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!
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,…
Sydney Fate – Silicon Nitride (Album Review)
It’s easy enough to dream of being a star, but alternative metal band Sydney Fate bring forward a full-length debut that proves they’re more than…
Master Boot Record – Floppy Disk Overdrive (Album Review)
Proving that guitars aren’t really necessary to make great rock music, the Italian project Master Boot Record has made waves in underground circles with Yngwie-inspired…
Wolfheart – Wolves Of Karelia (Album Review)
Grand anthems for the lupine spirit in us all. When a fairly young band makes an impressive splash into the scene, the force behind said…
Igorrr – Spirituality and Distortion (Album Review)
With a fundamentally metal sound that reaches into genres as diverse as dubstep, baroque, funk, and Arabic folk, the elusive Parisian project known as Igorrr…
Neck of the Woods – The Annex of Ire (Album Review)
Although 2020 has been pretty chaotic generally speaking, when it comes to music it brought quite a few excellent releases so far. Vancouver prog death…
Testament – Titans Of Creation (Album Review)
A titanic explosion to rock the pillars of creation. It would be quite a stretch to say that Testament, one of the premier thrash outfits…
Joshua Batten – The City Within (Album Review)
“At twenty-three, am I too old?” While up and coming songwriter and guitar-slinger Joshua Batten muses about the impact of his ever-increasing age in “Falling…
Joe Satriani – Shapeshifting (Album Review)
“Shapeshifting” is an apt title for the newest release by Joe Satriani, who has somehow managed to carve out a surprisingly long-lasting career by recording…
InVertigo – InMotion (Album Review)
As a genre, progressive rock provides one of the most broad and versatile canvases for artists to make a statement, free from a number of…
Candlemass – The Pendulum (EP Review)
With 2019’s excellent “The Door to Doom,” Candlemass turned the clock back 23 years by bringing back original vocalist Johan Längqvist. Evidently, the seven-year gap…
Pure Reason Revolution – Eupnea (Album Review)
When inspiration strikes, an artist follows the call. So when Jon Courtney started writing material that felt more akin to his old progressive rock unit…
August Burns Red – Guardians (Album Review)
Though some may regard the responsibility of bearing hope where there is none to be a burden, it is a weight that August Burns Red…
Imonolith – State Of Being (Album Review)
Having already turned heads with their all-star lineup and intense singles, Imonolith has generated a following eagerly awaiting their debut album “State of Being.” Drummer…
Vulcano – Eye In Hell (Album Review)
Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes. Sometimes the best way to get out of a rut is to forsake all the latest fads and…
Me and That Man – New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1 (Album Review)
History’s most memorable villains weren’t born in corpse paint and hellfire, but instead made their mark in a godless desert with wide-brimmed hats and silver…
Hyborian – Volume II (Album Review)
The year 1932 saw a young and brilliant Texan by the name of Robert E. Howard, still a fledgling author in the budding world of…
Omega Infinity – Solar Spectre (Album Review)
What does space sound like? A voice of science and reason tells us that the abyss of space is silent to human ears, a vacuum…
David Reece – Cacophony of Souls (Album Review)
David Reece, perhaps best known for lending his vocal talents to Accept’s 1989 “Eat the Heat” album, as well as more recently with Bonfire, continues…
Wolf – Feeding The Machine (Album Review)
The machine will never be satiated. Any artist that opts to buck an existing trend will tend to do so out of individual initiative, as…
Lucifer – Lucifer III (Album Review)
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Once early heavy metal and hard rock hit their stride, those early sounds were forever immortalized in musical…
Burning Witches – Dance With The Devil (Album Review)
Sometimes a throwback can prove quite novel. In metal, as in most things, old tricks prove to be the best ones, hence the ongoing revival…
My Dying Bride – The Ghost Of Orion (Album Review)
Five years can be a lifetime. Over their nearly (3 months shy as I write) 30-year career, My Dying Bride has never had such a…
Gabriel – New Life (Album Review)
It’s never too late for a debut solo album. Although Gabriel Agudo has been active as a vocalist in the progressive rock world for some…
DeadRisen – DeadRisen (Album Review)
Though the creative breadth metal has certainly matured in the fifty years since Black Sabbath first broke onto the scene, the hunger for constant evolution…
Novena – Eleventh Hour (Album Review)
Frontiers Music continues to surprise us this year with interesting releases. After the recent arrival of hard rock gems like Dirty Shirley and Black Swan’s…
Ross The Boss – Born Of Fire (Album Review)
Like a pure metallic boot to the skull. The years may be taking their toll on America’s original heavy metal prognosticators of all things Conan…
Svengahli – Nightmares of Our Own Design (EP Review)
It’s already been postulated that we long ago reached peak tech death, to the point that the only thing distinguishing bands is songwriting ability. Talent?…
Allen/Olzon – Worlds Apart (Album Review)
While a collaboration of Anette Olzon (Nightwish, Dark Element) and “Sir” Russell Allen (Symphony X, Adrenaline Mob, and all things Ayreon) may at first look…
Framing Hanley – Envy (Album Review)
American rock is less of a genre as it is a way of life, a shifting landscape which gives opportunity for bands to traverse turbulent…
DIO – Angry Machines / Magica / Killing The Dragon / Master of the Moon (Remastered Albums Review)
A latter day legacy revisited. The task of quantifying the legacy of any one musician’s lifetime is a daunting one, but few could ever hope…