Reviews

Reviews

Album Review: SHADOWS FALL Fire From the Sky

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Shadows Fall has made its name as one of the most influential and popular metal bands of the last ten years. Despite this fact, 2009’s Retribution didn’t seem to catch as much of a buzz as some of their previous works. For my part, I thought this was unfortunate. The record contained some of the band’s best vocal melodies and guitar work, and I know many Shadows Fall fans must agree with me. However, with classics like The Art of Balance and The War Within in the rear-view mirror, the band has a lot to live up to. So in the year 2012, nearly ten years after their generation of bands burst onto the scene, how does Fire From the Sky stand up? (more…)

Reviews

CD Review: SLEEP Dopesmoker

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Dopesmoker was never gonna fly; not as an album title, not on a major label.

It was actually the least of the band's worries. Al Cisneros, Matt Pike, Chris Hakius – Sleep - were about to be tucked in for good, in classic Dead Kennedys Frankenchrist fashion. There wouldn't be a lawsuit, primarily because the trio had already spent their advance paying off debt and just stocking the cupboard toward an indeterminate future, but the battle over the release of this single song, 63-minute monster would end the group just as effectively as any drawn out court battle. (more…)

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CD Review: CATTLE DECAPITATION Monolith of Inhumanity

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Cattle Decapitation like to give mixed signals: on the one hand, there are the songs beloved by animal rights activists that decry factory farm conditions and lab testing; on the other hand, there are the Cannibal Corpse-worshiping, unapologetic gore tracks. These are not mutually exclusive traits, mind you, it's just that the increasing number of context-free horror tales make one wonder just how much this band desires to be taken seriously. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: ANHEDONIST Netherwards

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I often associate death/doom with waiting, persevering for that perfect riff, enduring the dirge for that most heart-rending of melodies. My ears don't deal well with filler. Anhedonist's Netherwards, however, is 40 minutes of payoff. When the band does the doom, bleak melodies approach sonic perfection, unfurling in radiant, saturnine stereo. Anhedonist challenge My Dying Bride’s greatest moments, taking that forlorn majesty and straining it judiciously through cheesecloth. (more…)

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CD Review: JOB FOR A COWBOY – Demonocracy

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Anyone who was on MySpace around the year 2005 was probably introduced to Job For A Cowboy at one point and time. I’ll never forget just how quickly their hype spread over the Internet, and how short of a time it was before they were signed with Metal Blade. Having that much hype for any band gives you a fair share of lovers and haters, especially since they started out as a pretty generic deathcore band with pig squeals. But with three albums out now, it’s time to see if they’re still living up to hype. (more…)

Reviews

CD Review: WAR OF AGES – Return To Life

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If there’s one subgenre of metal that has way too many bands to claim, it’s probably metalcore. Nowadays, you really have to be cutting edge, or do the subgenre real justice in order to get real notoriety and fame. If you’ve been out as long as War Of Ages, you probably do stand out from the multitude. But as always, there are exceptions to the rule. (more…)

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CD Review: UFOMAMMUT Oro: Opus Primum

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Owing either to their Italian origins or a discography heretofore released on small, defunct labels or the band's own Supernatural Cat imprint – most likely a combination of both – Ufomammut haven't enjoyed the accolades offered their peers in an increasingly US-centric psychedelic doom scene. That's a shame, because by any objective yardstick they stand heads and shoulders above the majority of American groups (particularly when it comes to epic, spaced out instrumental doom, a particular niche in which Ufomammut are arguably unparalleled). (more…)

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CD Review: PELICAN Ataraxia/Taraxis

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Over the last decade Pelican have increasingly positioned themselves at the clean, accessible end of the post-metal spectrum, their spare, uncluttered sonority more of a pair with Explosions in the Sky or Red Sparowes than it is with the prog workouts of Intronaut or latter day Cynic, the woozy downer trips cultivated by Earth and Jesu, or even the more densely textured layers of longtime label mates Isis. In short, they've become their own beast, but a domesticated one that makes more sense if you have a working knowledge of the aforementioned groups. (more…)

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Album Review: DRAGONFORCE The Power Within

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A couple years ago, I was surprised to hear of ZP Theart’s departure from Dragonforce. Apparently the separation was due to “insurmountable differences of musical opinion”. Incredibly vague as this explanation is, I have a nagging feeling that Theart wanted to push the band’s style in a new direction, and that this clashed with the creative forces of the rest of the band. With new singer Marc Hudson on board, the band appears to have found a singer that allows them to stay in their “extreme power metal” comfort zone. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: DEMON HUNTER – True Defiance

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If there’s only one well-known Christian metal band, it’s probably Demon Hunter. They’ve been out for over 10 years now and they've become somewhat of a household name. We always have to hope that when a well-seasoned band like Demon Hunter comes out with a new album, it’s going to be a little better that what we’ve heard from them before. And I think True Defiance gives the fans exactly what they need and perhaps a bit more. (more…)

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CD Review: WEREGOAT Unholy Exaltation of Fullmoon Perversity

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Weregoat may be from Portland but they want no fucking part of that "Cascadian black metal" shit. Featuring Kevin Schreutelkamp, drummer of Ritual Necromancy, here playing bass and singing as Nocturnal Hellfuker (apparently he doesn't realize that without the "c" it's pronounced "hell-FOOK-er"… or maybe he does), Weregoat wallow in the same kind of filthy production and atavistic influences as Ritual Necromancy but take a more subdued, arguably more evil-sounding approach in the process.  (more…)

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Album Review: ACEPHALIX Deathless Master

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Acephalix breathe life into fetid, sepulchral death with crust punk beats and chest-bursting rage. Deathless Master is a subtle refinement of the ripping, rupturous sound the band unleashed last year with Interminable Night. Rhythmic and vocal vehemence are still the band’s raison d'être, but the heaving riffage is elevated in both quality and clarity on Deathless Master.  (more…)

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Album Review: MUNICIPAL WASTE The Fatal Feast

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Crossover thrash is a genre that can be traced back to Join The Army era Suicidal Tendencies and the very obviously titled Crossover by party mongers Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. This is the main impetus for Richmond Virginia's Municipal Waste and what we get this time is a new label (Nuclear Blast) for the band's 5th album, and the same ol' Waste. I happened to catch the band at The Irish in Kearny NJ as one of their select few tour dates. After this they were about to start recording the new album; the day after that show. So here we are nearly 9 months later and the fruits of their labor now in front of us. (more…)

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Album Review: WOODS OF YPRES Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

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Woods 4 was a resplendent, sprawling and morose masterpiece. Its protagonist, ultimately, was victorious in his travails, leaving the listener in a state of transcendent triumph. Woods 5 cannot enjoy the same benefit; this album is inseparable in tone and spirit from its creator’s untimely passing. More pithy and focused than its predecessor, Woods 5 delves deep into the dealings of death. Many of these songs are concerned with life’s sudden cessation; that their content should be prophetic is really, truly and almost unbearably sad. (more…)

Reviews

CD Review: SIGH In Somniphobia

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Sigh have always gotten by on a certain eclectic restlessness, an ADD amalgam of dichotomous moods and paraphrased genres. At times their sheer adventurousness has threatened to get the best of them (most notably on 2005's Gallows Gallery, the head scratching, unmarketable aesthetic of which got the band kicked off of Century Media).

If anything, the Japanese quintet – having gradually worked their way up from a trio – have struggled to establish a consistent identity over the past 19 years, the early black metal quickly giving way to keyboard-laced Maiden worship (Hail Horror Hail), the weird Mr. Bungle-meets-Entombed of Gallows Gallery, and most recently the blackened death filtered through carousel synths of Scenes from Hell. Quality has varied greatly from one release to another, regardless of what side of the psychedelia / brutality imbalance you may be partial to; yes, Sigh are legitimately schizophrenic enough to degenerate into a soupy mess of half-baked ideas from time to time. (more…)

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