Things You Might Have Missed 2016

Siaskel – Haruwen Airen [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

Siaskel – Haruwen Airen [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

“Very few things impress me more than a band that knows how to incorporate ideas from their native lands or languages into their music. Take Orphaned Land’s beautiful incorporation of Middle-Eastern motifs in their message of unity, for example. I’m a sucker for this kind of sound.” Roots, bloody roots!

Far Beyond – A Frozen Flame of Ice [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

Far Beyond – A Frozen Flame of Ice [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

“Many have complained about 2016’s selection of great music, and not without reason; it can seem a bit lacking. Germany’s Far Beyond, the one-man project of Eugen Dodenhoeft, decided to roll with the simplest solution of all to 2016’s musical woes: stop releasing music that isn’t great. With this, A Frozen Flame of Ice was born. That was simple enough to fix.

Astronoid – Air [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

Astronoid – Air [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

“Fearless. That’s the word I keep coming back to when trying to describe this Boston quintet’s debut. Sure, there may be better ways to describe the music – carefree, blissful, soaring – but nothing captures the spirit of Air quite like “fearless.”” Fear is the mind killer.

EP Edition [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

EP Edition [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

“Another year, another influx of new readers and writers at this mighty blog. Yet compared to those previously, this year has seen a significant growth in the consistency of our posts. A sad consequence of this is that EPs have increasingly fallen by the wayside as reviews of shitty full-length albums are summarily assigned to the probationary writers with reckless abandon.” We fixed the glitch.

Protest the Hero – Pacific Myth EP [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

Protest the Hero – Pacific Myth EP [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

“In the past, mentioning Protest the Hero among the trve resulted in long side-eyes or questions of “Are they really metal?” (I can’t wait to see how well this review goes over.) But since we let a certain fat-lipped band in here, you’re damn sure I’m going to feature my favorite Verb the Noun.” Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

Avenged Sevenfold – The Stage [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

Avenged Sevenfold – The Stage [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

“If you’re anything like me, you have probably avoided Avenged Sevenfold for a long time after hearing their older work, which was so firmly planted in the land of metalcore it didn’t seem like they would climb out of it at any point. Though they did display some growth on their work past City of Evil, they continued to be a turn-off with juvenile lyrics that tried far too hard to be edgy. So if you’re anything like me, you might be skeptical when I say The Stage is a great progressive metal album. Yet here we are.” Yep, here we are all right.