Editorials
Oh, My Aching Ears – Is Excessive Volume At Live Shows Really Necessary?
“Hearing is for life, wear fucking earplugs at shows”
Kevin Stewart-Panko's Posts
Reviews
Album Review: CULT OF LUNA The Beyond (Reissue)
Originally released in 2003, The Beyond has always stood out in Cult of Luna’s discography as the most direct and immediate of their recordings.
Reviews
EP Review: DROPZONE Rape Killing Murder
There’s something to be said for spontaneity, capturing the heart and soul of a composition on the fly, not over thinking and simply setting up and letting ‘er rip.
Reviews
Album Review: MIDNIGHT Sweet Death and Ecstasy
Sweet Death and Ecstasy offers a healthy demonstration of Midnight's penchant for writing rebar rigid heavy metal that salutes the rocking past while simultaneously adding undeniably catchy and memorable songs to heavy metal’s pantheon.
Reviews
Album Review: GODFLESH Post Self
The ten tracks on offer span the width and breathe of the Godflesh oeuvre, sounding as rhythmically calculating and drill-press noisy as early works on the one hand while coming across as more nuanced on the other with bouts of formless amorphousness weaved into various sections.
Reviews
Album Review: CONVERGE The Dusk in Us
The Dusk in Us is album number nine and possesses all the thematic and visual doom ‘n’ gloom as has always been the case, but countering that is a fiery brand of metallic hardcore that the band continues to sculpt as its own.
Reviews
Album Review: IRON MONKEY 9-13
I’m going to pull an Iron Monkey myself and piss off most of you (primarily, the old-school and traditionalists) by proclaiming 9-13 a successor that surpasses its predecessor.
Reviews
Album Review: KING PARROT Ugly Produce
If Ugly Produce ended at the halfway point, we might be heralding it as a modern masterpiece; we’d also be referring to it as an EP.
Reviews
Album Review: CANNABIS CORPSE Left Hand Pass (with Full Album Stream)
To the untrained ear, this review is nothing but nerdy hair splitting; your significant other who knows nothing about metal and your mom will continue to hear a bunch of fucking directionless noise.
Reviews
Album Review: ELUVEITIE Evocation II – Pantheon
‘All that down home Celtic imagery and presentation is well and good, but does it rock,’ I hear you asking. Well, parts of it do.
Reviews
Album Review: DESULTORY Through Aching Aeons
Where the band, and Through Aching Aeons, is coming from is where they started off, albeit with years of experience and the restlessness of rejuvenation working in their favour.
Reviews
Album Review: DISBELIEF The Symbol of Death
"…contribute customarily down-picked thunder and chug that recall as much bright and sassy new school sludge as it does mid-tempo Bolt Thrower-inspired wrist-slitter riffs that’ll make you want to make nice with a bar of Irish Spring and an inner city fire hydrant…"
Reviews
Album Review THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA Amber Galactic
Melodic rock/AOR may not be as overtly popular as it was when bands were selling millions, but the “scene” appears to be as strong and healthy as ever. It’s a perfect time for The Night Flight Orchestra to thrive, and they’ve written an album that should help them do so.
Reviews
Album Review: FULL OF HELL Trumpeting Ecstasy
Trumpeting Ecstasy takes is one that follows the course and structure of the band’s live show and having Full of Hell pretty much put their collective head down and ram into your solar plexus at full force isn’t a bad thing.
Reviews
Album Review: ISIS - Live VII
When I sat down to review this, I wasn't sure what there would be to say about an album comprised of live versions of songs from seven years ago recorded a mere three months before the band called it quits. But this brief look into the ISIS canon illustrates why they were one of the most important and innovative bands of the first decade of the 21st century.
Reviews
Album Review: CRYSTAL FAIRY Crystal Fairy
Whether you’re a fan or not, it has to be recognized that there’s no band like the singular, shape-shifting force of musical nature and what guise the duo of Roger “Buzz” Osborne and Dale Crover are going to take is always unpredictably up in the air. Take that irreverence and have it fronted by the multi-faceted performance art approach of Le Butcherettes’ Terri Gender Bender, add Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from At the Drive-In/Mars Volta, a musical polymath in his own right, and…
Reviews
Album Review: BLACK STAR RIDERS Heavy Fire 1/27/17
Black Star Riders emerged when Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham had new material kicking around which he initially intended to showcase on a new Lizzy album a couple of years back. Three albums in and Heavy Fire continues the collision of down-to-earth pub rock and in-the-stadium-rafters anthems.
Reviews
Album Review: RANGER Speed & Violence
If you were expecting any amount of originality from Ranger’s second full length, you’ll definitely want to check that expectation at the door. If you enjoy Exciter, Razor and Anthrax's Fistful of Metal, welcome.
Reviews
Album Review: HAMMERFALL Built to Last
Whether you think positively or negatively about Hammerfall, the Swedes have to be respected for being one of the initial bands to break heavy metal from the doldrums created by the music industry’s obsession with finding the next Kurt Cobain and trying to replicate and extend the success of grunge back in the 90s. Ten albums in and things aren't so sunny.
Reviews
Album Review: BRAIN TENTACLES Brain Tentacles
Brain Tentacles obviously has connections to the jazz world, though they’re tempered with spines of noise rock, ambient, sludge, doom, progressive weirdness and space rock. They call it “sound adventure." So should we.
