If you’ve ever wondered what a panic attack might sound like, look no further than this album.
Let’s Talk Daggers do hyperventilating riffs, bludgeoning beats, and rhythms that would make a professional mathematician’s mind cave in. They don’t do sweet, calming chillaxatives – and even when they do turn down the intensity, the results possess a constant undercurrent of disturbed unease.
This is not the kind of music you’d admit to enjoying on a first date. Read more…
Skindred have spent the past 17 years forging a rock-solid reputation for fat, festival-field-bouncing grooves and instantly addictive songs. On Volume – Skindred long-player number six – the ragga-metal masters keep up the kind of pace that would exhaust even the hungriest of younger bands.
The big question set to hit the lips of every listener who comes into contact with Volume is this: Just how many crates of Red Bull were sacrificed over the course of this album’s creation? One thing’s for sure – Read more…
11 albums into a world-beating career, keeping things fresh and interesting is a tough ask. Still, Sevendust have good reason to keep looking forward, possessing a fanatical fanbase hungry for freshly forged metal.
Kill The Flaw grooves hard from the get-go, rammed to the gills with churning riffs (opener Thank You), super-tight modern stabs (Death Dance), and unstoppable tidal waves of metallic tones (Forget). Letters pulls back briefly before the brilliantly structured Cease And Desist takes things to a new, epic level; Not Today anxiously twitches before those intimidatingly Read more…
Catalyst – the latest EP from Dorje, a band who are, right now, one of my favourite rock acts in the UK – is dangerous for your face.
You may laugh, but do so at your peril.
This EP will make you gurn like a mad bastard. For its entire duration.
That’s 25.3 minutes of major-league face wreckage.
Whether the wind changes or not, you’re going to regret not preparing yourself if you fail to prepare. So, engage in a full facial-muscle workout immediately. I recommend this one; it’s pretty comprehensive.
If you’re reading this before November 6th, you’ll have plenty of time to get your face fully Dorje-ready – but if you’re reading this after that date, you’ll no doubt be insanely impatient. Chill. Willpower mustprevail.
Once Catalyst drops in its entirety, and that all-important, deliciously tempting “Play” button gets pressed, you’re going to be chucked into the jaw-ruining Written, super-hench intensity topped off by a vocal that long-time Dorje followers will instantly recognise as unmistakable and fully evolved, Pokémon-style.
Many musicians would stop and plateau forever if their band Read more…
Opening an album with a 13-minute epic, taking in everything from delicate acoustic guitar arpeggios and gracefully dramatic piano to chunky, churning riffs and soaring solos in the process, is not a move most bands would choose to make.
But then, Teramaze aren’t most bands.
After An Ordinary Dream establishes Teramaze’s home territory – a fastidiously percolated progressive-metallic blend of Symphony X, Dream Theater, and Karnivool – these guys spend the duration of Her Halo exploring both its hyperdense core and wild outer limits. The result is a journey full of Read more…
Remember science class? Man, it was boring. Stuck staring at a textbook or a blackboard while the world’s most monotonic teacher droned on and on about everything from leaves to light.
You were interested in light, at least. Sunlight. The light from the sun shining outside, while you were kept out of it.
But one day, you got to experience something even cooler than escaping. You gathered around the teacher’s table with your friends, to watch a series of substances with arcane names go up in flames. Blinding lights; miniature explosions; the world’s most compact firework display.
After all the sleepy gloom that came before it, that lesson was imprinted on your memory forever. Even when it was over, you were still buzzing. Excited.
The Battle Of Being is just like that lesson. Read more…
As a celebration of modern metal’s sense of brotherhood and community spirit, this album hits the sweet (or, more accurately, sour) spot. A collection of none-more-black tracks featuring “house band” Mike Portnoy (drums), Dave Ellefson (bass), and Alex Skolnick (guitars) alongside a host of metal’s biggest and brightest stars, it goes without saying that musicianship-wise, the level of talent on display here goes way beyond world-class. It’s the kind of album that metalheads dream about when they go to sleep at night, trudge to work during the day, and wax poetic about their passions over trays of Jägerbombs in the evening.
Whatever your taste in metal, you’re likely to find something to satisfy you in here. There’s a definite focus on hard-gurning grooves on Metal Allegiance, with that peerless rhythm section leading listeners toward Neckbraceland at every opportunity Read more…
This track is so immense, my mind has actually gone blank. Is there a single word that could possibly convey how stunned I am right now? I’ve scanned my dictionary, mined my thesaurus, even braved the depths of Urban Dictionary. But nothing really works.
I will say this, though: if you consider yourself a serious rock / metal fan, you HAVE to check these guys out. According to one of their t-shirts, Dorje are “Hench as fuck” – and it’s true, but still Read more…
Between The Buried And Me have spent the past decade-and-a-half ascending to the highest peaks of progressive metal. Fusing influences as diverse as Pantera and Queen (amongst a vast range of others), BTBAM / Bee-Tee-Bam are now in possession of an extensive back catalogue packed full of dense and intense tracks guaranteed to induce rapture in metalheads and migraines in grandmothers. Latest long-player Coma Ecliptic saw BTBAM expand their already massive sound, wearing their influences on their sleeves while still retaining the elements that make them them.
Last night, opening act Haken (90%) kicked things off in style with solid and sick idea after solid and sick idea. Hench grooves, ethereal low-key moments, mind-bending and freakishly inventive solos, a cheeky keytar excursion Read more…
In order for someone to become world-class at a particular skill, research indicates that at least 10,000 hours of practice are required. The individual members of Teramaze have clearly put in way more than that. They represent progressive metal at its most engaging, immersive, and addictive – a tough peak to hit considering the competition.
Out Of Subconscious sounds like Symphony X jamming with Dream Theater and Karnivool. Read more…
