The hope for a band to “return to their roots” is a phrase that has been thrown around so much in modern music, it has begun to lose its meaning. As with the roots of a tree, a band’s roots are always there, securing the foundation of their sound, no matter how many different directions it may branch out into.
It’s been over a decade since guitarist K.K. Downing parted ways with Midlands Metal pioneers Judas Priest, the highly publicised fallout causing seemingly irreparable damage between the two parties. However, every cloud has its silver lining and one positive thing to have come from this less than amicable parting of the ways is the emergence of KK’s Priest.
Graves, Release Your Dead (Svart Records) is the latest album from Finland’s vampire-admiring (maybe “obsessed” is the word) The Coffinshakers. According to the band’s online blurb, they’ve been making horror comedy since 1995. Now if that feels like rather a long time to be riding this fairly simple gimmick, well it’s just a fleeting moment for a night walker, eh?
A decade back, Heart of a Coward were one of the rising stars in the UK metal scene, having just released their second album Severance. The band were looked on to be the next big thing when it came to metalcore, and when they followed that up with the highly acclaimed Deliverance, these previous assertions felt cemented in. Alongside their peers in Architects, Bury Tomorrow and While She Sleeps, the stage was set for Heart of a Coward to join the ranks part of this leading new class.
It’s tempting to compare a band from New Zealand to Alien Weaponry, but the tribal folk of Shepherds Reign‘s homeland is woven into the fabric of their songs in a manner more like what Sepultura did on the Roots album.
Hailing from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, Metalcore quintet Conquer Divide has come back together in Atlanta to record their long-awaited second full-length album, Slow Burn (Mascot Records). Slow Burn presents a balanced, cohesive collection of songs while also throwing the frequent curveball – ones that don’t throw the direction off track, but rather launch it forward into expanded territories.
One of the fastest-rising bands in modern metalcore, Australian group Polaris shows their musical ancestors how it’s done with their third album, Fatalism (SharpTone Records). As they break through the scene, the quartet continuously grows with their refinement of the genre, pulling off a sense of timelessness for a style that some of their peers have fallen under the radar trying to keep alive.
If you had to book a show for an audience of half-Pop fans and half-Metalheads with the promise that no one would walk out, it would seem like an impossible task. But book Welsh band Holding Absence for a show like this, and everyone’s jaws will be on the floor before the first song finishes.
Ever since their debut album, Feel Something, blew up in 2017, the massive surge of dedicated fans have held Southern California post-hardcore and emo band Movements to a high standard when it comes to follow-up material. As the group grows older, their music continues to grow with them, as made evident with their 2020 release No Good Left To Give, and now their third full-length album, RUCKUS! (Fearless Records). While the band is no longer the same sad boys they started out as, there are still pieces of their old selves mixed into their new, matured evolution, with RUCKUS! about to elicit a peculiar balance of dancing, moshing, and crying.
Orbit Culture is making big waves in the contemporary Metal scene. This Swedish quartet started out a decade ago and there is a groundswell of rumblings that they could be one of the next hottest acts in the genre. Their rare and remarkable talent would absolutely deserve such recognition. Even in their earlier years, they went over and above the traditional melodeath elements by supplementing them with more fervid aptitude. Now they are preparing to release their fourth full-length album, Descent (Seek & Strike Records) and these savvy Swedes have taken their dynamically different drive to new heights by creating songs laden with more fortitude and technicalities.Continue reading