Sporting more fuzz than a Pomeranian, Pamplemousse‘s Porcelain (A Tant Rêver du Roi) shows its Grunge and Garage roots. Sporting heavy guitar distortion and ample drums (it’s a duo), these thirty-nine minutes cruise by.
Tag Archives: album reviews
ALBUM REVIEW: Igorrr – Amen
The appeal of Igorrr is the French avant-gardist’s ability to blend harsh electronic elements with organic instrumentation and find its unique groove.”On their new album Amen (Metal Blade Records), Mastermind Gautier Serre produces these sounds on a broader scale. You can find him online detailing the rare collection of instruments he employed in making the album. But while putting a musical museum in motion is cool in theory, the question is, how will that play out in the reality of your songs, or will it be too much of a nuance to be noticed? Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Year Of The Goat – Trivia Goddess
I’ve said a hundred times and I’ll say it again: there must be something in the waters of Sweden that creates a magic elixir of sorts. This elixir seems to seep into the people of Sweden forcing them to create some of the greatest psychedelic/occult rock music on the planet. Psych/Occult rockers Year of the Goat are no exception. Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Warcoe – Upon All Thrones
When thinking about Italian metal, the chances are the first things that come to mind are silk shirts and symphonic keyboards, or the honest down-to-earth raging of thrash and death metal. Warcoe, however, are the purveyors of that rarest of Italian delicacies – classic Doom Metal.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Dazzling Killmen – Dig Out The Switch
St. Louis, Missouri’s Dazzling Killmen emerged in 1990 and were named after a character in Lucas Samaras‘ Crude Delights. They managed two full-length albums and four singles before splitting in 1995. Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Paradise Lost – Ascension
Misery. Sorrow. Doom. Welcome to Halifax. Since 1988, UK gloomsters Paradise Lost have been dishing out the most downcast and despondent riffs known to man, and on their seventeenth studio album Ascension (Nuclear Blast Records), they prove once again there’s still plenty of despair to be mined.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Nord Electric – Loneliness For Sale
Outer Battery Records are building quite the musical roster for themselves not just with Swervedriver’s brilliant recent EP The World’s Fair, which was reviewed recently for Ghost Cult, but also the inclusion of Heavy Blanket (with J Mascis), Petyr and finally Obits; best known for featuring the legendary, late, great Rick Froberg (Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes), RIP. Excitingly, there are also live albums from Dinosaur Jr, Om, and OFF! available from the label. Impressive, right?Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Malevich – Under a Gilded Sun
There are truly many directions you can go in music by taking influences from all over and finding a sound that is respectful to all of those influences. Malevich continues to evolve this approach with their latest release, Under a Gilded Sun (Church Road Records). This nearly forty-minute journey borrows from black, death, and sludge metal with dashes of grindcore mixed in. There are a few tracks on the album that feature a build-to-climax song structure, similar to how post-metal bands structure their songs.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Insomniac – Om Moksha Ritam
Atlanta’s Insomniac brings the surreal sounds of the early nineties back to life on Om Moksha Ritam (Blues Funeral Recordings). These guys drape brooding baritone vocal lines over layers of atmospheric guitar that swell into big sludge-tinged riffs of epic proportions. On a song like “Mountain,” the twin guitar attack is a dizzying affair that accelerates in an almost Mastodon-like manner. Deceased drummer Amos Rikin keeps the cymbals crashing with enough gusto to move their hypnotic riffage with locomotive momentum. This reaches peak heaviness for these guys when harsher growls roar up from the back of the mix to accent the punchy chugs.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Still In Love – Recovery Language
Out via the British extreme music-centered label Church Road Records, UK Hardcore five-piece unit Still In Love launches a debut full-length entitled Recovery Language – with thematic focuses circulating around the discourses of generation trauma, catharsis, emotional release, and personal boundaries. Highly introspective and deeply rooted in raw, intense emotions that speak of resilience, the aggression-laden UK Hardcore undertones of this album fit the recurring themes so well, with a hint of Post-Hardcore influences as well. Continue reading