ALBUM REVIEWS
If you’re looking for aggregated album reviews from our seasoned music specialists, including our own score offering at a glance how the album fared, this is the right destination for you. Album reviews certainly still matter to artists, writers, and publicists, as they are the ones dealing with them every day, but does the average listener still pay attention? Well, we sincerely hope you do… Dive in!
A band’s evolution has seldom felt so right. After 15 albums over a 30-year timeframe, Big Big Train’s twists and turns have resulted in a…
Embrace the existential darkness Transcending a cultural phenomenon might seem a fool’s errand, particularly one born of infamy and immortalized by a mainstream media that…
Although all three of frontman Maynard James Keenan’s main projects (Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer) share several traits, they each have enough that’s unique…
Is this the last note? It is said that all good things must come to an end, yet one can’t help but take note of…
Sometimes, a truly novel experience can come from the unlikely coupling of two disparate eras in music’s long and complex history, and few combinations could…
If anything is more clear about Soen than their affinity for single-word song titles, it’s their commitment to refining their well-established sonic identity. Always a…
There are albums that impact your life on such a level that it alters the course of your life. For drummer Nick D’Virgilio, Genesis’ classic…
Leveling the world, one city at a time. The road that thrash metal has taken since its early 80s inception has been anything but a…
Two heroes brave a new symphonic quest. If a subgenre is to be judged by the viability of its underground newcomers, the European power metal…
It’s not at all weird that one of the most exciting bands to have come to my attention in the past decade is releasing an…
Presumed nearly dead – or maybe just transformed into Godzilla monsters and other pattern-seeking animals – the infamous Spock’s Beard have been gloriously resurrected once…
Some names need no introduction, only respect. In the concrete jungle where hardcore was born, Agnostic Front remains the voice of the dispossessed, those tired…
Four years ago, Jonas Lindberg and his band The Other Side made considerable waves as their second full-length album, Miles From Nowhere, was picked up…
There are a few genres of music that by definition should be described as “intoxicating”, but the rare albums featuring Middle Eastern Rock easily achieve…
By now, most of us have kinda had it with orchestral metal. While the idea of writing music with both an orchestra and a very…
Led by the angelically somber singing of Jan-Henrik Ohme, Norwegian sextet Gazpacho have long been in a class all their own in terms of taking…
KK Fosser’s ultimate mind trip set to metal. There comes a point in every prominent horror franchise where successive sequels will compel a massive left-turn…
Mariusz Duda is best known as the singer/bassist of Polish progressive rock/metal troupe Riverside, yet he’s spent almost as much time (nearly 20 years) delivering…
The war for the future has been declared. Some look to the future with the eyes of optimism, while others see tomorrow through a bleak…
The winds of time blow fervently. There has been a new wind blowing in the U.S. heavy metal underground for the past couple of years,…
Contradictions instigate the downfall. In the wild west of ’80s metal, innovation and adaptation seemed the order of the day as trailblazing upstarts on both…
A noble cause takes on a life all its own. The eventuality of a one-off project becoming a formidable player on the heavy metal stage…
Not since Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson collaborated on their semi-eponymous Alan Parsons Project has there been a more ambitious concept rock project than Arjen…
The Blue Nowhere is a triumphant return that further cements Between the Buried and Me as the masters of this style while also confirming that they’re well-equipped to continue as a quartet if that’s what they’re intending
The Blue Nowhere is a triumphant return that further cements Between the Buried and Me as the masters of this style while also confirming that they’re well-equipped to continue as a quartet if that’s what they’re intending
The Blue Nowhere is a triumphant return that further cements Between the Buried and Me as the masters of this style while also confirming that they’re well-equipped to continue as a quartet if that’s what they’re intending
“The Circle,” the opening track from the Amorphis album Borderland, greets listeners with Tomi Koivusarri’s clean, saturated guitar textures awash with delay to evoke a…
Six times the hex. For a decade, the all-female troupe of old school revivalists with a penchant for modern aggression dubbed Burning Witches have been…
Dragon boats breathe fire upon the lands. Getting the job done can mean several different things in the context of crafting quality death metal, be…
One common complaint I often hear leveled at the progressive rock genre is that there isn’t much originality anymore and that many artists’ releases sound…
Harbinger of the apocalypse. Since its mid-80s rise to prominence, the San Francisco Bay Area has staked its claim as the original masters of thrash…
Fifty years ago, a band came out of Weirton, West Virginia (where?!?!?!?!) with an album that was an instant classic. Crack the Sky’s self-titled debut mixed…
Addicted to the Violence is the third record from the helm of System of a Down guitarist and vocalist Daron Malakian in tandem with his…
Norwegian Viking/black metal icons Helheim are back with their 12th studio album — a groundbreaking effort that sees the band venture into uncharted territory by…
One of the most persistent myths tied to progressive metal is the notion that a truly unique expression of the subgenre necessarily comes at the…
With 2023’s conceptual The Approbation, Avkrvst instantly revealed themselves as one of today’s most promising new Norwegian prog rock bands. In fact, we championed it…
