“At Bloodstock Open Air 2018, I was able to spend an hour with the Leeds-based progressive black metal Victorian menagerie that is A Forest of Stars. They had just finished their set on the Sophie Lancaster Stage and were riding a wave of adrenaline that placed them in an excitable, energetic, and joyous mood.” A day in the forest…with stars.
“Well I’ll be damned. It looks like your friendly neighborhood Steel Druhm swiped a King Diamond / Mercyful Fate worshiping band out from under the usually vigilant Doc Grier while he was sleeping with his back turned. U.K.’s The Heretic Order rock a kind of sloppy, sleazy mash-up of Kingly hits and meat n’ taters heavy metal, and they do so with the grace and subtlety of a gaggle of drunken bikers.” No order, no mercy.
“Cathedral left such a gaping hole in the doom metal scene when they dissolved back in 2013. Sure, they dabbled in some rather goofy disco moments, and 2010’s The Guessing Game was an exercise in headfuckery, but when they brought the heavy, it was delivered by a fleet of Mack trucks. Calling them a massive influence would be understating the obvious in extremes. So when younger bands such as Hampshire’s Witchsorrow come along with a sound eerily like their forefathers, I tend to get a bit weary. Now on their fourth album, Hexenhammer, the British trio hope to impress the grumpy old man-cat from Blashyrkh, Florida…” Lord Of Hexhammers.
“When does homage cross over into plagiarism? When does admiration become unhealthy obsession? These are questions one must confront when reviewing Hellhound by U.K. traditional metal fiends, Monument. Sporting several former members of White Wizzard, the band unsurprisingly sets out to showcase their love of 80s metal in ways so shameless and graphic, decorum almost prevents me from discussing them here. Almost.” Hellhounds and copycats.
“I’ve been a fan of England’s Coldbones since the very beginning of this review. Though the trio of Tory’s has been doing their cold and bony thing since at least 2014, I began this adventure with zero prior exposure to these kids from Kent, selecting this one solely for the band name. Progressive shoegaze may be the genre tag, but the imagery evoked by that namesake brought tidings of darkness just as grim as blackened—anything and I was worried that there was too much happiness in my life as of late, so here we are at Where It All Began. Now let’s, like, begin.” Shoe believer.
“The first time I sat down with The Hallowing of Heirdom, I was in denial. With every song, I expected the sky to crack open and a dark sheet of black rain to pour from blood-red clouds. It never happened. And, as a result, I’m going to try to rate, compare, and measure The Hallowing of Heirdom against Winterfylleth’s decade of atmospheric black metal records. For how much I hate the phrase, this is like comparing apples to oranges.” Strum and drag.
“Prog rock pedigree? Check. Reputable prog rock label? Check. An obligatory thirteen-year gap in albums? Check. The latest album from English progressive rock trio Kino, Radio Voltaire, checks a lot of boxes.” Box radio?
“It apparently takes a lot to incite Madam X‘s fervor these days. Her list of the top 10 albums of 2016 was not a “best of” but a “least disliked” while the 2017 edition reduced this list to a paltry 5. And yet a little English band called Conjurer and their debut full-length called Mire grabbed her attention and converted it to an active recommendation within our internal channels. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there are other writers with whom I share more musical preferences, but the promise of a chunky, riff-lead, progressive album was too enticing to ignore.” Listen to the Madam.
“Having spent the last month immersed in the back-catalog of the legendary Judas Priest, a nagging thought kept running wild through my mind. What if I get through this ginormous ranking of the Priest albums, designed to coincide with their latest release, only to hate it and have to bash it? As a life-long fan, that idea didn’t really fill me with joy, but all I could do was grit my teeth, get the countdown done and hope there was a decent album waiting for me on the other side.” Heavy guns on sad wings.
“If it wasn’t obvious already, dynamic UK duo Slugdge is the real-fucking deal. Across their first three LP’s Slugdge shook off any suggestion they were a flash in the pan gimmick band, moving in advanced directions beyond their strange and humorous slug-obsessed philosophy and creative song title puns, to forge a wonderfully versatile and fiercely unique extreme metal hybrid. From modest cult heroes, Slugdge are now on the cusp of entering the big leagues.” Look at that escargot!
