When a new review arrives in my inbox, I often listen to the music first before reading any release info from the band. I like to let the music do the talking before I check out any info from the PR agent. It wasn’t until I read the release info did I come to notice that The Amentia’s latest release Plague of Locus (Debemur Morti) contains a bunch of cover songs. Clearly, The Amentia were able to take a few tracks from bands that inspired them and to transform them into songs of their own.
Tool’s bassist Justin Chancellor and Polish Alt-Metal outfit Sweet Noise’s frontman Peter Mohamed first met at a European music festival. A shared desire to collaborate in some way or another finally came to fruition in 2013 with MTVoid’s first album, Nothing’s Matter. Now ten years on the pair release their follow up, Matter’s Knot, Pt.1 (Lobal Orning).
To say that a line-up which features Discharge vocalist Jeff (JJ) Janiak, guitarist Stig Miller (Amebix), drummer Roy Mayorga (Nausea/Amebix) and bassist JP Parsons is an enticing prospect would be an understatement. This type of musical pedigree promises us that something special looms on the horizon in the form of Let Them Eat Fake (Neurot Recordings).
Following a meteorically successful inaugural year, Sick New World is set to return to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds April 27, 2024 with an enormous collection of the world’s biggest hard rock, alternative, and up and coming artists. With a closing performance from returning headliner System Of A Down, this colossal lineup features over 65 artists across five stages, including Slipknot, Bring Me The Horizon, A Perfect Circle, Alice In Chains, Danny Elfman, Bad Omens, Sleep Token, Knocked Loose, and many more.
Tommy Victor is an unsung hero of Rock. The Prong frontman (and the band’s only constant) has been putting out great records under the Prong banner since 1989’s Force Fed. Between then and the band’s latest — thirteenth studio album State of Emergency (Steamhammer / SPV) — there’s been a brief flirtation with commercial success in the early-mid nineties, an extended hiatus before and after the band’s unfairly-maligned Scorpio Rising album from 2003, and a steady stream of quality material over recent years.
Let’s be straight up: Final Gasp’s debut Mourning Moon (Relapsev Records) is a great album, but going into this we need to be clear in what we expect from it. The album cover, and marketing hype around this album makes you think it’s the second coming of Type O Negative. This is not the case. They draw inspiration from one of my favorite eras of punk rock…the mid eighties. This is when bands like T.S.O.L. and Die Kruzen took a darker turn in a more shadowy direction.
A live album by New Model Army was not expected, but I’ll take it. They have pushed the boundaries of punk since 1980, and this album is another example of how they outgrew the punk label. How many punk bands bring an orchestra with them? New Model Army was never just a three-chord band bashing things out with youthful recklessness; thoughtful songwriting and darker dynamics have always been a part of who they are. This album makes perfect sense given the breadth of their work, as it’s not the first time strings have played a role in their songs.
John Joseph Wardle aka bass legend Jah Wobble started his career with post-Punks Public Image Limited (teaming up with a certain John Lydon), playing on the albums Public Image: First Edition, Metal Box, and the Paris Au Printemps live record. After his departure from that band, Jah would embark on a highly eclectic solo career exploring all manner of musical styles and collaborations far too extensive to list here.
Some people told me I was crazy when I decided I was going to go to the Sick New World Fest, a debut Metal and Rock Festival in Las Vegas. In the month of May. I hate to sound like a boomer and complain about the heat in Las Vegas, which is an actual desert, but the bottom line is I knew in advance it was going to be hot as hell, and it certainly lived up to that prediction. That being said, I was really excited to come to the festival enjoy a day with my metal community, meet new friends, and see some incredible bands; some I had never seen ever, and some I had not seen in a long time.
Jaaw is an intriguing collaboration, bringing together a group of musicians that few people may have predicted hitting the studio together. The ‘super-group’ fronted by Therapy?’s veteran singer and guitarist Andy Cairns, joins Wayne Adams (Petbrick/ Big Lad), Jason Stoll (Mugstar / Sex Swing), and Adam Betts (Squarepusher / Goldie) in creating their debut record Supercluster (Svart Records) at Adam’s notorious Bear Bites Horse Studio in London.