Mercürio – Instinto Callejero Review
As sincerely as we’d like to hear and review (or even know about) every worthy heavy metal album to come down the pike, the Last Rites Crew begrudgingly accepted a very long time ago that …
Riverside – ID.Entity Review
[Cover art by Jarek Kubicki] Pop psychology has always moved big money with stories and strategies and tricks of the trade for keeping one’s chin up even through the most trying of times. Heck, some …
Best Of 2022 – Lone Watie: I Just Microwaved My Lunch Except It Wasn’t My Lunch It Was My Salad.
I’d originally written more than a thousand words for this space. I’d begun with “Somebody asked me early in 2022 how I define happiness,” and spent a great deal of words and energy then describing …
Threshold – Dividing Lines Review
[Cover art by Masiha Fattahi] It’s cliche by now, the uncertainty of our time. It’s pervasive, coloring every aspect of popular culture from social media to TV and movies and maybe especially music. Entertainment certainly …
Stratovarius – Survive Review
The metaphor isn’t hard to spot in the cover art of Stratovarius’ 16th album, nor in its title, Survive. The world’s pretty fucked up these days and we may very well be beyond the threshold, …
Plasmodulated – Plasmodulated Review
[Logo and Artwork by GruesomeGraphx] If you’re familiar at all with some of science fiction’s most amazing biological transformation machines, you’ll remember that virtually none of them was able to produce the monumental change for …
Deathbell – A Nocturnal Crossing Review
[Cover artwork by Adam Burke at Nightjar Illustration] France’s Deathbell broke convention and tossed the idea of a sophomore slump right on its ass. Where 2018’s debut, With the Beyond, was a fine reiteration of …
Voivod – Synchro Anarchy Review
[Art by Michel “Away” Langevin] By all reliable accounts, Voivod’s last album, The Wake, was a resounding success. That record continued an upward trajectory begun with the addition of Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain on guitar in …