“These days the word “fairytale” conjures up quesy images of watered-down Disney films, of sickly sweet soundtracks that work their way so far under your skin they freeze your blood, and of delightful princesses toiling away in grueling mediocrity until they fall into the strong arms of an musclebound Prince Charming to live happily ever after… and that’s not metal!” Madam X has issues with Disney and she can’t let them go. But this ain’t no damn fairytale!
“We all have our go-to bands or genres we seek out when in need of a break from the rigorous traits of extreme metal, whether it’s the riff heavy rock of Truckfighters, the spacey psych jams of Mars Red Sky, or the soulful occult doom of Witch Mountain. In recent years I’ve gravitated more and more towards the fuzzy, doomy end of the spectrum when I want to take it down a notch. Enter Philadelphia’s Ruby the Hatchet, yet another band to throw their hat in the “female fronted retro doom rock” ring.” Is she related to Molly Hatchet, by chance?
“I never got into the modern zombie craze. Maybe I just had too much of it when I was younger: in high school I played the Gamecube Resident Evil reboots with religious fervor and watched more George A. Romero movies than was probably healthy…thus, you can imagine my sentiments when assigned a promo from a South African band called Zombies Ate My Girlfriend. Not only is that moniker absolutely terrible, it blatantly panders to a trend that was stale two years ago – a trend that I never gave a shit about in the first place. However, as I learned with Calm Hatchery, a bad moniker doesn’t always equate to bad music.” Terrible name, terrible cover, but it’s the music that counts, you elitist snobs!
“I must have had the phrase “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” drilled into my head by every music teacher imaginable. Everybody practices chords and scales repeatedly, right? Riffs? Solos? You have to in order to succeed in anything. Well, how about songs? Japan’s newest export in industrialized noise metal, Legion of Andromeda, have set out to challenge your notions of what noise and repetition can create via their debut, Iron Scorn.” And who doesn’t like fudge?
“Given AMG and Steel Druhm’s well-documented love for power metal (Sonata Arctica, Riot, Edguy), it’s difficult to claim high profile names within the genre for review. The reviews I just linked were all within the last eight months, and 2015 alone has already seen well-received releases from Blind Guardian, Angra and Orden Ogan. Aside from demonstrating the corrupt poseurs masquerading as our leaders, this leaves us meager staff writers scraping the bottom of the power metal barrel…” Did El Cuervo just call the Metal Tribunal corrupt? That’s a paddlin’ offense.
“Loud, heavy, dense, raging, lacking any sort of subtlety or nuance – rarely has a band been so aptly named as Primitive Man. Self-releasing their debut to critical acclaim both here and across the metalogosphere, they followed it up with a series of splits before being snapped up by Relapse for their latest outburst of hatred. Their approach has remained pretty consistent across these releases: crank everything up until it feeds back, then hammer out the most repulsive blackened sludge they can conjure.” Better call your local Department of Sludge Control.
“Doom/death is a genre that’s really gotten under my skin over the past few years. And it seems to have left some kind of egg or parasitic hanger on, since I hunger for it more and more. That however, comes with a big caveat: it must be utterly doused in mood and atmosphere or be so insanely heavy it causes sinkholes.” Can a band made up of members from another doom/death band meet this stringent criteria?
“I’m just going to come out and say it. I enjoyed Dimmu Borgir’s big-assed Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia. Yep, I said it. Haters be a hatin’ but its elements of bombastic orchestration and “beauty and the beast” vocals introduced a balance of demonic and angelic qualities that expanded on a style bands like Emperor and Limbonic Art had/have nurtured for years.” Don’t hate the keyboards, hate the player.
“Having recently gone through some much-needed “downsizing” in my personal life, hitting the gym has become a more common activity for me, so I selfishly jumped at the chance to review Salvation’s début album, Resurrect the Tradition. Salvation is a hardcore band featuring alumni of various other hardcore bands (including bassist Gary Meskil of Pro-Pain and Crumbsuckers), and this music is tailor-made to be a real life Game Genie for workouts.” Need some heavy hardcore for your heavy lifting? This might be your Salvation.
“Nestled in the Southwest corner of Germany, Schwarzwald (Black Forest) provides writing inspiration to its native musical counterpart, Finsterforst (Dark Forest). Playing exactly the style of metal one would expect from their name, Finsterforst have been plugging their epic, folksy wares to the masses with four full-lengths now, and Mach Dich Frei does not stray far from their established formula. There are problems, but it’s very solid and enjoyable, drawing on Moonsorrow and Wintersun in crafting epic and heavy soundscapes.” Moonsorrow influenced epi-folk sounds good, right? But is it more moon or sorrow?
