“Just like some albums are growers, you occasionally encounter one that takes time to reveal itself as garbage. It may seem like a potentially good time, but repeat listens magnify all the flaws to the point you can no longer fathom what attracted you in the first place. Not so with Apocalypse 2.0, an ostensibly progressive metal album by Blind Seer. I knew for a fact this was garbage after exactly nine seconds.” Seer the ear.
“I know you. You’re like me. You took one look at that hein(ie)ous album title, shook your head, and reported yourself to HR. The obliquely-named Return of the Cosmic Men marks the second effort from French power outfit Galderia, a band whose 2012 debut The Universality was decent but notable only for its group of eight vocal contributors. If Galderia wanted to beat my exceedingly low expectations, they were going to have to show me something special.” Who ordered the special with extra cheese?
“We at AMG live for finding the next big thing. There’s nothing quite like picking a random promo and finding yourself immersed in a monumental album of epic scope and peerless execution. But there’s something to be said for a tasty bout of hard, fast, and stupid.” Come for the riffs, stay for the stupids.
“I recently read an article stating cheese is good for you. Immediately I called up our promo list for March and scoured the piles of black metal releases for some suitable power metal. With Cellador spoken for (and spoken of), I grabbed what I hoped would be the next best thing: Dead of Night, the third album (but first in ten years, thus their anonymity) from Germanic power metallers Stormage. Which I pronounce the same way I say fromage, which of course is French for cheese.” When cheddar attacks.
“Life’s a wild, fucking adventure that’s about as satisfying as it is annoying. For every high, there’s a massive low. For every milestone, there’s a setback. For every breakthrough, there are countless failures. Sometimes it gets to the point where all you remember from one day to the next is the bullshit. What does this have to do with Stormhammer and their sixth LP Welcome to the End? A hell of a lot.” Life is pain and power metal can be too.
“Vendetta is a very old and very German band, with their full-length debut being released back in 1987. Like one particularly moronic German who took it upon himself to draw the dumbest conclusions out of philosophy’s oeuvre humanly possible, Vendetta really like the idea of Violent Revolution.” Who doesn’t like the idea of some vintage Kreator?
“Motörhead may no longer be around to kill your lawn but, in their wake, churn flotsam and jetsam inspired to take up the axe and split our eardrums asunder. The aptly titled Born Again proffer to raise a pint to the metal gods of yore with their debut Strike with Power in the hopes of rekindling the embers left by Lemmy, et al. The danger in carrying the flame left by music’s Übermensch is that it can be difficult to escape their long shadow and the line between homage and second-rate irrelevancy is thin.” We miss Lemmy.
“I’ve noticed something weird about me and death metal over the years. No matter how much of it I listen to, it seems like there’s always at least one more big-name underground band that I’ve somehow never come across. Recently, that band came in the form of Dutch quintet Sinister.” Where the hell have you been, Z?
“News from Germany, courtesy of power metal band Victorius: apparently it’s totally fine to remove pesky vowels from words as one sees fit, much in the same way the Brits pretentiously shove “u” into words that never needed it (let the comments war commence)!” Take a vowel, leave a vowel.
“Let’s play a game of ‘guess the genre!’ We have a band with a nondescript, vaguely fantasy-sounding name. Google betrays it to be the Ghanese word for ‘heart.’ The album name is Revangels, which I’m guessing is a contraction of revenge and angels? That seems likely, but I choose to believe it’s about angels that have become groupies for deceased drummer The Rev, instead because that’s more clever than the alternative.” Show no symphony.
