Album review
Tell All Your Friends
Taking Back Sunday
Two people trying to finish the same argument can make a remarkable amount of noise. On Tell All Your Friends, Adam Lazzara and John Nolan turn overlapping vocals into the mai…
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Album review
Sehnsucht
Rammstein
Sehnsucht makes Rammstein's heavy movement more direct and melodic. The guitars still strike in short, hard bursts, but keyboards play a larger role in making the songs recogn…
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Album review
Ride the Lightning
Metallica
Metallica make a surprisingly wide world out of eight songs on Ride the Lightning. There is speed, certainly, but there is also room for dread, melody and a quieter kind of de…
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Idol
Horrendous
Idol makes its complicated music appealing through constant movement. Horrendous switch between heavy riffs, flexible bass lines and melodies which unexpectedly rise above the…
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Album review
Animals
Pink Floyd
Animals is a bitter record with a remarkably expressive band inside it. Roger Waters' portraits of power, competition and obedience are severe, but the music keeps finding nua…
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Album review
Joy as an Act of Resistance.
IDLES
Joy as an Act of Resistance. uses a hard sound to deliver an unusually open message. IDLES sing about vulnerability, connection and leaving harmful ideas about masculinity beh…
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viagr aboys
Viagra Boys
Sebastian Murphy can make an ordinary problem sound deeply strange. On viagr aboys, a trip to the vet or a concern about health can turn into a ridiculous story with something…
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Album review
The Sonics Boom
The Sonics
The Sonics Boom preserves the band's hard centre while revealing where their approach works less naturally. The best songs deliver simple riffs and a wild voice so firmly that…
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Audio Vertigo
Elbow
Yeah. Elbow. There's something funny about this album. I've listened to it front to back maybe 30 times by now. And for some reason I still don't really know what to think. Do…
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Album review
A Fever You Can't Sweat Out
Panic! at the Disco
Panic! at the Disco have enough ideas on A Fever You Can't Sweat Out to make a much less organised record. Electronic beats, bright synthesizers, piano flourishes and theatric…
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Album review
Rust in Peace
Megadeth
On Rust in Peace, Megadeth make difficult playing sound urgent rather than academic. Dave Mustaine's riffs keep changing direction, but the songs have clear points of arrival.…
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Outside the Box
Hacktivist
On Outside the Box, Hacktivist place two voices against an almost unbending wall of guitars. J Hurley and Ben Marvin rap quickly and forcefully, while the riffs hit hard and r…
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Album review
Moving Pictures
Rush
Moving Pictures makes difficult playing feel immediately memorable. Rush give each of its seven songs a clear identity, with a guitar figure, bass movement or drum accent ofte…
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Album review
Oshin
DIIV
The guitars do most of the storytelling on Oshin. They interlock, move melodies past each other and give the music a gently floating quality. The quiet singing sits much furth…
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Album review
The Shit ov God
Behemoth
The title of The Shit ov God does a fairly efficient job of introducing Behemoth's position. Subtlety has taken the day off. The more interesting part is whether the music giv…
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Album review
From Birth to Burial
10 Years
The heaviest parts of From Birth to Burial feel connected to something more interesting than volume. Jesse Hasek sounds unsettled even when he is singing cleanly, and the guit…
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Come Clarity
In Flames
Come Clarity is driven by the way its guitars and vocal hooks compete for attention. In Flames puts sharp harmonized leads beside large choruses, making the songs feel immedia…
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Exercises in Futility
Mgła
Exercises in Futility shows how powerful repetition can be when the details keep moving. Mgła build their black metal from clear guitar patterns, harsh vocals and drums which …
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I.O.U.
Allan Holdsworth
I.O.U. gives Allan Holdsworth's unusual guitar language a compact, focused setting. The music combines flowing lead lines, rich chords and a rhythm section that can change dir…
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Album review
The Dark Third
Pure Reason Revolution
The voices on The Dark Third often seem to belong to the atmosphere as much as to individual singers. Jon Courtney and Chloë Alper build harmonies that float through the guita…
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Album review
Stoner Witch
Melvins
Stoner Witch brings the Melvins closer to rock songs while retaining their taste for strange detours. The best pieces combine recognisable riffs with rhythms that move slightl…
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The Sound of Madness
Shinedown
Brent Smith is the main reason The Sound of Madness works as well as it does. He can give a heavy song enough force to cut through the guitars, then make a much quieter melody…
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Album review
In Love and Death
The Used
The Used are especially convincing when they sound impatient on In Love and Death. Take It Away gets the album moving with hard guitars and a vocal that keeps changing shape u…
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Album review
Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever
Explosions in the Sky
On Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever, Explosions in the Sky give a beautiful melody and a heavy outburst equal importance. Both e…
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