The Dear Hunter

Mile Marker Zero – The Fifth Row Review

Mile Marker Zero – The Fifth Row Review

“My heart may belong to metal, but it was Coheed and Cambria that cemented my love for rock music. One of my favorite bands to this day, C&C’s influence on my musical tastes has resonated long into my twenties, with sonically similar acts like The Dear Hunter helping to keep me invested in their particular blend of modern alternative and progressive rock. It’s surprising to me then, as a fan of such a specific style, that I’d never encountered Connecticut’s Mile Marker Zero.” Prog is a highway, and you’re gonna ride it.

Haken – Affinity Review

Haken – Affinity Review

Haken have rapidly become one of my favorite bands in the world. Since my introduction with 2013’s The Mountain I’ve retraced their steps back through Visions and Aquarius – both slightly uneven stylistically and in terms of quality but with truly exemplary moments – and eagerly devoured their revised versions of older tracks on their 2014 EP, Restoration. I’ve seen them live twice and would be seeing them again in a month but for some pesky exams which will impact my future. It was therefore with great enthusiasm that I sat down with their fourth album Affinity.” Warning: fanboys may drool uncontrollably.

Soen – Tellurian Review

Soen – Tellurian Review

Soen’s Cognitive, which was released in 2012, was the band’s debut and it bore a striking resemblance to the work of Tool and, to be fair, A Perfect Circle. Despite this undeniable likeness, the record was chock full of fat grooves, great writing, beautiful vocal performances from vocalist Eklöf and amazing performances from all the musicians—but especially metal’s best bassist (Steve Digiorgio if there’s any doubt) and one of metal’s best drummers (Martin Lopez). I’ve often felt a bit guilty for labeling Cognitive as too derivative, because despite the sound it has been a regular on my playlist since then—and I would hate to be responsible for pigeonholing a band before they had time to develop; great debuts are few and far between.” But the operative question is: can Soen step through Tool’s shadow and come out the other side?

Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10 Songs from 2011

Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10 Songs from 2011

We made it through another year here in Angry Metal World. We overcame Terminal Reviewer Burnout Syndrome, careers and personal lives, just to bring you more of our self-righteous, ego-driven babbling and blathering. Why did we do it? Because we care so damn much! Now, as the year grinds us all towards inevitable doom, it falls to me to get the metal wheel a rollin and name my picks for the best albums of 2011. This was a pretty solid year, so it was tough to figure out which albums belonged where, but you demanded it, so I’m delivering the goods, Yeah!

Thomas Giles – Pulse Review

Thomas Giles – Pulse Review

Oh man, the Internetz are abuzz with love for this record already. Apparently everyone and their dog who runs a review website got this album 3 months ago and has been subsequently shitting themselves over the awesome!!!! that is Thomas Giles’ Pulse. A bit of background information as to why that might be. Yeah, because this is the vocalist from Between the Buried and Me. Yup. That’s it. I want to state with all certainty that if this were an independent record put out by a dude actually named Thomas Giles who wasn’t in a band that was well-respected even though being associated with a scene that everyone hates, this record would not be listened to by metal guys or reviewed on a metal website. Because this record is not metal. It contains minor bits o’ metal, but it for the large part a progressive-indie-electronica record. So be forewarned.

Three – Revisions Review

Three – Revisions Review

Progressive rock and metal have been looking for a new band to update the genre with something new and original for a long time. While the progressive metal sub-genre has expanded outward, it seems like progressive rock has been left to whiny emo kids and their pretentious and totally incomprehensible space odysseys. Though in recent times bands like The Dear Hunter have started to appear, they tend to be far more eclectic, and rock oriented than I think many fans of progressive guitar rock are really looking for. So when Three burst onto the scene a few years back and was, really, the first band to do something new and interesting with progressive rock since the mid-90s, they began getting some well-deserved attention.

Angry Metal Guy’s Playlist August 22nd – August 29th

These last couple weeks have been pretty crazy for this Angry Metal Guy. I’ve moved south from the fair city of UmeÃ¥, to the much bigger (and arguably fairer) city of Uppsala. While I miss Norrland, I do have to say that I’m quite enjoying certain aspects of the student culture in the city of […]