“I’ve become a jaded man-cat over the last few years or so. I can blame Covid, or humanity’s lack of… well, humanity towards one another, or a myriad of other reasons. The fact of the matter is whenever I turn on the news or see yet another impossibly bad hot-take on Twitter, the anger that begins to well up inside me can power my home city for months. So, what’s a grouchy man-cat to do? Listen to Nova, the fourth full-length by Norwegian/French multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Kathrine Shepard, aka Sylvaine, that’s what. Having reviewed not one, but two, albums of hers, I knew what to expect. Or so I thought.” Prime Nova.
4.5
Cult of Luna – The Long Road North Review
“Since AMG Industries Inc. resolutely refuses to pay me market value anything at all for my Indispensable Thoughts on Music™, I am forced to hold down a day job. In that day job, I am a lawyer. And lawyers love disclosures and disclaimers. So here’s one for you: I am an avowed Cult of Luna fanboy. My relationship with these Swedes goes all the way back to the moment I heard “The Watchtower” (from 2003’s The Beyond) on a sampler CD that came free with a magazine. I was blown away by the long-form, post-hardcore bombast.” Fanboy roadshow.
Spider God – Black Renditions Review
“Every once in a blue moon, an album comes along that speaks to me so deeply that I break the rules to cover it. This year, that honor belongs to what is perhaps the most thoroughly unexpected album to ever grace these spongy orifices: UK one-man-band Spider God’s Black Renditions. I say mad science experiment because Spider God offers no new material whatsoever on Black Renditions—this, my friends, is a covers album. A pop covers album. I’m talking about Britney Spears, The Pointer Sisters, Backstreet Boys, among others.” Spider infections and burnt credibility.
Clouds – Despărțire Review
“You could hardly find a more autumnally appropriate band than Clouds. Their name not only describes the most prevalent meteorological phenomenon of the season, their past catalog, and a band roster filled with members from legendary Funeral, Saturnus, and Shape of Despair has established them as a master of atmospheric doom.” Sure, it’s winter. And yes, this record dropped in October. Did you miss it?
Plebeian Grandstand – Rien ne suffit Review
“Rien ne suffit: nothing is enough. For Plebeian Grandstand, it might as well be a motto. The Toulouse have made their career defying categorization, and pushing each release to be something new, something more. How Hate is Hard to Define set a bar for blackened mathcore that no other record has come close to clearing, only for the band to sink into sludgy, dissonant black metal with Lowgazers. That muddy reek was fired with death metal oppression to make the gleaming False Highs, True Lows, and now, with Rien ne Suffit, it is shattered.” Enough is never MOAR.
Diablo Swing Orchestra – Swagger & Stroll Down the Rabbit Hole Review
“This album is probably my most anticipated release of this year. To me, Diablo Swing Orchestra don’t simply play avant-garde metal—they are avant-garde metal, owing to the fact that they were my gateway into the genre with the incredible Pandora’s Piñata. And yet, Pacifisticuffs never really drew me in. I blamed the production at the time; something about the sound of the album kept me at arm’s length. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Diablo Swing Orchestra octet is a machine of creativity, talent, and ambition. However I may have felt about their previous release, a new album by them is a special occasion.” Rabbit revenge.
Black Sites – Untrue Review
“Black Sites has taken his entire collection of musical influences and presented it to you. What makes it unique is how he absorbs his love for bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest, Trouble, Black Sabbath, and Bay-area thrash (to name a few) and puts himself into them. We love Mark in these parts, but that doesn’t shadow the truth that he’s one of the best songwriters in metal today.”
Archspire – Bleed the Future Review
“It brings me no pleasure to inform you that the new Archspire record kind of sucks.” If it bleeds, it leads.
1914 – Where Fear and Weapons Meet Review
“If I said that a new 1914 album is a big deal for me, it would be a huge understatement. The band’s 2018 opus The Blind Leading the Blind was one of the first records I covered for this site—and my first 4.0. I was still a probationary writer at the time, and as a brand new music journalist, watching the metalverse collectively lose its mind over what 1914 accomplished on that record was a surreal and humbling experience. 1914 have already demonstrated that they are consummate pros with a clear strategic objective, and I would have been shocked if 2021 follow-up Where Fear and Weapons Meet was anything less than great.” War 4 sale.
Bossk – Migration Review
“When post-metal gets talked about there are certain bands – the titans of the genre, if you will – that get routinely name dropped. While the UK’s excellent Bossk may not be on the level of genre progenitors Neurosis, for example, either in terms of influence or output – Migration is only their second full-length – they are, I believe, unfairly overlooked in post-metal circles. To test this theory in absolutely rigorous scientific conditions, I spent several minutes performing grueling searches of this site. Our post-metal tag has, at the time of writing, 263 articles associated with it. The Cult of Luna tag produces 53 hits, Neurosis 100, ISIS 82 … you get the picture. How many for Bossk, you ask? One.” Post-statistics and migration patterns