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!
Vous Autres – Sel De Pierre (Album Review)
Muddying the water between black metal and post metal, French metallers Vous Autres move to further cement their style and entrench place in extreme music…
Gatecloser – From The Wasteland (Album Review)
Metallic vignettes from the dark side. The one downside to an ever-expanding scene is that pushing the envelope and offering up something truly original becomes…
Assignment – Reflections (Album Review)
Progressive futurism begets present greatness. While an unconventional take on things and a thoughtful one on lyrical content have always been the rule in progressive…
The Ocean – Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic (Album Review)
In 2018, the progressive and post-metal band The Ocean released “Phanerozoic I: Palaeozic”, an impressive album that was received with huge critical acclaim and initiated a paleontology concept…
Days Between Stations – Giants (Album Review)
It’s a dilemma that doesn’t pop up often but when it does, it can be vexing: How to distinguish between a musical “duo”, an ever-changing…
Napalm Death – Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism (Album Review)
Where losing becomes winning. It seems that wherein any brand of extreme metal is concerned; all roads seem to lead towards the hardcore scene of…
Plague Years – Circle of Darkness (Album Review)
The plague years have not been kind. The rough, post-industrial landscape of Detroit would seem a fertile breeding ground for the sort of ugly death…
Heathen – Empire Of The Blind (Album Review)
Blinding thrash triumphs with an imperial sense of melody. The revival of old school thrash metal that kicked off soon after the turn of the…
Gazpacho – Fireworker (Album Review)
How can a piece of music hold such beauty and impending dread at the same time? For nearly 20 years, Norwegian sextet Gazpacho have excelled…
Chaosbay – Asylum (Album Review)
During the height of the pandemic caused by the coronavirus known as Covid-19, governments around the world called lockdowns and distinguished between essential and non-essential…
Brick – Done Counting My Scars (Album Review)
A more rustic brand of rocking metal emerges. Some music seeks to move forward, while other purveyors of the art form seek wisdom from the…
Ayreon – Transitus (Album Review)
Insofar as epic double-LP multi-vocalist story-driven progressive rock concept albums are a genre, Arjen Lucassen reigns as the heavyweight champion of the world, at least…
Tomorrow’s Rain – Hollow (Album Review)
Today’s trials beget tomorrow’s tears. While nostalgia is usually viewed as an avenue of escape for a more jovial world than the real one, it…
Demolizer – Thrashmageddon (Album Review)
Teutonic rage arrives in Copenhagen. Whenever a discussion about the glory days of thrash metal comes up, Denmark is not often one of the countries…
Winter’s Verge – The Ballad of James Tig (Album Review)
At the taverns of the mythological kingdom Tiberon, there seems to be only one topic of conversation. Everybody is talking about a strange tale of…
Finntroll – Vredesvävd (Album Review)
Just shy of a decade ago folk metal was enjoying explosive heyday, excitement abound as once-strange instruments such as the jaw harp and hurdy gurdy…
Messiah – Fracmont (Album Review)
Welcome to a new liturgical horror. Nostalgia has been a formidable force in defining many of metal’s most recent offerings, regardless of the sub-genre under…
Flying Colors – Third Stage: Live In London (Album Review)
Even eight years after their inception, the lineup of Flying Colors still appears too good to be true: Steve Morse, Neal Morse, Dave LaRue, Casey…
Airforce – Strike Hard (Album Review)
An old maiden emerges with some classic iron. Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but wherein the primeval origins of heavy metal are…
Psychoid – Thrash Impact (Album Review)
In the pit, impact is always imminent. Whenever a discussion regarding thrash metal’s ascendancy to mainstream fascination in the late 1980s occurs, one of the…
Ihsahn – Pharos (EP Review)
On Valentine’s Day the world was presented with the barren aural landscapes of Ihsahn’s “Telemark,” the first in a promised duo of EPs that would…
Cult of Lilith – Mara (Album Review)
There must be some secret hidden in the ocean-washed cliffsides of Iceland which holds the key to making extreme metal, for though the population of…
Ace Frehley – Origins Vol. 2 (Album Review)
Former KISS guitarist, Space Ace Frehley has returned from planet Jendell with a new cover tunes CD titled, “Origins Vol 2.” This is a follow-up…
Simon Collins – Becoming Human (Album Review)
“Nobody gave you the tools to connect the dots to the God inside of you.” If you’re looking for a soundtrack to connect the dots,…
Psychosomatic – The Invisible Prison (Album Review)
Thrash metal that crosses over. The latter days of thrash metal’s heyday are riddled with bands that could have rose to greater prominence but ultimately…
Rikard Sjöblom’s Gungfly – Alone Together (Album Review)
On July 11th, 2016, the prog community received bitter news regarding the separation of the now-legendary prog band Beardfish. Since its dissolution, the multi-instrumentalist madman known…
Stryper – Even The Devil Believes (Album Review)
The newest offering from Stryper was born into a polarized world of intolerance, division and political vitriol. Not exactly a welcoming environment for a collection…
Perfect Plan – Time For A Miracle (Album Review)
Since the release of their debut “All Rise” album in 2018, the boys with the Perfect Plan have enjoyed the waves made by their very…
Veonity – Sorrows (Album Review)
The storyteller revamps his library. Innovation is an essential tool in keeping things fresh, but there is definitely something to be said for the power…
Dokken – The Lost Songs: 1978-1981 (Album Review)
Hidden treasures come to light. Despite falling out of favor in metal circles due to the excesses that came in the mid-80s and the subsequent…
Töxik Death – Sepulchral Demons (Album Review)
Let’s thrash in black like its 1985. History has taught many things wherein metal is concerned, but the most pivotal lesson ever conveyed is that…
Tim Bowness – Late Night Laments (Album Review)
Singer, storyteller, sound tinkerer and 50% of No-Man, Tim Bowness always knows how to give his listeners one LP-length of time away from all the…
Vanishing Point – Dead Elysium (Album Review)
The charred remains of paradise cry out. Given a fairly sparse studio output since their inception in 1995, Melbourne-based progressive metal extraordinaire outfit Vanishing Point…
John Petrucci – Terminal Velocity (Album Review)
As The Police sang in the 80’s, “when the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around”. With all Dream Theater…
Manticora – To Live To Kill To Live (Album Review)
Horror is a dish best served elaborately. One of the most engaging, nay enthralling aspects of the European power metal scene is the conceptual storytelling…
Cavern – Powdered (Album Review)
Part of the joy and pleasure of being a reviewer is discovering bands that in a different light would somehow go unnoticed. There are so…