Late 2020, the somber Seattle slayers of Sun Crow released their debut album, Quest For Oblivion. Though Ghost Cult missed the initial release, we’re happily taking advantage of the album’s re-release on Ripple Music. It’s no surprise the record topped doom charts, as it’s a perfect showcase of doom and gloom mastery.
Long established as one of the greatest live acts on Earth, Amenra has also always had great, purposeful albums with heady concepts. Following their Mass titled albums I through VI, released over fourteen years, the band has rebirthed itself into a new final form. De Doorn begins their association with the mighty Relapse Records, continuously the arbiter of good taste for extreme music. From epic post-Metal, pastoral Folk motifs, moody post-Rock moments, to wicked eruptions of pain and grief stricken movements; Amenra’s music simultaneously feeds the brain and soul.
After a year and change of no live shows, every single band on the planet has got to adapt themselves into the world of live streaming. The few live stream concerts I’ve seen have portrayed each band’s unique style and vision, but none as bizarre as The Melvins’ Volume 3: Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! which aired last Saturday, May 1st. The complete show is exactly what you would expect from this legendary band. The live stream started with acoustic versions of ‘Dark Brown Teeth’, a King Buzzo cover, and ‘Up The Dumper’. The most interesting and funny aspect of this particular live stream is that it felt like you were hanging out with the band in between songs. Each transition from song to song had a small interview that started with the whole band, then with Buzz Osborne, followed by Steven McDonald, and finishing with Dale Crover. Each interview featured hilarious stories of the band and their lives that covered the usage of masks to, of course, weed. The overall performance of the band was superb with a sound the sound quality you would expect from a band like The Melvins and the visuals were in the more psychedelic side that went along well with each of the played tracks. Overall this was a fun and refreshing way of conducting a live stream event and one that only sets up for the upcoming return of live shows.Continue reading
Fear Factory, by Melina D Photography
Fear Factory has shared a video teaser for upcoming single “Disruptor” and revealed the art work for new album Aggression Continuum due out this year via Nuclear Blast Records. Last week,, Dino Cazares has posted a snippet of him playing “Disruptor.” Watch a teaser for the “Disruptor” video created by Finland’s Riivata Visuals below. Also available is the “Aggression Continuum” cover art, designed by Light The Torch guitarist Francesco Artusato. Cazares has been posting a lot on Twitter to stay in touch with his fans, and we are likely to learn the identity of the new vocalist for the band next week as well, replacing Burton C. Bell, who announced his departure from the group after thirty years last month.
Of all the bands on the Gothic Rock/Heavy Metal fusion bandwagon, Poltergeist may be the most committed to those Post-Punk aesthetics. The style on their third EP remains closer to Joy Division than Judas Priest with a heavy emphasis on chilling synths, stiff bass-heavy rhythms, and disinterested vampiric baritones. This is especially true on the first two tracks as the opening ‘Electricity’ goes full Synthwave and ‘Through Clouded Eyes’ follows it up in ominously subdued fashion.
Fear Factory, by Melina D Photography
In a new video announcement to social media, Fear Factory has announced a new album Aggression Continuum due out this year via Nuclear Blast Records. Last week,, Dino Cazares has posted a snippet of him playing a new song, now dubbed “Disruptor.” Cazares has been posting a lot on Twitter to stay in touch with his fans, and we are likely to learn the identity of the new vocalist for the band next week as well, replacing Burton C. Bell, who announced his departure from the group after thirty years last month.
The last live show I attended was on February 22nd, 2020 watching Opeth at the Apollo Theater in New York City. It was a magical night, but little did I know that was going to be the last live music I was going to be watching perform in a year. I miss live shows, as I’m sure every single one of you does as well and I was particularly reminded of this since the beginning of last week. Having said that, when The Ocean Collective announced that they were going to play a live stream show of their amazing album Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic (Pelagic Records) in its entirety, I immediately jumped to my feet and said: “I NEED to watch that”, I knew it was going to be magical as everything the German band does.
Death Metal is in rude health. It is a status that has been brewing and broiling over the last ten years, with pushes and spurts in pocketed sub-sub genres, until now the whole scene, and its multitude of variants and mutations and off-shoots, feels like it is not just doing alright, but burgeoning with a lush virility unseen since it’s fomentation some thirty years ago.
Funny, before writing this review I had just finished a very interesting conversation about Swedish bands with someone as passionate as I am for Swedish music and we concluded that there must be something about being born in Scandinavia that automatically increases your chances of being good at making music. Spelljammer proves this point with their latest effort Abyssal Trip (RidingEasy Records). An equally catchy, beautiful, heavy, and dark album that brings a scenario that can be only compared as being a collection of Black Sabbath’s darkest, twisted tracks but heavier and more melodic. And it’s impossible not talking about Black Sabbath when talking about a Stoner/Doom Metal band, but this Swedish trio can easily be in the same conversation.
Avatar took my live stream “virginity” away in this concert Ages|Madness from their series of Livestream concerts titled Ages, which has been running since January 9th and will end this upcoming weekend on January 30th. The Swedish band demonstrated why they are one of the most popular and entertaining bands in the genre right now by giving a performance that very well is worth the “price of admission” that COVID normalcy has given us for these types of events since we cannot go to live shows for the time being. Avatar was able to set a tone and ambiance like no other with this performance which was concentrated on tracks from the albums Black Waltz (Gain Music Entertainment) and Hail the Apocalypse (eOne Music).