, while simultaneously being critically abhorred. How such things happen is anyone’s guess, but they do – a perfect example is the live album that David Bowie released in 1974, David Live. David Live was Bowie’s first official live album. The album compiled…
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David Bowie – Diamond Dogs LP
While it might not sound like the greatest endorsement of an album’s quality or of the creative foresight possessed by an artist on the surface, the adage that Diamond Dogs exemplifies first is “Just because an idea doesn’t work out in its intended manner does not mean it should be thrown away and forgotten.” The manner…
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Asphyx – Incoming Death
If you don’t think Martin van Drunen has one of the best voices in death metal then you either haven’t heard him or you have no idea what good is. If it is the latter then stop reading because you obviously couldn’t care less about punishingly good death metal. Asphyx‘s newest album Incoming Death starts off…
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Truckfighters – V
Album number five from these Swedish stoner-rock stalwarts comes out late September, with domestic distribution by Century Media. I actually didn’t own any of Truckfighters‘ previous albums until I saw them play this crazy gig at a battleaxe-throwing venue in Toronto a couple years back—so I’m pleased to see this record receive a proper domestic release.…