“Many years ago now, I caught a gig by a personal favorite, The Mars Volta. They had just released Frances the Mute and were touring in support of that great record. Sadly, this ranks as among the worst gigs as I’ve ever been to. The band themselves appeared to be off their faces and played only one discernible song over an hour into the jam session, at which point I left. I have similar feelings about For the Masses.” Fit for mass consumption?
“After almost six years of reviewing here, I’ve noticed American bands latching on to certain trends. Just a decade ago, everyone and their cousin was aping the Gothenburg sound, mixing it with d-beats and hardcore (and some whiny) vocals, and calling it a day. Nowadays, doom is the nectar du jour, and many a band is gulping it. Here in America, you have two prevalent strains: the airy, dreamy, almost progressive take that bands like YOB, Khemmis, and especially Pallbearer have crafted, and then there’s the so-70s-your-sideburns-are-showing Blue Oyster Cult Scoobie-Doobie-Doom “Occult” doom that’s been sweeping the nation. So which side does Invocation of the Lucifer, the second album by Cincinnati upstarts Cult of Sorrow, land?” Culting the herd.
“I love imagining new music genres. What if somebody made blackened thrash with cleanly sung choruses? What if somebody made war metal with melodic death metal riffs? What if somebody made music like The Acacia Strain that was actually good? California’s Here Lies Man asked their own version of this question: what if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat?” World music downfall.
“Lavinia is a four-piece post-rock/emo outfit from New Hampshire with members from Caspian, The Appleseed Cast, and The Burning Paris. How their Pax Aeternum sophomore effort Sallowed ended up on the angriest metal site this side of the planet, I will never know.” Sallow your pride.
