“I felt awful foolish choosing Skindred’s promo when no one else did. My brain was adequately pummeled by single “Gimme That Boom,” complete with its curb-stomping riffs, plodding drums, and Benji Webbe’s formidable vocals and memorable one-liners, providing a perfect soundtrack for the NFL intro to Thursday Night Football. While grooving, I kinda forgot about the fact that the Welsh quartet was a force to be reckoned with in the late 2000s and early 2010s.” Skin in the game.
What happens when we embed an AMG staffer at the Graspop metal festival in Belgium? Heavy drinking and strong takes happen.
“When a musician has a protracted affiliation with a certain band and then gets the freedom to do his/her own thing, sometimes you end up with a funky batch of seabiscuits. Take for instance Seventh Storm, the new project by long-time Moonspell drummer Mike Gaspar. With 20-plus years manning the kit for the Portuguese black/folk/goth/prog titans, I’m not sure what folks were expecting from his solo phase, but I feel safe saying Maledictus isn’t it.” Strange waves.
“Album length is a point of contention at AMG Headquarters. So around the office cooler one day, the illustrious Carcharodon revealed that his promo was a honkin’ two-hour commitment. I now realize that “Mine’s a nine-minute grind EP! Sucks to be you!” was the wrong thing to say. As a dear Lavagirlbitch to the Sharkboy, he used his power to punish me pick a promo for me. Please direct your hate mail to him for the awkwardly named Everture. I was immediately horrified at the phrase “modern metal” that greeted my eyes.” The Everture will continue until morale improves.
“Hello there! Hope you are enjoying the sunny weather in scenic California, and thank you for submitting Contemporary Tragedy, the second full-length (and third release) from your one-man post-hardcore outfit, These Colors Fade. Going from the supplied materials that accompanied your submission, Contemporary Tragedy took over 800 hours to write, perform, produce, and mix. That’s an impressive feat! More and more, we’re seeing talented one-person bands crop up out of the woodwork, going toe-to-toe with the heavyweights in contemporary metal music. With the costs of production and promotion starting to drop considerably, there’s never been an easier time to record, mix, and promote your music.” The color of tragedy.
“I’ve seen the question time and time again on any review below a 2.5. “Why even review this?” Well, there’s a bunch of reasons. An important one is, as soon as we pick a promo, we’re honor bound to review it regardless of quality. Oftentimes we don’t even know what we’re getting into, signing the contract over only the band name, album title and genre. A writer may start up a promising promo and have his head in his hands before the first minute is out, knowing he’s on the hook. That wasn’t the case with Defecto; I’ve reviewed the Danes before, to unspectacular result, and fully intended not to subject myself this time. But the band was brought up during our monthly meeting and the Emperor commanded me to pick up where I left off. Drat.” Double broken.
“Hard rock. Alt-metal. Post-grunge. These were the things I listened to back in high school. Breaking Benjamin and Disturbed in particular satisfied my desire for a bit of harmless aggression in my angsty youth. To be fair, I still hold a soft spot for the stuff, with Phobia and Ten Thousand Fists rising above the rest as the two albums from this subset of artists that I still regularly revisit. Los Angeles’ Hyvmine emerge from the same gene pool, fully intending to rock the world with their sophomore effort Retaliation.” You have hives.
“Back in March, I reviewed Ashen Horde’s latest opus of black metal fury, Fallen Cathedrals. I heaped an unhealthy amount of praise its way back then, and I’m still spinning it a ton now. In fact, I would be very surprised if it were to fall outside of my top 5 albums come year’s end. My review may have been riddled with factual errors, but founder, songwriter, instrumentalist, and clean vocalist Trevor Portz showed up in the comments and revealed himself to be a gracious and enormously cool guy. So, when the opportunity to do an interview presented itself, I couldn’t resist.” We’re already off to a better start than last time.
“This is sure to come as a surprise, what with the kvlt as fvck album art and all, but Through the Noise are about as trve as Santa. With their accessible angst and envelope-friendly chuggatry, these Swedes crabwalk the thick, downtuned line between nü-metal and metalcore, and by all rights, Dualism should have been inflicted upon a n00b. However, there have been far too many 4.0’s awarded as ov late, and I would be remiss to turn down an opportunity to bring you bastards crashing back down to reality, so we are here.” Punishment is due.
“Alternative metal is among the broadest of genre tags in heavy music. A few months ago, UK act Zedi Forder impressed with their solid interpretation of the alt metal style on their self titled debut. Alas, I broached this second LP offering from France’s Vital Breath with both trepidation and cautious optimism when I saw they were also listed under the alternative metal umbrella.” Alternative to what?
