Twenty years into their existence, Metalcore prize fighters The Ghost Inside look, feel, and sound as good as they ever have. Searching For Solace (Epitaph Records) the sixth installment in the band’s catalog, is not only a de facto extension of the emotionally driven self-titled album; it’s purposeful, tight, and as good a case as any that TGI are (still) at the height of their career.Continue reading
Tag Archives: Album
ALBUM REVIEW: Enterprise Earth – Death: An Anthology
The sign of a confident album is when the guest appearances bolster rather than salvage the work put in by the primary artists. Thus, Enterprise Earth’s Death: An Anthology (MNRK Heavy) is a certified scorcher in which the 11 featured tracks stand tall, both independently and as an aggregation of technically aligned Deathcore.
The wealth of intricacies and variety is but the starting point for this behemoth. So let’s get into it.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Pathology – The Everlasting Plague
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Luckily, Pathology have taken this to heart, and their punishing new heavyweight contender, The Everlasting Plague (Nuclear Blast) is simply another example of that.
ALBUM REVIEW: Genocide Pact – Genocide Pact
The guitars are mud caked in a morass of molasses. The vocal performance is, dare I say, a clinic on how to spew the wretched filth that is old school Death Metal. The omnipresent drums never interfere but simply carve out the route for the rest to follow. Stir all that up in a cauldron with a hint of disgust and a touch of revulsion and the end result is Genocide Pact’s newest self-titled album (Relapse Records), and with it, eight tracks of nineties-era muck and grime.
ALBUM REVIEW: Omnium Gatherum – Origin
When it comes to the ever-satisfying subgenre that is Melodic Death Metal, not enough has been – or is being – said about marquee progenitors Omnium Gatherum, sometimes relegated to the last band or two listed when stacking up the scene during reminiscences at local drinking establishments.
ALBUM REVIEW: MØL – Diorama
One thing became crystal clear very quickly after listening to MØL’s most recent effort, Diorama: this band can do it all. They’ve devised eight elegant tracks to prove just that, frankly leaving fans wanting more. Listed as “Post-Black Metal/Shoegaze” on the Metal Archives, these Danes dabble in Progressive Rock, Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal and even a snippet of Pop Punk. Another appealing aspect of MØL’s Nuclear Blast debut is the apparent influences vocalist Kim Song Sternkopf takes from fellow Scandinavians Dark Tranquillity and Omnium Gatherum. There is even a whiff of Parkway Drive.
K-X-P – IV
Ambient music is tricky. Get it right and you can create some of the most mind-blowing, expansive, forward-thinking art imaginable. Get it wrong and you’re left looking like a pretentious mess. It’s very difficult to ride the line of pretension and come out on the right side when making anything that forsakes a conventional song structure, but by album six, you’d think K-X-P would be pretty adept, right?Continue reading
Glassing – Spotted Horse
A thunderous crack of guitars explode outwards above a deluge of dextrous percussion. It all swirls around the listener before reaching a fever pitch and bursting into its main atonal, bending riff. This is just the mere beginning of ‘When You Stare’ from Blackened post-Hardcore outfit, Glassing, a band clearly out to not just pique interest, but demand attention. The vocals have an ominous amount of reverb to them, giving the same halfway-down-a-corridor feel of the likes of early Emperor or any Black Metal luminaries for that matter. The actual screaming itself, however, has far more in common with contemporaries like Tripsitter and We Never Learned To Live, with its strained and passionate delivery evoking repressed tender emotions rather than scathing the eardrums with rhapsodies of hellfire.Continue reading
Zaum – Divinations
A histrionic chime of a small bell is the first noise that greets the listener. It seemingly summons spiritual moans and groans that echo in the proverbial temple of Zaum‘s oeuvre. ‘Relic’ begins placidly, slowly building its way up to the riff that forms the song’s centrepiece, and when that riff arrives it is a blissful moment. Continue reading
We Never Learned To Live – The Sleepwalk Transmissions
Much like Roadrunner Records in the 1990s, a mark of contemporary quality is any band on the Holy Roar Records roster. You are guaranteed an absolute slobber knocker with pretty much everything they have put out over the last decade, whether it’s the all-out Hardcore of Employed to Serve or Secret Cutter, the Screamo of Portrayal of Guilt or the psychedelic Stoner Prog of Boss Keloid. Now turning to Post Hardcore, we as listeners should welcome the arrival of We Never Learned To Live‘s latest offering; The Sleepwalk Transmissions (Holy Roar Records).Continue reading