Reviews

Reviews

Album Review: SIX FEET UNDER Unborn

Six Feet Under - Unborn

I didn’t expect I’d be hearing another Six Feet Under album so soon, since their last album, Undead was released less than a year ago. But I’m not complaining. Unborn marks the band’s 10th studio album in their 20 years of playing death metal, which I think is a huge accomplishment since many bands can’t even make it through their 3rd album without some hiatus or breakup. Yet here's Six Feet Under still going strong for over two decades. And lucky for fans, Six Feet Under usually provides the sound we want on every single one of their releases. But after 10 albums, can we still expect those same great things from Chris Barnes' and Co.? (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: INTRONAUT Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words With Tones)

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If your idea of heaviness is congruent with screamed vocals, you won't find Habitual Levitations any uptick in brutality over the previous Intronaut album, Valley of Smoke. If you've read any band interviews in the last couple of years you know by now that the sludge groans are a thing of the past, which is all for the best considering the opened up, expansive sound the band have developed for themselves over the past few albums. (more…)

METAL Injection Music Reviews

Album Review: THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE Falls

Phantom Carriage - Falls

Körkarlen, or The Phantom Carriage, was released in 1921 and directed by the father of Swedish cinema, Victor Sjöström. According to its story, the last person to die on New Years Eve has to take the reigns of death and ford souls for a year. The film is considered massively influential, Ingmar Bergman was especially inspired by it, and featured groundbreaking special effects including revolutionary splicing to give the impression of ghosts and transparency. Key scenes have also been referenced in films such as the famous “Here's Johnny!” scene in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. The film It's a Wonderful Life also lifted many aspects of the story.

Oh…wait… This isn't about the silent classic, is it? (more…)

Retrospective Reviews

Speakers Never Healed: HERESY 1985-87

Heresy Inner fix

If you were to make a list of the most influential U.K. hardcore/punk and metal bands, you could not avoid putting Heresy on the list. Those that know the band know that they're were a force to be reckoned with. Known for their breakneck speed songs and unparalleled live energy, Heresy set out to destroy everything in their path. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: CLUTCH Earth Rocker

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Let's be real about this: Clutch is one of the only hard rock bands in the world worth caring about. A howling, bombed out wilderness destroyed by the endless stream of cookie-cutter post-post-post-grunge bands that somehow still exist, most of the genre's talent has been siphoned off into the various indie subdivisions or receded further into the underground. However, among the likes of Coheed and Cambria, Torche, Tool, The Mars Volta (?) and yes Clutch, there is still hope for good rock music to makes waves in the polluted oceans of popular music. And what a funky wave Earth Rocker is.

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Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Jam The Vital Early Heavy Metal Of SIR LORD BALTIMORE's Kingdom Come

ThrowbackThursday

Each week on ‘Throwback Thursday’ we dust off a crucial but underrated album, without which heavy metal’s evolution would have turned out quite differently.

This week’s chosen relic endured decades of neglect before reemerging as one of the most vital documents of heavy metal’s first global assault: Sir Lord Baltimore’s combustible Kingdom Come. (more…)

Reviews

CD Review: KEN Mode – Entrench

Entrench Cover

KEN Mode have attained a whole new level of pissed off with Entrench that I wasn't even sure was possible to convey in a recording. Right from the get go of "Counter Culture Complex" the band are right up in your face with coherently manic riffing rolled up into a ball of distortion that never seems to let up. It’s not all speed though; tracks such as “No: I’m In Control” and “Daeodon” bring a little less thrash to the table and instead stomp around with fuzzy riffs and lumbering drums to counteract being a one-dimensional snoozefest of a record. Then there are songs like "Romeo Must Never Know", which relies on a spacey theme that's heavy in a huge, Isis kind of way, and the haunting ambient closer "Monomyth" that seems to tower over you and smile menacingly at the end of your listening experience. If that sounds completely mental, that’s because it absolutely is… and it’s brilliant.

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Latest News Reviews

Album Review: NAILS Abandon All Life

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When I saw Nails at New England Metal and Hardcore Fest in 2011, I was instantly won over. They had such a raw, no nonsense sound and were able to replicate that spirit so perfectly live that I couldn't help but rush upstairs to buy one of their T-shirts and get hold of all of their music. And while Unsilent Death is a fun blast of "Entombed-core" grind, it did not quite live up to how the band sounded live. On Abandon All Life, Nails has made a gigantic improvement with a punishing, albeit brief slab of fury and aggression. Abandon all pretenders, Nails is the real raw thing. (more…)

Reviews

CD Review: KILLSWITCH ENGAGE Disarm the Descent

Disarm the Descent

There’s been quite the buzz around Killswitch Engage as of late, what with Howard Jones’ departure and original vocalist Jesse Leach stepping in to rejoin the band permanently and appear on his first record in about eleven years. With all that, one would assume that Disarm the Descent would be a masterpiece of modern metal, and while it’s not a bad record by any means, it falls victim to the hype machine and overinflated expectations. (more…)

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Get Into BLUE CHEER's Vincebus Eruptum

ThrowbackThursday

Each week on ‘Throwback Thursday’ we dust off a crucial but underrated album, without which heavy metal’s evolution would have turned out quite differently.

To kick off this series, we need not look beyond the LP most frequently cited as the very first, true heavy metal album: Blue Cheer’s earth-shattering Vincebus Eruptum. (more…)

Retrospective

Uncompromising Noise: the Legacy of SORE THROAT

Sore Throat

When you think of blast beats you're mind probably goes to something like Napalm Death or Rotten Sound nowadays. Perhaps Pig Destroyer's Prowler in the Yard? While some speculate that Napalm Death was the originator of the blast beat, they were not the only band famous for the method at the time. Perhaps one of the more prolific bands that loved a good blast beat was Sore Throat. (more…)

Reviews

Looking Back At HELLBASTARD's Rippercrust demo

Hellbastard - Rippercrust larger

In 1986 a demo was recorded in about six hours by small Newcastle band for £25 (about $37). The piece was as rough as chipped bricks, thrashing, shredding, and beating through thirty minutes of unadulterated, youthful rage. The vocals echo, the bass and drums sometimes feel drowned out by the guitar, but everything about this demo absolutely ripped. This is of course, the Rippercrust demo recorded by Hellbastard. (more…)

Black Metal History Month Reviews

Essential Black Metal Listening: ENSLAVED – Mardraum: Beyond the Within

Enslaved-Mardraum

By the turn of the century, Enslaved had produced a quartet of compelling albums, establishing themselves as reliable and unique purveyors of the blackened arts. Following Quorthon’s late-career lead, Enslaved eschewed Satan as sole subject to focus on Scandinavian folklore and mythology. For this, the band would earn the ubiquitous genre tag of “Viking metal.” Enslaved were, in actuality, quickly transcending the boundaries of black metal’s second wave. Mardraum is the Enslaved album that truly crushed all categorization, smashing minds and sailing off the edge of the known universe with aplomb.

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Black Metal History Month Reviews

Album Review: DARKTHRONE The Underground Resistance

Darkthrone-The-Underground-Resistance

Not that I would want to subject myself to the hair-splitting involved, but if I had to give you an example of "true metal", it would be Darkthrone's The Underground Resistance. Raw, unpretentious, and dark as the coldest Norwegian Fjord, The Underground Resistance combines all the elements that gave heavy metal its original glory. Yet at the same time, the many elements of Darkthrone are present here as well. From the fist-pumping grimness of their recent Crust-Punk phase, to the legendary and genre-defining glory of their Black Metal years, and perhaps even a few very faint echoes of their early Death Metal beginnings. Taken as a whole piece of heavy metal artwork, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto paint a picture that shows the pair making only the music they want to make and have a hell of a great time doing it. (more…)

Black Metal History Month Reviews

Album Review: VREID Welcome Farewell

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It's both ironic and fitting that, while debate heats with every passing year about who is more "kvlt" in the realm of black metal, there are more and more bands willfully snubbing their noses at such fundamentalist thinking, blowing the genre up from the inside out… in 2013 you almost can't bastardize black metal nearly enough.

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