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
You never know how Nu-Metal is going to resurface. Your best bet is that it won’t show up to the party in Adidas with b-boy swagger. Knives prove this on their album Glitter (Marshall Records). Just when you thought Bristol was just the home of trip-hop, these kids who self-identify as a noise-rock band, kick in the door with punchy rapped vocals, they slam again an often dissonant eruption of angular riffs. Somehow this all manages to for my mishappen groove. of guitar clanging in a misshapen groove. “I Hope You Get It” finds a hint of hard-core haunting their musical DNA, which is nothing new for nu-metal, as Korn and Deftones toured with the likes of Biohazard, Sick of it All, Glassjaw, and Thrice, in their early days. Continue reading
Slash’s much-anticipated blues cover album is studded with fine performances – Chris Stapleton singing on “Oh Well”, Iggy Pop on “Awful Dream”, Brian Johnson loving it on “Killing Floor”. Continue reading