Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology (2018)

by Creed Braddock on April 24, 2018

When you have nothing of substance to fuel the creative urge necessary for musical catharsis, the artistically bankrupt are forced into invention. Here, the muse for this act is a fictional slug overlord that has somehow provided a modern metal band with enough tongue-in-cheek material to spew out four records so far, so at the very least you can’t accuse Slugdge of not sticking to their guns. Bad ideas however tend to foster quicker and more permanent results, and I’m failing to see the inspiration of this act yielding anything further than superficial amusement, so perhaps this is the perfect modern metal product seen from start to finish.

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Goath – II: Opposition

by Joe Slater on April 17, 2018

Great Goath!  First impression is, this new output from Goath is pretty darn good. The artwork seems excellent. Some of their other releases didn’t quite do it for me, but this one hits the spot. There is a nice mix of basic time signature riffs. The main thing is that the high level of aggression in all the instruments and vocals works on this one, whereas the other stuff I heard before was boring and lower pitched, like war metal kinda, with some Deicide. The whole thing sounds really old school underground, not aiming for total show-off or the best production, but instead going for authenticity and aggressiveness.
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Atlantean Kodex Live Album is Bad

by Joe Slater on April 2, 2018

At first glance, this album boasts a cool cover and impressively long song lengths, making a strong first impression. Then I hit play. It didn’t take long to realize this is really, really bad live album. It is not tightly played at all. The two guitars are not in sync and neither are the drums. You have to suffer through really bad lyrics like: “Onward to the sun” and “Destiny is calling!”. Everything is really bad waltzy Sabbath imitation but really boring. I can fairly say that this album qualifies as epic German cheese. So of course it will be popular. The singer sounds like the guy who sang those Budweiser ads Real Men of Genius.
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Not Digging the New Cynic Single

by Joe Slater on March 16, 2018

Received a transmission of a new single by Cynic. Feeling a bit disappointed in this tune, called ‘Humanoid’. While it has the great active warm fretless sounding bass-lines, and Y. Malmsteen styled solos, the vocals are a completely different style than on Focus and Traced in Air. Normally their vocals have the flanged-out robo. voice. On this new track, the vocals don’t sound metal enough. They are too Pink Floyd or Lincoln Park-ish for me. The guitars have tons of solos, but leave the bass to carry the rhythm, and this doesn’t work. It makes it too light. The whole thing comes off sounding funky rather than heavy. I would like them to go back and at least out a flanger on the vocals and add another heavier rhythm guitar tracking along with the bass.

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Woolftooth – Woolftooth (2018)

by Charles Stuart on March 15, 2018

Stoner metal. What bullshit. Why not just get stoned and listen to good metal? Burzum, Incantation, or even Bach is still incredible music when stoned out of my gourd. Other than giving me the amazing ability to eat an entire large Hawaiian pizza, marijuana intake never fundamentally changed my taste or personality. This fact makes stoner metal, and stoner ‘culture’ prima facie stupid. By that line of reasoning, my having listened to Wolftooth’s newly released album “Wolftooth” stupid. Yes, dear reader, I do stupid things so you do not have to. Stoner culture is not for people who smoke the reefer, it is for stupid people who smoke the reefer.

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Tombs – The Grand Annihilation (2017)

by Jerry Hauppa on February 21, 2018

There won’t be a challenging listen anytime soon from millennial metal bands. The best we can hope for is something engaging, because given how neutered the general public is today, most things, “underground” or not, will be geared with mass appeal in mind.  When we as seasoned listeners encounter a new metal band we approach their newest release with the hope that they at least have some framework of metal history at hand to draw from in order to at least give their inherently gimped effort a palette of direction that resembles metal.  But with that mass appeal looming in the back of the creator’s mind, that history may be utilized as a checklist for social acclaim to adorn empty musical gestures instead of a well to draw inspiration to guide a commanding voice.  Those type of Frankenmetal releases are easily dismissed as a series of “Ta-da!” moments wrapped around a rancid kernel, but by blunting the confrontational elements of disjunct pieces you can somewhat pull the wool over the listener’s eyes as if you are more steadfast in your artistic message than you actually are.

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Accept – Rise of Chaos

by Joe Slater on February 20, 2018

Accept is a band best remembered for their old school song called “Balls to the Wall”, which used to play on the Headbanger’s Ball. Driving my BMV down the Autobahn at 120MPH through the Black Forest, I stopped in Bad Reichenhall.  You know how they always have insane amounts of Gummy Bears everywhere in Germany.  And then next to them are porno mags and stuff like biker lifestyle mags.  Those were where I found out that Accept was still going strong at the time. It never ceases to amaze. This band just keeps hanging around, like a bad STD. Here they are again 20 years later. And they have this new album Rise of Chaos, which sounds like a cross between Sabbath’s Dehumanizer and an Exodus album.

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Crawl/Leviathan

by Nicholas Vahdias on February 19, 2018

Hipster celebrity and accused tattoo gun rapist Wrest from Leviathan returns with a new sidekick in an attempt to restore some underground credibility.  This is a common gimmick used in rap music whenever an artist has faded from the mainstream but wants to continue making money off the young kids consuming the underground’s newest flavors.  Unfortunately for Leviathan, they were never respected in the underground and Crawl displays very little potential to make any sort of impact.  The split is one twelve minute song from each artist that both manage to be terrible but for very different reasons.  Wrest promised “Aural Mizery” and has ironically maintained that promise.

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Mournful Congregation: The Incubus of Karma

by Nicholas Vahdias on January 30, 2018

Australian funeral doom Mournful Congregation return with their latest offering after a four year hiatus.  Initially demonstrating a style in the vein of overly melancholic eurodoom bands, this four piece have slowly shedded the lugubrious sound of their former works in exchange for a more pensive and maximalist vision. Developing the ideas from their last full length The Book of Kings, Mournful Congregation create musically literate and complex songs that dance on the line between being nostalgic 70s rock and accessible funeral doom.

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