The music of Chicago’s Pelican is a bit of an acquired taste. While there’s something musically there for every metal fan, the songs are, if anything, so varied that they likely turn off those fundamentalist metal fans who judge all music solely on whether it is “brutal” or not.
Which is too bad, because Pelican makes [...]
Review: Pelican “What We All Come To Need”
Review: Alice In Chains, “Black Gives Way To Blue”
Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley was a one-of-a-kind vocalist and his death in 2003 was a tragedy to the legions of fans who adored Staley’s dark, caustic and often heart-wrenching work. The man was a master at wringing rage and pain out of the words he sang, but there was a skewed beauty under [...]
Review: Ex Deo “Romulus”
Today, I’m gonna do something I never do – I’m going to write a short, short CD review.
I’m not a huge Kataklysm fan – I’ve seen them perform live, have interviewed frontman Maurizio Iacono and have heard plenty of their songs and albums – but they just don’t grab me. They’re not terrible, certainly … but [...]
Review: Mastodon “Crack The Skye”
It would be easy to over-analyze Mastodon’s new album, “Crack The Skye,” but I have a tendency to do too much analysis and wankering in my reviews. Instead, I’ll cut directly to the chase: “Crack The Skye” is the most satisfying Mastodon album since “Leviathan.” It combines the aggression of “Remission” with the progression of [...]
Review: Queensryche “American Soldier”
Today, I’ll walk across the minefield that is Queensÿche’s “American Soldier.”
It would have been very easy to not review this disc. You, my two loyal readers, weren’t out there thinking, “hey, when is that stupid blog gonna review the new Queensrÿche, anyway?” No one would have suffered or lost anything if I’d just let this [...]
Review: Wolves in the Throne Room “Black Cascade”
More than any other sub genre of metal, black metal is the most free and expansive.
Unlike thrash, hardcore, goth and even much death metal, black metal can exist outside of all musical restraints. There’s no requirement that songs have verses or choruses. Song structure (at least in the form of repeated, recognizable riffs) is often cast [...]
Review: Edguy “Tinnitus Sanctus”
Edguy front man Tobias Sammet is apparently a musical workaholic.
Almost exactly one year ago, Sammet’s all-star side project Avantasia released “The Scarecrow,” one of the biggest, most bombastic and – in my opinion – one of the best albums of 2008. Now, Sammet says another Avantasia project is in the works and will be released [...]
Review: Mantic Ritual “Executioner”
It’s simple to review very good albums and very bad ones.
If I like an album, then all I have to do is discuss the highlights and technical details. Reviewing a bad album is a bit more complex, since I usually try to support my dislike with evidence (poor musicianship and/or songwriting, lousy production, etc.) – but the reasons [...]
Review: Opeth’s “Watershed” (Roadrunner)
When the indie Music For the Nations record label folded and Sweden’s Opeth jumped to much larger Roadrunner Records, many fans complained the band had “sold out” to pursue mainstream fame.
But the fears that the label switch would cause band visionary Mikael Akerfeldt and the rest of the Opeth gang to undergo a Metallica “Black [...]
Review: Nachtmystium’s "Worldfall" (Century Media)
Chicago’s Nachtmystium first appeared on my radar with “Instinct: Decay,” an album that blended the rawness of black metal with stoned-out psychedelica, tripping rhythms and computer gurgles that warbled like Hal from “2001: A Space Odyssey” mating with a Radio Shack calculator. And I mean all of that in a very good way. Even though [...]
