Album review
Images and Words
Dream Theater
Pull Me Under gives Images and Words a clear point of entry. The opening atmosphere develops into a heavy, precise guitar figure, while James LaBrie's melody keeps the song im…
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Reviews
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Album review
Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle
Moonlight Sorcery
Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle gives black metal a strikingly exuberant side. Moonlight Sorcery combine sharp screams and fast riffs with melodies close to power metal. The…
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Album review
Master of Puppets
Metallica
The most impressive thing about Master of Puppets is how easy its complicated music is to follow. Metallica pack these songs with changes, but the important ideas stay clear. …
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Album review
The Hunting Party
Linkin Park
Linkin Park put the guitars firmly forward again on The Hunting Party. The electronic direction of their previous records makes room for a harder, more direct attack. This doe…
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Album review
The Boy Who Died Wolf
Highly Suspect
The Boy Who Died Wolf is more compelling when Highly Suspect commit to a mood than when they try to advertise their range. The album moves between thick guitar rock, atmospher…
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Album review
The Autumn Effect
10 Years
The Autumn Effect makes a strong case for atmosphere inside a fairly direct rock song. 10 Years have the heavy guitars and large choruses, but the quieter passages often carry…
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Album review
Veni Vidi Vicious
The Hives
Veni Vidi Vicious has little patience for a quiet introduction. The Hives push guitars and drums forward while Pelle Almqvist adds pressure with his shouting voice. He regular…
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Album review
Weather Systems
Anathema
Untouchable, Part 1 begins with an acoustic pattern that already contains a strong sense of movement. Anathema build around it until the voice and instruments seem to be reach…
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Album review
Blood Harmony
Larkin Poe
Blood Harmony makes Larkin Poe's strengths easy to hear. The guitars have weight and character, the singing is assured, and the rhythm section gives the songs a firm foundatio…
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Album review
Shogun
Trivium
Shogun gives Trivium's technical ambition a convincing sense of scale. The guitar parts are dense and demanding, but the songs usually make their purpose clear through a stron…
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Album review
Under Soil and Dirt
The Story So Far
Under Soil and Dirt moves with the confidence of a band that knows exactly where every beat should land. The guitars are busy, the drums change direction cleanly, and Parker C…
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Album review
moisturizer
Wet Leg
Wet Leg sound more willing to mean it on moisturizer. The jokes and strange little phrases are still there, but the second album gives love and desire more room to become actu…
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Album review
25 Trips
Sierra Hull
Sierra Hull makes more room around her mandolin on 25 Trips. The arrangements are fuller than on Weighted Mind and introduce new sounds, but her clear singing matters as much …
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Album review
The Octopus
Amplifier
Minion's Song gives The Octopus a surprisingly gentle point of entry. Piano and a small guitar line gradually acquire voices and drums, making Amplifier's large musical world …
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Album review
Meteora
Linkin Park
Meteora makes its strongest impressions in small spaces. Most of the songs are brief, but their opening sounds are distinct: a string loop, a processed guitar fragment, a flut…
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Album review
Covenant
Morbid Angel
Covenant finds its tension in the contrast between rapid death metal and passages that move with a much heavier tread. Morbid Angel do not need to increase the speed constantl…
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Album review
Ixnay on the Hombre
The Offspring
Gone Away changes the terms of Ixnay on the Hombre. Dexter Holland usually delivers his words as though volume might solve the problem. Here, his strained voice makes grief so…
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Album review
Bright as Blasphemy
Chevelle
Chevelle are good at making a song feel as though something is about to happen. Bright as Blasphemy is full of tense guitar parts, controlled rhythms and Pete Loeffler's uneas…
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Album review
Dancing in Hell
Eleine
Dancing in Hell gives the guitars a particularly prominent role. Eleine use orchestral sounds to enlarge the songs while allowing the riffs to drive them forward. Madeleine Li…
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Album review
Affinity
Haken
Affinity finds a productive use for synthetic sounds that can seem deliberately dated. Haken place bright keyboards and electronic drum colours inside heavy, changing arrangem…
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Album review
Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail
Noam Pikelny
Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail puts banjo at the front without reducing the other instruments to backing. Noam Pikelny plays precisely and has a fine sense of tone. He uses t…
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Album review
Obsidian
Northlane
Obsidian often feels closer to a dark dance record than its low guitars first suggest. Northlane lets electronic patterns control the motion, with heavy instrumental attacks e…
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Album review
In Contact
Caligula's Horse
Songs for No One gives In Contact an early emotional centre. The guitar can stand beside Jim Grey's voice, answer it with a clear melodic line, then push the whole arrangement…
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Album review
You Could Do It Tonight
Couch Slut
You Could Do It Tonight uses a clearer sound to make Couch Slut's music even more uncomfortable. Guitars remain heavy and the singing stays abrasive, but individual ideas emer…
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