Album reviews

Just like "Back in the Day"...

Wi nøt trei a høliday in Øakland this yër?

"You're struck by lightning..."

Council for upcoming death metal bands, if anything.

Lemme check... Yeah, it really has been fucking 14 years since I heard anything outta Soulfly – 2008's splendid "Conquer" album. And seeing as how that was their 6th, that means I've been missing out on HALF of their back catalogue, with "Totem" being their 12th full-length.

Death metal album of the year?

Yes, I know this review's been some time coming. But hey, so has this album.

Another reason to tour, all else being equal

Decapitated is one of those sadly few bands that are seemingly unable to make a bad album. Even their weakest effort – 2004's "The Negation" – is still pretty damn solid. And at the risk of spoiling this review up front, well, they just did it again.

Best thing outta Greece since Metaxa...?

Though I was hugely into Rammstein around the turn of the century, they kinda lost me around 2004's "Reise, Reise". The stuff I've heard since then has mostly been either acceptable, but not exciting ("Mein Teil"; "Keine Lust") or silly and a bit annoying ("Pussy"; "Amerika").

An open letter to an unfairly overlooked institution in rock

If you had no idea who Destruction are, and if you couldn't tell just from looking at the album cover, you'd still be able to hear within the first couple of seconds of "Diabolical's" title track that you're in for a thrash metal album. In fact, this album is so thrash metal, I'm gonna try to not use that term more than absolutely necessary here....

No reason to mute anything anyway

It's a heart-warming testament to the longevity of AOR that a band like FM has managed to resurrect themselves in the current century and sustain a career on sounding like a tad harder, more streamlined version of early-'90s Toto. Stuff like that happens, you know the world's not all bad.

No offense to any fans of Ghost out there, but I haven't been following along since their first couple of albums, and after my first spin of this, their 5th one, I was ready to just leave this review be.

The last HammerFall album I got was 2009's "No Sacrifice, No Victory". A fine album. Better than its two predecessors, but not as good as the band's classics, and definitely nowhere near their masterpiece, "Crimson Thunder" (2002).

So far, my familiarity with Author & Punisher – a.k.a. Tristan Shone – has been limited to the one show I saw him play in Denmark in 2019. It was a near-mind-expanding display of cold, inhuman soundscapes not unlike how you'd imagine the sonic backdrop for when Skynet becomes self-aware and the machines take over.

In a world as tumultuous as it's been these last six years, there are certain constants of nature acting as lifelines. One such lifeline is heavy metal.

I can't believe this is happening. I cannot believe that Magnum – the world's most unfairly overlooked hard rock group – is still putting out such high-quality material. In fact, I might start to cry with joy writing this review.

I only discovered Archspire a couple of weeks ago. I was blown away. And all the more so after several spins of this, their fourth long-player.

A long due return to swashbuckling form

With an uncanny resemblance to another classic one-man governed band – Germany's Running Wild – Ministry mastermind Al Jourgensen broke up with himself from around 2009, but reformed with himself again after a couple of years and kept on releasing albums.

After six years, Britain's finest reclaim their rightful title