Depeche Mode

Grumbling Fur – Glynnaestra Review

Grumbling Fur – Glynnaestra Review

‘“Why did you start making music?” I asked, while pretending to sip the amazingly cheap red wine in my half-broken glass, scouting for what was left of my dignity while lying on the cold floor. I don’t think he ever gave me an answer, but there are times when Daniel O’Sullivan does not even bother formulating a reply. He breathed out another puff, I turned my head and gave an intoxicated nod to the ceiling while looking nowhere ahead of me. Grumbling Fur’s music is exactly like that whiff. It is not an answer because nobody has ever posed the right question.” If we ever needed someone to decipher that whiff of smoke, you know we’d call Alex to do so. He speaks smoke and obscurity, after all.

Dark Tranquillity – Construct Review

Dark Tranquillity – Construct Review

“I’ve been waiting for this one for some time. As a big Dark Tranquillity fan, I’ve weathered their style shifts and experiments with more commercial and more “modern” sounds. While 2010s We Are the Void was respectable with a few killer cuts, I ended up really liking the extended extras that were included on the limited edition release (which eventually became the Zero Distance EP). That group of songs encapsulated what modern-day DT does best: create melodic, but cold, sterile, modern death metal. I really wanted them to continue in that direction on Construct, but they thought otherwise.” Do the last of the Gothenburg titans finally fall victim to time and tide or can The Tranquil Ones keep the flame of melodic death alive?

Paradise Lost – Tragic Idol Review

Paradise Lost – Tragic Idol Review

Well, well, well, if it isn’t Paradise Lost. This band is a reviewer’s wet dream, simply by virtue of all the weird shit they’ve pulled over the years. Starting out as one of the pioneers of death/doom metal in 1990, the band mutated into a sort of gothic hard rock/metal, before suddenly turning into Depeche Mode towards the end of that decade.

Insomnium – Across the Dark

Insomnium – Across the Dark

Insomnium is one of those bands that rides on the border of melodic death metal and progressive rock, straddling the fence between good, solid heavy music and the proggy stuff that all the sadboy metal guys listen to. Those guys who secretly love The Cure and Depeche Mode and end up making stuff that sounds like newer Katatonia, Anathema or Amorphis. This isn’t really a critique, but it lets you know right off the bat where these Finnish melodic metallers are standing in reference to the never ending “is melody metal” war that seems to be going on these days.