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!
Introducing the grand eponymous non-debut. There’s a peculiar practice that has been becoming popular of late where veteran metal acts opt to release an eponymous…
The seventh full-length release from Norwegian band Arabs in Aspic, “Madness and Magic” offers songwriting that is both mature and whimsical at the same time,…
With a theatrical reputation that often precedes their musical accomplishments, Mushroomhead has consistently balanced an impressive cast of eight or more musicians while pursuing a…
The cool thing about discovering a band through an EP is that the listener gets a sneak peek into what really moves them. And with…
In a burst of creative energy that swells with powerful melodic might, Sweden’s Paralydium delivers modern progressive metal with a serious taste of nostalgia. Their…
Rarely does music from a long-favorite band simply fall out of the sky and into one’s lap, but the sweetness of surprise should not be…
The dissociative allure of neon at midnight is a dreamy wonder difficult to capture in sound alone, few aural sensations so distinct as bright streaks…
Osyrhia, before the ravaging wars. Though today France has become a competent rival to Italy in producing lofty symphonic power metal projects, fielding the likes…
The dramatic and abrupt ending of “A Cell Divides” from Haken’s last album “Vector” left listeners in limbo. Since then, devoted fans have been speculating…
Capturing a rainbow in sound alone may seem impossible, yet it is a feat achieved in the full vibrance of the sun by instrumental rock…
Submit to the metallic mob. The meteoric revival of thrash metal has left no shortage of impressive craters since the mid-2000s, often retreading territory that…
Black pearls give way to glittering fruit. Despite being roughly 14 years to the day that Alestorm (then known as Battleheart) first broke onto the…
When seeking a poster child for the successful transformation of stylistic identity, one needs look no further than Pyogenesis. Formed in 1989 as a doom…
The clans have risen yet again! It’s difficult to realize a great idea and then avoid returning to it, especially within a grand career that…
Almost forty years ago, the Dutch hard rock alchemists Vandenberg hit the waves with a sound that very much in line with the music of…
The very first sentence of any good AOR album review should include a mention of Iron Maiden. Are you confused? Good. Still confused? Perfect. Way…
When idiots rule the world. When reminiscing upon the golden age of punk rock, conversations will often include the noted players in New York, the…
With an album title of “Black Metal,” the most that Witchcraft’s latest opus has in common with black metal is the entirely isolating nature of…
Metal and witchcraft have always gone hand in hand, a bond which is further reinforced through Sorcerer’s upcoming album “Lamenting of the Innocent.” A concept…
Metal has romanticised pirates much in the way it has romanticized the Vikings, leaving the genre to define historic victories and personalities with bright chords…
A night at the opera of woe. All too often there is a tendency to obsess over one isolated aspect of a trailblazing project’s history,…
There’s a time and place for fiery battle hymns, and there’s a time and place for the long march to war. Metal often seems to…
There’s something very satisfying about retro 60s/70s inspiration being thrust into an era of modern production and arrangement. When done tastefully and artfully, the results…
Our friends at the record label Frontiers Music sank our hearts in April when a few choice album releases were pushed back due to the…
Spurred by the imaginative depths of darkness and decades of musical experience, Die Kreatur emerges as the latest creative avenue for two well-established names in…
When it comes to black metal, two points of reference have always been the quality of the production and the absolute discord that musicians are…
Just in case you are not feeling the full weight of your years today, just be reminded that the Greek power metal project known as…
A specter reemerges from the woeful ether It’s a rare occasion when conversations regarding the drearier side of the metallic spectrum and abstract lyrical pursuits…
Hailing from Germany, the curiously titled Mrs. Kite have won the “German rock & pop award” for “best progressive band” three times. This might explain…
Come to the mad thrashing palace. Though hailed as the de facto birth place of heavy metal and most prolific contributor of its second wave…
Super-groups have the advantage of emerging from the realm of dreams fully-formed and prepared for execution, the weight of its member’s collective reputations fueling them…
I’m only moderately familiar with Eric Gillette’s work as lead guitarist and singer for The Neal Morse Band. Consequently, I had no idea what to…
This is it. This is the album I’ve waited nearly a decade and a half to hear, and an album I never thought would actually…
After a detour that saw them toying with folk music for Ren Fair nerds, the British black metal quintet Winterfylleth have not so much returned…
“Rise Radiant,” the fifth full-length release by Australian prog-rock purveyors Caligula’s Horse, strikes the listener with a startling shocker of equaling and even exceeding everything…
There are few places on Earth that can so aptly channel the essence of black metal as the cold clutches of Siberia, with long winters…
