The February Filter is all clean and tidy.
Coheed and Cambria
Dool – Summerland Review
“Poor Summerland. Dool’s latest album has been picked up and dropped in the promo bin more times than I’ve had hot meals, and it looks like it’s finally found a home with me. First El Cuervo toyed with it, but after remembering how bored he was with their first album, he tossed it aside with disdain. Who else but GardensTale was there, drooling like a starving puppy, ready to take his shot at it. But it was not to be. Then along came poor old Huckles , late to the party, with nothing but Dool and a dozen black metal albums to choose from. Well, the only black metal I like is the Venom album, so the choice was clear. Who says beggars can’t be choosers?” Dooldrums.
Reflex Machine – Interzone Review
“If you’ve been loitering in the Hall since the Great Muppet Invasion first began, you’ve probably noticed how great I am at promo selection rarely I wander too terribly far from my tried and trve metal wheelhouses. I’ve been burned by the bin before, I’m bitter and basically all but unable to believe that things could be better beyond the blackmosphere, but the burden ov objectivity and that big bastardly bully of a boss-monkey Steel have beckoned me to bid bye-bye to my beloved blackness and embrace being the bin’s bitch.” Monkey bin-ess.
Lice – Woe Betide You Review
“So, yeah: Woe Betide You is a pretty sweet album. It’s not necessarily fighting for a spot on my current list of AotY candidates, yet Woe Betide You is one of the most dynamic albums I’ve reviewed to date, right up there with Great Leap Skyward’s Map of Broken Dreams.” Infestivus.
Huck N’ Roll’s and Eldritch Elitist’s Top Ten of 2018
The top tens are marching, and Huck N’ Roll and Eldritch are ready to spread the gospel of good metal across the land. You wanted lists, you got lists!
![Hopesfall – Arbiter [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Hopesfall-Arbiter-01-768x768.jpg)
Hopesfall – Arbiter [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]
“In many ways, Arbiter feels like the culmination of everything Hopesfall are. Much like their former swansong Magnetic North, the album takes influence from all the band’s eras while harboring their characteristic sense of longing and distance. Arbiter is the rare comeback album that doesn’t recapture the spirit of early works, it makes it sound like that spirit never left in the first place.” Hopesfall springs eternal.
![Coheed and Cambria – Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Coheed-and-Cambria-Vaxis-Act-I-The-Unheavenly-Creatures-01.jpg)
Coheed and Cambria – Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]
“What were you expecting, a metal review? Too bad. Coheed time. Back in 2005, the New York boys of Coheed and Cambria were immensely influential in my formative years as a rabid consumer of music. Though only a metal band in the loosest sense of the genre, the band’s emotionally explosive and instrumentally nuanced brand of progressive alt-rock undoubtedly laid the foundation for my formal induction into metal fandom only a year later. For better or for worse, they also ignited my critical spirit; the waning quality of C&C’s post-Good Apollo Vol. I output forced me to examine music with an unbiased ear, and helped turn me into the cynical shithead you see before you today.” Alien inwasion.
Rising – Sword and Scythe Review
"The world has witnessed humanity’s greatest civilizations rise to heavenly heights only to topple with the weight of titans. New, sometimes even more significant, societies emerged from the rubble. They too fell. Across history, this oscillation of societal ascension and subsequent self-destruction has been the focal point of countless tales. Rising, a band from Copenhagen celebrating their tenth year of active duty, adopt this theme with their fourth album Sword and Scythe. The five-piece is classified as “epic metal,” which in my worldview often represents bombastic and overwrought self-indulgence. Prepared for the worst, I donned my skepticism helmet and forged ahead." Don’t ever go to battle in your “skepticism” helmet. Especially against those wielding swords and scythes…
Great Leap Skyward – Map of Broken Dreams Review
“‘Cinematic progressive metal.’ Now there’s a tag rife with possibilities. Theatrical djent? Dream Theater 2.0? Coheed Jr and Cambriette? Prior to this review, I’d never heard of Australia’s Great Leap Skyward. Subsequently, I had no idea what I was in for when I rescued Map of Broken Dreams from Angry Metal Guy‘s Home for Wayward Promo.” Prog, broken dreams and depressed Muppets.
Ghostbound – All is Phantom Review
“Average albums are almost never fun to write about; the sheer abundance of ho-hum, inoffensive records is staggering, and writing about them stimulates my brain about as well as popping a couple tabs of Ambien. Ghostbound is the exception to this rule.” Ghosts and gravitas.
