Album review
All Killer No Filler
Sum 41
Sum 41 are not especially interested in making the teenage years sound dignified on All Killer No Filler. They make them sound loud, excitable and easily distracted instead. T…
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Reviews
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Album review
Aspiral
Epica
Epica start Aspiral with a song. That sounds like a fairly basic observation, but for a band that usually enjoy a proper orchestral introduction, it's a useful statement of in…
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Album review
Arise
Sepultura
Sepultura keep the attack fierce on Arise, but the arrangements reveal a band interested in more than speed. The guitars move between tightly packed thrash patterns and heavie…
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Album review
Your Wilderness
The Pineapple Thief
The space around the instruments is one of Your Wilderness's most effective sounds. The Pineapple Thief allow a drum accent or a guitar note to alter the atmosphere without im…
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Album review
C'est La Vie
Novelists
C'est La Vie makes technical metalcore unusually easy to enter. Novelists keep the complicated guitar work and heavy rhythmic attack, but most songs have a clear verse-and-cho…
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Album review
Badmotorfinger
Soundgarden
Soundgarden make being difficult sound remarkably enjoyable on Badmotorfinger. The riffs turn in unusual places, Chris Cornell pushes his voice to extraordinary heights, and t…
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Album review
Mezmerize
System of a Down
Two voices keep pulling Mezmerize in different directions. Serj Tankian's broad, theatrical delivery meets Daron Malakian's thinner, more cutting tone, and the songs often dep…
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Album review
Eupnea
Pure Reason Revolution
Eupnea finds a powerful musical subject in the act of breathing. The music repeatedly opens into calm space, tightens around a heavy rhythmic figure, then searches for room ag…
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Album review
Holy Ground
The Dead Daisies
Glenn Hughes gives Holy Ground a clear center. His voice can rise high above the guitars without losing its soulful character, and his bass playing adds a strong rhythmic iden…
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Album review
What It Means to Fall Apart
Mayday Parade
What It Means to Fall Apart finds Mayday Parade working inside a familiar mixture of bright pop-rock, emo and more fragile ballads. Derek Sanders' singing remains easy to conn…
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Album review
The Hives Forever Forever the Hives
The Hives
There is a fairly impressive amount of confidence in calling an album The Hives Forever Forever the Hives. Fortunately, the band have brought enough songs to support the claim…
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Album review
This Place Will Become Your Tomb
Sleep Token
Atlantic gives This Place Will Become Your Tomb a patient, affecting entrance. The piano leaves gaps around Vessel's voice, and the arrangement allows unease to accumulate bef…
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Album review
Frames
Oceansize
A repeated figure can feel different without changing its notes. Frames is full of that possibility. Oceansize alter the rhythm, space and instrumental emphasis around a recog…
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Album review
Rockisdead
Dorothy
Dorothy Martin gives Rockisdead its strongest reason to exist. The songs use familiar blues rock ingredients, but her voice makes their intentions feel immediate: anger, desir…
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Album review
Wake Up the Wicked
Powerwolf
Powerwolf have found a very specific combination of organs, choirs, heavy guitars and questionable religious behaviour, and Wake Up the Wicked keeps it working. The songs are …
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Album review
Fiction
Dark Tranquillity
The keyboards on Fiction make Dark Tranquillity's heaviness feel colder and more spacious. Martin Brändström places electronic textures and piano around the guitars without re…
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Album review
Permanent Waves
Rush
The Spirit of Radio begins Permanent Waves with a guitar figure that seems to keep opening another door. Rush fit rhythmic shifts, a strong vocal hook and a brief reggae turn …
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Album review
Never Take Friendship Personal
Anberlin
Never Take Friendship Personal brings together two sides of Anberlin that make each other stronger. The guitars hit with a sharp physical force, while Stephen Christian sings …
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Album review
Fauna
Haken
Fauna uses animals as a way to approach human concerns, but its most persuasive arguments are musical. Haken give the songs different kinds of movement and character, allowing…
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Album review
For the People
Dropkick Murphys
Dropkick Murphys are angry on For the People, but they haven't forgotten how to make good company out of it. The record moves between political frustration, old friends, famil…
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Album review
Screaming for Vengeance
Judas Priest
Judas Priest find an excellent balance between menace and invitation on Screaming for Vengeance. The riffs are sharp, the choruses are generous, and Rob Halford can turn a str…
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Album review
Enema of the State
Blink-182
Blink-182 make uncertainty sound remarkably confident on Enema of the State. The guitars arrive cleanly, the choruses are easy to remember, and Travis Barker keeps adding move…
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Album review
The Number of the Beast
Iron Maiden
Bruce Dickinson's voice gives The Number of the Beast a sense of scale that the guitars are happy to match. He can sound commanding, alarmed or unexpectedly vulnerable, often …
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Album review
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine make an unusually convincing argument for four people being enough. The guitar produces sounds that don't seem entirely reasonable, the bass and drums…
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