Tag Archives: Calum Farquhar

Crypt Trip – Haze Country

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For some in the music world, the sixties never really ended and this is especially true with Crypt Trip’s Haze Country. Both a throwback and refreshing, Haze Country (Heavy Psych Sounds) lets us sit back and relive the good old days of psychedelics, marijuana and hippie Shenanigans. Even from the album cover: the aesthetic and nostalgic tinged photograph of the band mounted on motorbikes, it really does feel like this record was lost in time and it’s only just been rediscovered in your Dad’s cupboard of old LPs.Continue reading →


Ginkgo Shock Dawn – Inward | Flare

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In the past few years, the Progressive Metal and Rock scene has become very crowded and, as a result, a lot of ideas end up being repeated endlessly and true originality does seem to be hard to come by in this increasingly saturated market of copycats. Even with their name, Ginkgo Shock Dawn appears to be left-of-center of the current trend and this is also somewhat true of their new album Inward | Flare (This Is Core).Continue reading →


ExitWounds – Visions

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If there was a genre that’s been done to death in every possible way, it’s Metalcore. Talk about everything and the kitchen sink, the genre has become oversaturated in recent years with the same tired template of songs, sounds and ideas which are rip-offs from the genre’s heyday in the noughties. There are still bands like Architects and Killswitch Engage who continue to grow both their audience and their sound by bringing new ideas to the table even if the genre is no longer the musical hotbed it once was.

This brings us to ExitWounds’s new EP Visions (Sharptone Records).Continue reading →


Fedrespor – Fra en Vugge i Fjellet

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Folk music has a pretty difficult time of it in the modern music scene. Despite being the foundation for almost all popular music genres, it is often considered cliche and archaic when held up against contemporary music, even though elements of the genre resonate throughout popular music. Whether it’s acoustic instrumentation or song structures which are the very backbone of popular music itself,  the influence and fundamental importance of Folk music is downplayed or outright neglected.Continue reading →


The Room – Caught By The Machine

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Sometimes modern bands can forget the lineage of Progressive Rock – if we go back in time to the seventies and early eighties, it was an experimental style of music that often incorporated twinges of Psychedelia, Pop and Rock whilst still allowing for extensive sonic exploration with elements of Blues, Folk, and Jazz along with constructs such as longer song formats.Continue reading →


Abyssic – High The Memory

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Funeral Doom Metal has always been a curiosity. To the average music fan, listening to music inspired by the tragedy and sorrow of a funeral isn’t exactly high on their list. However, like everything, it has its place and when it’s done well; it can paint powerful musical imagery which can invoke powerful emotions. With a name like Abyssic, gothic, dark and ancient images come to mind. However, as shown throughout High The Memory (Osmose Productions), darkness and light have their place in the context of such an emotive genre. After all, the spectrum of human emotion is not measured in absolutes.Continue reading →


Dream Theater – Distance Over Time

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Bands with twenty-five-plus years under their belts often have to wrestle with the temptation to become a nostalgia act or to continue pushing the musical envelope which, in turn, carries its own set of risks. For Dream Theater, the past few years have been particularly difficult for the band: with drummer Mike Portnoy leaving in 2010 and filling the role with Mike Mangini, the band has been trying to reconfigure its soul.Continue reading →


Our Survival Depends On Us – Melting The Ice In The Hearts Of Men

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Atmosphere can make or break an album. It provides the backdrop and can effectively dictate the direction of individual songs as well as the record as a whole. For bands that create uncompromising walls of sound, finely crafting this atmosphere is of utmost importance in order to make a profound musical statement that not only carries sonic weight but also emotional significance.Continue reading →