Vallenfyre – A Fragile King Review
The backstory of the formation of Vallenfyre has been fairly well bandied about, but bears repeating: founding member and guitarist of Paradise Lost Gregor Mackintosh, in coping with the recent death of his father, starts …
Cormorant – Dwellings Review
No matter what genre I’m listening to, whether weepy-face indie rock diaper-wetting, robots-having-a-seizure electronic angle music, or fjord-gargling black metal of the least children-and-small-animal-friendly variety, my favorite music tends to do two things: feel both …
Woburn House – Sleep Summer Storm Review
For those interested in quirky experimentation, restless progression, and a decided absence of preening pretension in their heavy music, the interconnected family of bands on the roster of German label Zeitgeister Music (including, in addition …
Krisiun – The Great Execution Review
For no real reason other than the foolish human yearning for order and symmetry, I’ve often thought of the ‘Big Three’ of German thrash – Sodom, Destruction, and Kreator – as having a cross-hemispheric counterpart …
Sanguis Imperem – In Glory We March Towards Our Doom Review
To take Sanguis Imperem as straight-up death metal is a mistake. These Californians (also active as live backing for similarly-minded noiseniks Nocturnal Blood) clearly take their inspiration from that murky, ill-defined, yet fertile territory often …
White Wizzard – Flying Tigers Review
It’s a given that everything new borrows and steals from the old, and while this platitude ought to liberate us critics from the tiresome debate over authenticity versus pastiche, there’s enough of a difference between …
Esoteric – Paragon Of Dissonance Review
Funeral doom is, in most appreciable ways, a niche within a niche. Forcing the listener to bear witness to a cripplingly slow march to oblivion is not, it must be said, the easiest way to …
Megadeth – Thirteen Review
The narrative arc of Megadeth’s career over the past decade has been your standard, steady upward climb from a series of miscalculations and baldly embarrassing albums. With their career arguably hitting a soul-deflating nadir with …