Tag Archives: album review

Badmotorfinger, an Italian hard rock band, released It’s Not The End, a brazen 13-track disc. It’s straight-ahead, catchy, anthemic, guitar-driven hard rock. Modern, confident, and in-your-face music. With no frills, keyboards, or ‘studio effects’, it’s loud, crisp, flashy music for the guitar-friendly audience. With gruff, gritty, lower-register vocals strongly reminiscent …

Battlecross is an American modern death metal band showing European flar. With War Of Will, they offer a bit more melody and atmosphere then most. There’s a crisp, punchy sound with a triple vocal tone attack – from a hatecore screech to a brutal low growl. Battlecross offers unusually inspiring …

Veteran German thrash mongers Protector scorch a blazing trail of old-school death-thrash through Swedish woods, taking no prisoners. They channel all that is good from thrash metal into tunes like “Reanimated Homonculus” and “Antiman”, snapping necks furiously and without remorse. The competent, tight band delivers blood-curdling goods on this disc, …

Eternal Torture is a young death metal band from Munich (Bavaria), Germany. This band is part of the “we are faster and more extreme then anyone else” movement, with hyperspeed double-bass drumming, low guttural (and unintelligible) vocals, and downtuned guitars. Their twist on this pun intended, done-to-death schtick is that …

What would happen if you repackaged trendy pop music with a little bit of emo, and some of burlesque subculture’s image? You’d end up with something like Bad Pollyanna. Sugary sweet, digitally perfect female vocals merged with a litany of electronica sounds and effects comprise 2013’s release, Monstrous Child. The …

A bizarre, mellow blend of alternative rock mixed with electronica and industrial elements make up 2013’s Asymmetry, by Australia’s Karnivool. Moods range from a free-floating ambient to an ‘industrial meets emo-pop’ tangent. The oddly sequenced record of longer-length songs seems to take pride in dissonance. There are many quirks and …

Equilibrium‘s Waldschrein is an interesting twist on the folk or pagan metal subgenre. This five-song EP, released in 2013, runs the gamut from entertaining folk metal, to an epic movie soundtrack type tune. This Bavarian band’s rapid ‘riff factory’ idea shifts tend to be jarring or choppy – in the …

Cork may be Ireland’s second city but it easily rivals capital Dublin as a hotbed of talent. The latest outfit to emerge from the south-west of the island, Inhale The Fall are a complete contrast to the more well known offerings at the darker, denser end of the spectrum which …

Bonafide, hailing from Malmo Sweden, were a band I heard some of my friends talk about at times but for one reason or another I never did go check them out. Stumbling across a list of possible albums to review I spotted their soon to be released 4th album “Bombo” …

This sophomore offering from Dublin instrumentalists Parhelia has been four years in the making, being as it is the follow up to their 2009 full-lengther debut, ‘Shifting Sands’ (they previously had released two EPs, ‘First Light’ in 2006 and 2007’s ‘Oceans Apart’). ‘The Precipice Of Change’ is a hypnotic album, …

Dennis “Fergie” Frederiksen (Toto, Frederiksen/Philips, Mecca, LeRoux) is an inspiration. His long and storied music career continues strongly, despite advancing age and failing health. Frontiers Records brings listeners his newest material, 2013’s Any Given Moment. Produced by Alessandro Del Vecchio, this record has 11 tracks of melodic, smooth rock and …

Lending additional momentum to Swedish stalwart death metal band Hypocrisy‘s career in 2013, label Nuclear Blast decided to re-release the band’s seminal 1992 debut Penetralia, and 1993 sophomore effort, Osculum Obscenum. These albums are packaged in a 2CD deluxe box, featuring additional live recordings as bonus material. 2013 marks the …

Ajenda is a rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fronted by vocalist Jen, the four-piece brandishes a mellow, blues-infused rock sound that’s pleasing overall. Following the release of two platters: 2009’s Vicious Circle EP and 2011’s The Suomi Sessions EP, listeners are treated to Ajenda’s 2013 debut album, Unrecognizable. This …

Sweden consistently produces and exports very fine quality extreme metal, and their Manegarm is no exception. Compared to the band’s previous releases, this one will appeal to a wider audience, both because of the more universal English language, and a greater emphasis on mid-tempo crushers. The songs are very dramatic, …

“Primus sucks!” remains the backwards compliment paid by fans to the band, because the first thing to note about these veteran Bay Area, California musicians is that they sure don’t suck. Their sophomore effort, Sailing The Seas Of Cheese, had it’s original heyday and review cluster back before genres like …

Dedication.  One of the quintessential ingredients for success.  In any walk of life – but especially so in the music business.  Coupled with commitment, it is quite possibly THE single most important characteristic any artist (be they on their own or in a band environment) can possess if they want …

Hailing from the Saxony region of Germany, Victorius are one of a new generation of power metal bands who are emerging, from various parts of the continent (including here in the jolly old UK, it must be stressed), who seem determined to inject something new and fresh into what has …

With this, the first in a new trilogy of thematically-linked albums, German deathgore gods Atrocity have set themselves the aim of ushering in a “new era”, one in which they seek not only to produce a series of albums which are “brutal, bombastic and dark” and their “heaviest and most …

Those of you who regularly stop by PlanetMosh will be well aware of my feelings on ‘metalcore’, ’emo’ or whatever the fuck you want to call it today, yesterday, tomorrow, next week, next month, last year, when-the-feck-ever:  listen, genres are generalizations, media fancies adopted by writers who feel they must …

“Metal is the way… Devil Metal!” The prolific Nunslaughter, a pride and joy of Cleveland Ohio’s live underground metal scene, have birthed a double CD compilation record. Out on the Hell’s Headbangers imprint, The Devil’s Congeries, Vol. I features highlight tracks from some of their collector-grade past 7″ vinyl releases. Channeling …