“If there’s one criminally underrated band whose discography I implore you to investigate, it’s surely California’s Cormorant. I sincerely rate their opening records, Metazoa and Dwellings, as among my favorites since the beginning of the new millennium. They’re unremittingly progressive, drawing influences from all manner of music since the ’70s, but tie it together delicately and emotively, all the while never ignoring the immense power of the riff.” Prog in a hard place.
“In the royal chamber of overrated albums, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon sits atop a burnished throne that has cradled its posterior for many decades. I’ve tried countless times to love DSotM, bouncing between the CD, the SACD remaster, and an 180g vinyl pressing in desperation to discover what it is about this album that has resonated with so many people. Alas, illumination eluded me, and while I found portions of the record appealing, I struggled to generate more than a shrug when consuming the album as a whole. Not everyone shares my ambivalence, least of all Kyle Shutt, who has decided to honor the 50 year anniversary of DSoTM with the self-titled Doom Side of the Moon.'” Commence to fightin’.
“Enter Seven Spires, a Boston-based act I blindly picked as a personal punching bag after going soft from weeks of reviewing great material. Featuring Adrienne Cowan of Light and Shade (a band we largely panned last year), their debut Solveig, armed with the most excruciatingly mediocre cover art of the year, is doomed to fail… right?” Books, covers, judgments, etc.
“As so many bands take themselves too seriously, it hurt a little more than usual to gingerly let B;ppdmit down and mark their score in the red. It must have put some fire in their gut, because the boys are back to bring peace and justice to Gingers, in less time than it takes Jari Mäenpää to make a sandwich.” Apes be escaping.
“Unlike other genres, power metal isn’t one that I can freely delve into – I need a little consideration before I lunge into that fray of fromage. Having spent most of my adult life in front of a classroom full of students with inevitably big ideas, patience is not a virtue I was born with but one I have since earned by iron and blood. The kind of patience that allows me to sit in wait for an album with a little more crunch; a little more progression à la Symphony X, Borealis or Kamelot.” Patience is a virtuoso.
“Regardless of their current status as the sad clowns of metal, no one will deny Metallica are among the biggest titans in metal history. Their first four albums are undisputed classics, their fifth a disputed one, and they have inspired countless followers with their chunky take on thrash metal. Among them is German outfit Odium, who have spent the last decade and a half pumping out records in relative anonymity.” Some other kind of monster.
“A funny thing happened to metalcore in the last six years or so. After the Killswitch Engages and As I Lay Dyings of the world spent years churning out Gothenburg riffs and tough-guy breakdowns like cheap beers at a frat party, metalcore bands finally listened to Periphery and started latching on to this new thing called ‘djent.'” Metalcore through the ages.
“Strange, what albums take their time to grow. Long, complex albums are in the majority in this particular aspect of music appreciation, but it can happen just as easily with a short and simple set of songs. In the former case, it stands to reason that an 80-minute avant-garde jazz fusion progressive alternative black metal album from Kuala Lumpur will take time to digest, because there are fewer familiar elements to draw from and you keep bending your expectations to try and find the right frame of mind. But why are some easily digestible records birds of the same feather?” Birdbath and beyond.
“Welcome to the most self-indulgent genre of metal in existence: the dreaded instrumental progressive metal. Even I, a lowly and slavishly devoted minion of most things prog, cringe when the internet pleads with me to review an instrumental prog album. This music is tough to do well. Often, it’s much easier to simply wank until your wank falls off rather than write captivating songs. To grab my attention, you need something different, and that’s just what Montreal, Canada’s Cydemind have tried to do: they’ve added a violinist to the mix here, hoping to shake up the genre.” Shake the wank before returning to work.
“Music is a lot like food. Both are nourishing: food for the body and music for the spirit. There’re no accounting for taste, but there’s semi-predictable consensuses (consensi?), such as nu-metal and tofurkey are both hellspawn that should be scorched from the face of the Earth. Sometimes you feel in the mood for a big, luxury five-course meal, so you load up Ayreon, sometimes you crave the greasy slop of Vader, and sometimes you prefer a salad so you throw yourself out the sixth-floor window. With all this said, who’s ready for a medium-sized bag of popcorn?” Kernels of truth.
