Chris Black has this little act called Dawnbringer….they kinda rule.
The Agonist – Prisoners Review
When an album lands in my inbox accompanied by an apology from Angry Metal Guy himself, you know it’s gonna be a rough listen.
Fear Factory – The Industrialist Review
Fear Factory was pretty revolutionary back in their beginnings. That was then, this is less than wow.
Ihsahn – Eremita Review
Post-Emporer, Ihsahn has kicked a lot of ass, but After was a controversial record without a doubt. While I gave it my thumbs up at the time, I feel like it hasn’t aged well—with the saxophone performance being my biggest complaint. Sure, jazz and metal have histories of solo players who push the boundaries of what is “acceptable,” but the saxophone performances get pretty taxing after a while. So for me, the thing that I’m looking for from a new Ihsahn record is that it lives up to the songwriting and groove-oriented riffing from The Adversary and especially angL which is one of my favorite records of the last 10 years. So, as you can guess, I approached Eremita (Latin for “hermit” and the root of the English word “eremite” if you weren’t aware) nervously.
Jorn – Bring Heavy Rock to the Land Review
Yeah, I’m a Jorn fanboy! Wanna make something out of it? Do ya???
90s Metal Weirdness: Body Count – Body Count
Cast your minds back to a time when metal music was not cool. Nay, indeed, a time when metal was anathema to all that was considered to be “chic” and “in.” A time when your favorite bands were actually encouraged by the music industry to play slower, cut their hair, and write sensitive lyrics about their childhoods. Yes, this unfortunately really happened.
Our new semi-irregular feature “90s Metal Weirdness” focuses on albums released between 1992 and 2001 and which we all probably would rather forget. But in the service of publicly shaming the musicians involved, we have pushed forward. — AMG
Blind Guardian – Memories of a Time to Come Review
I commented yesterday on Twitter and Facebook that if a band I listen to deserves a Best Of record, it’s Blind Guardian. That wasn’t just a comment out of nowhere, instead that was me reacting to this monster of a digital edition of Memories of a Time to Come. But after three hours of listening to Blind Guardian, I have to say that their ideas of what their best material is and mine don’t seem to quite overlap. Let me explain…
Record(s) o’ the Month – May 2012
As Angry Metal Guy, He Who Needs No Titles but Has Them Anyway, Angry Metal Emperor of Angry Metal Internetia, I take it upon myself to give a single recommendation of the best album that was released in a single month which I put up on the sidebar. However, May has been a particularly good month. So while I am going to recommend a single record and stick it on the sidebar, I believe that it is important that we actually tell you about four records that deserve your attention. So let me get to it.
Kreator – Phantom Antichrist Review
Germanic thrash lords return to fight for relevancy, glory and the iron throne of thrash.
Horseback – Half Blood Review
Just as those proponents of the early 20th Century avant-garde cultural movement that seeked to release the creative potential of the subconscious mind called themselves “Surrealists”, Horseback mastermind Jenks Miller probably thinks of himself as one too when it comes to this eclectic project of his which fuses psychedelia, drone metal, and noise music together.
