Reviews – Audio

Accept – Blood Of The Nations

Helped by the fantastic production of Andy Sneap, you have the perfect combination of old school Accept with a modern touch. All their trademarks are here. Excellent riffs that are undeniably Accept in feel/tone, with those huge gang vocals and twin guitar attack will have you grinning from ear to ear.

Kvelertak – Kvelertak

Kvelertak hold nothing sacred, aren’t afraid to whip out their six schlongs to piss on the walls of convention and are getting the appropriate attention – both positive and negative – because of it, whether you like it or not. It all starts with their sound: a furious, kinetic and coruscating blend of 85 octane burnin’ garage rock, greasy punk, blues, hardcore, Motorhead, black and death metal. They manage to sound like all of the above without exactly sounding like any of ‘em,

Black Sleep Of Kali – Our Slow Decay

The band’s first full-length, Our Slow Decay, constantly balances a tightrope between pronounced shades of Times Of Grace-era post-apocalypso, and modern-era thrash gallop on a par with Baroness, Bison, or High on Fire. As well, occasionally, the kind of vocal harmony work pops up that wouldn’t be out of place on an early ‘90s Dischord album – and holding the whole thing down, one hell of a masterful drummer in the drunken-fisted Gordon Koch. The band’s equally at home tossing around monolithic lightning bolts of slab-dirge as they are trotting through bone-jarring warhorse crunch, and Our Slow Decay is tempered with each equally.

Beneath The Massacre – Maree Noire

“Musically this album doesn’t deviate from the standard computer like sound of BTM past works. It has everything you would expect, ridiculously fast double kick, guitar licks like a robot was playing the 6 stringer and vocals guttural and abrasive enough to use on paint you need removed.”

Hellbound’s Matt Lewis discusses Maree Noire, the latest output from Quebec death metallers, Beneath the Massacre.

Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction – We Are Volsung

People reading this review will probably be split in two groups: the people who have no frackin’ clue who Zodiac Mindwarp is and the people who thought he died after 1988’s Tattooed Beat Messiah. There might be a couple of you who know that Zodiac has been (not so) quietly making new records and playing gigs ever since being dropped from his label in 1990. However, this is the first record in 20 years that actually has a label attached to it with any sort of clout and SPV have jumped on at an absolutely brilliant point. We Are Volsung is a monster hard rock record!

Jason Wellwood praises the latest release from the relatively obscure Zodiac Mindwarp, who together with The Love Reaction, have released a gem entitled “We Are Volsung”