An optimist would describe Portrayal of Guilt as experimental and ever-evolving. While that’s often true, their discography sees a constant ebb and flow of polished, realized ideas and half-baked ones, and their newest record, …Beginning of the End (Run For Cover Records), is no exception.
Though Ville Valo has often been seen as the sole proprietor of love metal as a genre, primarily because very few can match his vampiric romanticism and poetry, Atlas arises as a formidable and remarkable successor. Infusing love metal with arcane echoes and bestial screams, they delivers a sensually brutal epic in their new record, Sunder (Odyssey Music). Continue reading
Our Mirage is reviving the roots of Metalcore, reanimating a nostalgic 2000s sound with a 2020s polish. On their fourth album, Fractured Minds (Arising Empire Records), one would hope a band would have grown past the overly generic, survivalist mantra and woe-is-me relationship songs. Continue reading