2022

WAIT – The End of Noise Review

WAIT – The End of Noise Review

“Time WAITs for no sponge. This apparently holds true for my unfortunate green friend to my left, the sands of time quite literally gushing out of his be-hourglassed noggin. The oddly disturbing artwork depicting this surreal injury translates to the weird and wacky, grungy prog-death stylings of Baltimore’s WAIT (short for We are in Transit). A supergroup of sorts, the trio pulls from the pool of live performers who jammed for acts ranging from Cynic to Defeated Sanity to Obscura, so it comes as no surprise to me that debut album The End of Noise promises to be a twisted and technical affair.” Difficult commute.

Hammr – Eternal Possession Review

Hammr – Eternal Possession Review

“I’m kind of obsessed with hammers. Write a song about hammers, and I’ll probably like it. Include “hammer” as part of your band name, and I’ll probably like your band. In a roleplaying game, make hammers a wieldable weapon, and, by god, I’m going to wield one (or two). I don’t know how to build shit, but I own a framing hammer and sleep with it next to my bed for personal protection. I use a twenty-pound sledge for my conditioning workouts, often while Asphyx’s “Deathhammer” plays in the background on repeat. Anyway, now you know why I felt so compelled to give Cleveland’s Hammr a swing.” Hammr time.

Sarcasm – Stellar Stream Obscured Review

Sarcasm – Stellar Stream Obscured Review

“If you like old-school Swedeath, old-school black metal, old-school doom, then, sorry, you won’t like this album at all. That was my pitiful attempt at sarcasm. The Sarcasm in question here are a Swedish melodic blackened death metal group who have been knocking about since the late ‘80s. Their veteran status in the scene shows they take their craft a whole lot more seriously than their name might let on. It also prompts the question of whether music that follows a blueprint now 30 years old can still be exciting and compelling, particularly to those too young to feel the nostalgia factor.” Don’t cross the streams.

Tension – Decay Review

Tension – Decay Review

“When I came down with damnable Omicron recently, I needed all the comfort food and music I could get. Like comfort food, comfort music is almost guaranteed to contain a robust helping of processed cheese baked into recipes from a previous era, so I was thrilled when Dr. Metal Guy handed down the pixelated, Nosferatu-bedecked cover of Tension’s
debut, Decay. Add in that Dying Victims Productions had put out two of my favorite trad/speed albums of 2021 in Significant Point’s Into the Storm and Heavy Sentence’s Bang to Rights, and my excitement was reaching a literal fever pitch. Could Tension recapture the magic of those releases from early last year to kick off 2022?” Keeping the olde ways.

Sartori – Dragon’s Fire Review

Sartori – Dragon’s Fire Review

“Though you’ve probably never heard of Sartori, you’ve definitely heard them before. Sartori neither revels in the murk of dissonant death metal, wallows in the wail of languishing post-metal, nor abstracts musical reality with a blackened avant-garde offering. Instead, in his namesake band, Andy Anderson Sartori uses his scooped six-string powers to provide straightforward, rollicking neoclassical shred, following the tradition of many other Yngwie-inspired shredders (who also dress a little like him).” Shreddy dragon balls.

Space Coke – Lunacy Review

Space Coke – Lunacy Review

“Stoner doom, for as hallucinatory as their source material seems to be, tends to be fairly straightforward: just take some Black Sabbath riffs and crank the distortion while smoking some dope. I’ve tended to avoid these bands for this reason, that the latest iteration of Sleep isn’t something that gets my gears grinding. I’m already skeptical of heavy and doom metal, so why would I go for anything that is just an amped-up version of them? Well, why don’t you just ask Space Coke? “If the amp don’t smoke, it ain’t Space Coke,” after all.”” Big Pharma.

The Final Sleep – Vessels of Grief Review

The Final Sleep – Vessels of Grief Review

“The fusion of death metal and doom metal is something I’ve never fully embraced as a purveyor of the heavy and hard-hitting. I mean, I should have, a long time ago—death metal is usually more extreme than I’m in the mood for and doom metal is great, if occasionally too un-speedy, so the blending should work. Sometimes it does—Rise to the Sky has certainly made a fan of me—but it just isn’t something I often seek out. When I first sampled The Final Sleep, a five-piece band from the United States of whom four are guitarists (yes, one of them is a bassist), I was drawn to the almost-progressive style of the vaguely doom-ish death metal on their sophomore release Vessels of Grief.” To sleep, perchance to scream.