Album review
Diotima
Krallice
For Krallice, playing together means much more than delivering the same riff at once. Diotima continually changes the relationships between guitars, bass and drums. Sometimes …
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Reviews
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Album review
Feel It All Around
Soul Blind
Soul Blind understand the value of leaving room around a heavy riff. Feel It All Around uses dense guitars and strong grooves, but the New York band's debut rarely needs to mo…
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Album review
Colter Wall
Colter Wall
Colter Wall's low voice gives his self-titled album a strong identity before the arrangements need to do very much. Rough and heavy, it can make a simple line sound worn by ex…
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Album review
Silence
Sonata Arctica
Melody comes first on Silence. Sonata Arctica play quickly and have plenty of technical skill, but the vocal lines provide the strongest reason to return. Tony Kakko sounds ea…
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Album review
Undercurrent
Sarah Jarosz
Undercurrent finds Sarah Jarosz doing more with a smaller sound. Guitar takes a central place alongside her banjo and octave mandolin, while the arrangements leave her voice c…
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Album review
The New Breed
Jeff Parker
The New Breed has the loose movement of a jazz group and the concentrated rhythms of a carefully made beat. Jeff Parker lets those approaches run together. Samples and older r…
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Album review
Longing
Bell Witch
Longing creates a particularly spacious sound from very few instruments. Bell Witch need bass guitar, drums and voices to give their slow songs weight. The space between notes…
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Album review
Stupid Dream
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree bring their melodies closer to the foreground on Stupid Dream. The British band’s fifth album keeps the atmosphere and instrumental detail of their progressive …
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Album review
Comalies
Lacuna Coil
Comalies does not need complicated riffs to create a strong atmosphere. On this 2002 album, Lacuna Coil use firm guitars, layers of keyboards and two different voices to colou…
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Album review
Happiness Bastards
The Black Crowes
Happiness Bastards puts the Black Crowes' rock songs ahead of their more extended instrumental habits. The ten tracks move quickly, with producer Jay Joyce keeping the sound d…
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Album review
Holocene
The Ocean
Holocene puts electronic sound near the centre of The Ocean's music. Synthesizers, brass colour and cleaner singing create a darker, more restrained setting than a constant se…
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Album review
Wonder What's Next
Chevelle
Wonder What's Next gives Chevelle's heavy rock a clear sense of purpose. The riffs are simple enough to follow quickly, but the band use changes in pressure and a strong vocal…
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Album review
Deceiver
DIIV
Deceiver gives DIIV's soft singing and dreamy guitars a heavier foundation. The distortion sounds fuller and the songs allow larger differences between quiet and loud passages…
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Album review
Twin Galaxies
Delta Sleep
Twin Galaxies has plenty of complicated rhythms, but Delta Sleep use them to write strong songs. The guitars sound bright and restless, the drums can change direction without …
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Single review
Ghost Code
Smash Into Pieces
Smash Into Pieces is back with a new album. Full disclosure: I've been a fan of theirs for years, but for me they've never topped their album Rise and Shine, which is probably…
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Album review
The Perfume of Decay
Tigercub
The Perfume of Decay puts a darker tone around Tigercub's heavy rock. Fuzzy guitars and thick bass lines carry most of the weight, while Jamie Hall's voice often stays softer …
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Album review
Guilty of Everything
Nothing
Guilty of Everything finds a powerful balance between a gentle voice and a heavy band. Nothing place hushed melodies inside layers of distorted guitar, with bass and drums giv…
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Album review
Dealer
Foxing
Dealer makes Foxing's emotional rock feel more contained and detailed. The songs leave room between the instruments, letting Conor Murphy's voice move from a delicate murmur t…
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Album review
Melinoë
Akhlys
Melinoë gives its dark atmosphere a very physical form. Akhlys place fast drums, sharp guitars and distorted voices over one another until the music has almost no empty spaces…
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Album review
A Place of Our Own
Have Mercy
A Place of Our Own gives Have Mercy's emotional rock a more polished outline. The guitars sound firm and the songs move towards their strongest moments with greater certainty.…
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Album review
The Things We Think We're Missing
Balance and Composure
The Things We Think We're Missing surrounds its melodies with a thick layer of guitar. Balance and Composure mix the directness of emo with slower alternative rock, leaving Jo…
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Album review
Mother Earth
Within Temptation
Mother Earth places the central part of Within Temptation's sound with Sharon den Adel and the symphonic arrangements. Heavy guitars remain present, but they no longer determi…
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Album review
Carpathia: A Dramatic Poem
The Vision Bleak
Carpathia: A Dramatic Poem brings The Vision Bleak's heavy guitars and orchestral arrangements together around a dark, theatrical atmosphere. Deep singing gives the music a cl…
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Album review
Habits
Elephant Tree
Habits makes room for a surprisingly gentle side of heavy rock. Elephant Tree keep the thick guitar sound and firm rhythms of stoner music, then add melodic voices, warm synth…
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