Tag Archives: Wil Cifer

EP REVIEW: Freeze the Fall – The Red Garden

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Spoiler alert, this is one of the best albums released so far in 2025. If you do not know this young power trio, Freeze the Fall, from Canada, it’s time you did. This is the band’s second EP, but the path from gaming and internet buzz to the Rock perfection achieved here on The Red Garden (604 Records) found Freeze the Fall coming into their own as songwriters along the way. They went from being known as the kids who covered The Warning to being a superior band to their early inspiration in a short time. Most of this growth came thanks to the depth Quinn Mitzel sings with, in order to nail uncanny hooks in every anthemic chorus she utters.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: The Cure – Mixes of a Lost World

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The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World was my favorite album of 2024, so hearing it remixed by 24 different artists gave me pause. It’s not the first time Robert Smith has loosened his notoriously tight grip to allow artists to remix his work. With Mixes of Lost World (Fiction Records), it’s obvious Smith was in control of curating who he trusted with these songs. There are the obvious culprits who you almost expect having their hand in a re-mix album like Paul Oakenfold and Oribital, then he handed it over to bands in his close circle like tour-mates The Twilight Sad and Mogwai to not just prep the songs for the dance floor but applied their instruments into their reworkings which were both very true to the creative spirt of the band. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Activity – A Thousand Years in Another Way

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As a genre, Indie Rock hit its peak in the mid-2000s, as bands like Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie became mainstream, thus causing bands to branch off into the post-punk branch of punk rock. Activity’s new album A Thousand Years in Another Way (Western Vinyl) takes you back to the last great days of indie rock. The album opens in a tense, more brooding mood than their previous work. They balance this out with the fragile plea of the pained tenor vocals. The trembling urgency of this vocal approach brings Radiohead to mind.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Katatonia – Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State

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Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State (Napalm Records) marks Katatonia’s third album without founding guitarist Anders Nyström (editor’s note: his hiatus is now a permanent departure). This leaves Jonas Renske to steer the ship into darker and increasingly progressive waters of melancholy. A formula is in place, and the new guitarists navigate it well. They continue to demonstrate a fearless willingness to bust out a guitar solo with their feet firmly on the monitor, to invoke the era of guitar heroes past. The heaviest element might be Jonas’ lyrics, which retain a sharp bite on this album. The drumming is consistent in playing down solid grooves, allowing the band to back off and create more space for the fragile emotion of Jonas’ croon. The band maintains its persona. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Swans – Birthing

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When doing reviews here at Ghost Cult, we try to keep things subjective, rather than injecting how we feel about an artist. Sometimes, when an artist becomes entrenched in your identity to the point where your friends hear said artist, it makes them think of you. This goes past the point of subjectivity and becomes more personal.  

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ALBUM REVIEW: Skunk Anasie – The Painful Truth

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Sometimes bands create an album so creatively stellar that it leaves its mark on who they are as artists, such is the case with Skunk Anasie and their 1999 album Post Orgasmic Chill (Virgin Records) that transcended genres as well as eras of music. But Skin does not care how big they were in the past, she presses forward on their new album The Painful Truth (FLG Records), disregards being defined by anything to reinvent what the band is about. The song This is Not Your Life” proves Skin is in fine voice, even as an older wiser artist. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Youth Code – Yours, With Malice

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Youth Code reclaims its crown for being the torch carrier of the industrial revival with its new EP Yours, With Malice (Sumerian Records). The lead single “No Consequence” sets things off, with the duo sounding more refined and with a serrated edge to the vengeful hooks of Sara Taylor’s chanted declaration of “never pretending/ to be something she’s not,”. A powerful sentiment in today’s world, where artists are often as fabricated as the online personas people adopt. The challenge the band presents for themselves, by setting the bar so high from the get-go go is will they will be able to measure up? That is what the rest of the review will determine. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Behemoth – Shit Ov God

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Polish Death Metal titans Behemoth arrive with a more epic and focused sound on Shit Ov God (Nuclear Blast). Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Knives – Glitter

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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 →


ALBUM REVIEW: Propaghandi – At Peace

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On album number eight, long-running Canadian punk rockers Propaghandi continue to perfect their craft on At Peace (Epitaph Records) in a manner their peers can not keep up with. They self-identify as a progressive thrash band, which is a point driven home on several songs, but at the album’s core beats their rebellious punk hearts. Perhaps it’s because they are from Canada, but the political edge to their lyrics has always hit differently. They remain thoughtful and self-reflective, with this brooding carrying over into the metallic edge, coloring this album, which must be listened to through headphones, if possible, as it makes the guitar pop more than computer speakers.Continue reading →