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!
WE CAME FROM SPACE Reveal Fantastic New EP “Reasons in the Rhyme”
We’ve encountered this spaceship before, almost exactly two revolutions around the sun in the past. The space-guys have been on individual missions. But now, We…
Aether Realm – Redneck Vikings From Hell (Album Review)
On the surface, they exude the arctic confidence and brutal grace of the most practiced melodic death metal bands: one might be inclined to believe…
The Wizar’d – Subterranean Exile (Album Review)
This is my first exposure to The Wizar’d, and they really make a strong impression. Just check out these stage names and the album artwork!…
Pattern-Seeking Animals – Prehensile Tales (Album Review)
Remember the heyday of the early 70s when young, hungry bands would churn out an album every year, even as they were in the midst…
XPUS – In Umbra Mortis Sedent (Album Review)
In the shade of death, they sit. This present trend in metal circles of emulating the past has left everyone with minimal expectation of being…
Ara – Jurisprudence (Album Review)
It could be said that Milwaukee-based technical death metal unit Ara is about as fierce of a force as there is in the current metal…
Warbringer – Weapons Of Tomorrow (Album Review)
The apocalypse rains down with futuristic precision. A little less than a decade ago a sizable number of blogs and even some larger metal media…
Helfró – Helfró (Album Review)
Black metal has always teetered between defiance and surrender to an unforgiving world, a space where spite and anguish blossom in roaring gusts of arctic…
Myrath – Live in Carthage (Album Review)
There are ways to put on a live concert recording. And then there are WAYS to put on a live concert recording. Myrath has done…
Ulcerate – Stare Into Death and Be Still (Album Review)
There are so many death metal groups out there that use the craft of the aural strike to their lead. It is not really something new…
Elder – Omens (Album Review)
The soothing escapism of blurred pastels and summertime brightness melds effortlessly with the electronic waves of psychedelic textures in “Omens,” the latest album from progressive…
Barishi – Old Smoke (Album Review)
Darkness has a way of welcoming the lost with open arms, the chasms in which shadows and ice make better company than the light. Vermont-based…
Cirith Ungol – Forever Black (Album Review)
They once again make them like they used to. In this present age of miraculous comeback stories, a consequential band from a bygone era getting…
Trivium – What the Dead Men Say (Album Review)
There’s something to be said for the raw emotions embroiled in teenage angst, the purity in youthful anger at the world, the despairing sort that…
Dark Forest – Oak, Ash, & Thorn (Album Review)
Mythology and art have forever been inseparable from the allure of forests, their might and majesty weaving into the tales of humanity’s most fundamental folklore.…
Conception – State of Deception (Album Review)
“State of Deception” is a bit of a comeback story, both for the band and its lead singer. Here’s the back story. After studying opera…
Hexvessel – Kindred (Album Review)
Fifth album marks a considerable step of experience in a band career. Hexvessel are not the kind of musical entity that evolved thru giant steps…
Etherius – Chaos. Order. Renewal. (Album Review)
It’s far too easy too look at the ethereal feats of instrumental bands and credit them as merely cinematic indulgences, a soundtrack to some lost…
MFTJ – Mankind’s Final Traffic Jam (Album Review)
Progressive rock encompasses many varying flavors and styles, and at times can be a handy catch-all phrase. When it comes to MFTJ, an inventive duo…
Bloodbound – Bloodheads United (EP Review)
An oath sealed in the grand arena. Old tricks are usually the best tricks, or at least that’s about how General Munro saw things when…
Abysmal Dawn – Phylogenesis (Album Review)
People are defined by how they react to the challenges of life, and for bands that face the splintering of all they have known, their…
High Priestess – Casting The Circle (Album Review)
In case you are unfamiliar, High Priestess is a psychedelic doom trio from Los Angeles convoking crushing riffs drenched with lush harmonies and hypnotic eastern…
Asenblut – Die Wilde Jagd (Album Review)
Historians say that the Vikings once made their way down the Rhine, seeking out riches and new lands to plunder after having taken their fill…
Hartmann – 15 Pearls And Gems (Album Review)
Much has been said about the precision of German metal bands – Accept, Rage, Helloween, Running Wild, all seem to release one top-of-the-shelf album after…
The Black Dahlia Murder – Verminous (Album Review)
Change does not necessitate sacrifice, something that has been proven by American death metal mainstays The Black Dahlia Murder in their most diverse album yet.…
Live Burial – Unending Futility (Album Review)
To run a losing race with destiny. Death is, by nature, a depressing concept that lends itself well to the slow, sludgy world where the…
Katatonia – City Burials (Album Review)
Sometimes, being too lucky can be a curse. I’ve only been writing reviews for publication for a short time, but I’ve already had the chance…
Nightwish – “Hvman. :||: Natvre.” (Album Review)
You thought you knew exactly what you’d get with an album that bears the Nightwish name. You were wrong. Shying away from their well-earned reputation…
Jonathan Hultén – Chants From Another Place (Album Review)
Hypnotic, immersive, absorbing, enchanting, consuming. These are just a few of the adjectives we could use to describe “Chants From Another Place,” Jonathan Hultén’s first…
Bonfire – Fistful Of Fire (Album Review)
Were we to present you with a new album, and you were to only know that the band is a metal band active since 1972,…
Benighted – Obscene Repressed (Album Review)
Horror has always coexisted beautifully alongside extreme metal, sometimes melding to the point where they are grotesquely indistinguishable. French death-grind act Benighted have adopted horror…
Symbolik – Emergence (Album Review)
Where contemplation and realization collide. The United States may well have been playing catch up for the better part of 20 years in relation to…
Velvet Ocean – Purposes and Promises (Album Review)
In an era where an entire symphony can be conjured by a single soul in the warmth of a quiet studio, there is an inescapable…
Crayon Phase – Two Hundred Pages (Album Review)
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to take a man’s life?” These words run like ice down one’s spine, their cold indifference instantly…
Dool – Summerland (Album Review)
Music is not a destination, but a journey. Sometimes the boldest of expeditions are made in a tired wandering through the hazy humidity of summer,…
Dynazty – The Dark Delight (Album Review)
The last year has been a bountiful cornucopia for melodic rock and the AOR scene at large. Just a few highlights would include Revolution Saints,…