FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
Marrow of the Spirit is not, personally, the musical paradigm shift that was Ashes Against The Grain. It is instead a welcome development of and contribution to Agalloch’s catalogue, an album that is a sure contender for the inevitable “best of” lists coming up.
I will say that while past albums from The Ocean excluding Heliocentric have had a lot of groove heavy riffs this album doesn’t really lock in a riff for too long. It is quite varied and I think that’s why it threw me at first. I was expecting the same type of formula as previous efforts but Anthropocentric has really stepped it up a notch in terms of an evolved sound.
The great pacing throughout the album makes you wonder why we haven’t heard such glorious blistering thrash from the lads earlier. Forbidden abandons any past or modern pretense and makes thrash metal vital again by combining heaviness, speed, melody, and technicality into a marvelously accessible package.
Every cover is so irritatingly faithful to the original version it’s aping –right down to sounding overproduced- that it’s painful. But try as they might, none of the covering vocalists here appear to possess an nth of the swagger and soul that Mr. Coverdale conveyed in his prime (even if he did nick it from Robert Plant).
Ever been totally shocked by an album that you figured you had pegged on name recognition alone? It’s dangerous to make assumptions like that and the most recent proof of that fact is the coolest thing about Bring Me The Horizon’s third album.
I feel this band always had this kind of album in them and now have fully realized their potential in Nucleus: a glorious heavy metal album that should put a shit-eating grin on every metal head’s face.
Women And Children Last isn’t a good “metal” album, it could at least be seen as a decent hard rock or hair metal record.
While this is a pretty decent record in its own right, I’m somewhat saddened that Zoroaster has moved away from its own unique take on
southern sludge towards a sound that can be filed next to Farflung, The Atlas Moth, and countless other bands.
Hybrid Child is effervescent and fun, a mostly harmless romp through progressive rock territory. District 97’s edge can be found in the way vocalist Leslie Hunt carries the melodies and the staccato riffing that anchors most of the tracks—you can sorta tell that a drummer composed them.
Imagine, if you will – a raw distillation of the best of the Amphetamine Reptile catalogue in its heyday, veering past the outskirts of black metal territory, and fronted by Supergrover, if he had a severe antisocial personality disorder coupled with a propensity to sing through ground-down teeth, in phlegm-clearing snarls, growls and shrieks. Congratulations, you’ve just come close to conjuring up Oslo’s startlingly visionary Årabrot and the sound of their latest blood offering, Revenge.