Tag: rock
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Ancient Shapes – Ancient Shapes LP
While Daniel Romano has found great success exposing his Country & Western inspirations over the last few years (both 2011’s Sleep Beneath The Willows and 2013’s Come Cry With Me got longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize in those respective years), it’s refreshing and relieving to hear that the singer has elected to turn up…
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The Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter III (BoneHawk/Kingnomad split)
In some ways, Ripple Music is sorta like a modern-day MeteorCity—a great little label bringing underground heavy music to the masses. Ripple also has its own series of split albums; of which this is the third installment. I haven’t heard of either of these bands, so I’m not expecting Lowrider/Nebula here, but if Ripple’s logo…
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Beelzefuzz – The Righteous Bloom
This Maryland-based band features players from doom-metal mainstays Revelation and Pale Divine, yet they aren’t really doom, in the traditional sense. There is a strong 70’s influence here, but without too many lugubrious tempos; more of an uplifting sound inspired by everything from 70’s power ballads to 80’s power metal. Righteous Bloom, their second album,…
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Pup – The Dream Is Over
Over the last few years, critics have announced the death of rock n’ roll so often that it has become pretty difficult to truly wonder if they’re not right. It gets even harder to not think that maybe – just maybe – there’s no going back either; it is the twenty-first century, after all, and…
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Scorpion Child – Acid Roulette
Scorpion Child kinda caught the tail end of the Led Zeppelin revival scene with their self-titled debut album, which came out in 2013. I still haven’t actually heard that record, but I saw ‘em live twice on the supporting tour, once opening for Clutch, and again on a smaller, headlining gig with the likes of…
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Harrington Saints – Pride & Tradition (reissue)
Now that the band has reached out a bit and found some fresh and receptive ears (the Fish & Chips EP which came out last year helped toward that end) it’s no surprise that Harrington Saints‘ next step was to reissue their Pride & Tradition album to help reel in the new recruits who are…
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Melvins – Basses Loaded
In case you’re wondering about the title, the Melvins have been through about as many bassists as Spinal Tap had drummers—although we’re still waiting for one to spontaneously combust on stage. It’s also a lesser-known fact that King Buzzo once blew off backstage passes with Dave Grohl and Josh Homme because he had Dodgers tickets.…
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Honky – Corduroy
This Texas trio channels ZZ Top right down to the tip of their beards, playing old-school, southern boogie rock in the vein of the sharp-dressed men. Starting off as a Butthole Surfers side project in the mid-90’s, Honky now have a handful of records under their novelty belt buckles, with this being their first one since…
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Astrakhan – Reward in Purpose
I’ve been a big fan of B.C. sludge band Astrakhan ever since the release of their 2013 EP, The Pillarist. Their next EP was pretty good, too, combining the rugged grooves of locals like Bison and Mendozza with a bit of Baptists thrown in for good measure. Man, there is such an embarrassment of riches…
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Wrong – self-titled
This Miami noise-rock outfit features former members of Torche and Kylesa, but musically, Wrong are more like Unsane or the Melvins’ old-school slowcore, with just a dash of punk rock fury. Either way, you can’t really go wrong… Their self-titled Relapse debut has 11 tracks clocking in at an even half-hour; when it comes to song…