Wino

Aleah – Aleah Review

Aleah – Aleah Review

“Readers of this site, and fans in general, know of Aleah Stanbridge. After doing some work on her own and collaborating with The Mission’s Andy Cousin in That Which Remains, she laid down guest vocals for Swallow the Sun and Amorphis before forming Trees of Eternity with Swallow the Sun guitarist Juha Raivio. Trees of Eternity released Hour of the Nightingale in 2016, months after Aleah tragically passed away from cancer at age 39. Since then, Raivio has been assembling and touching up Aleah’s work, and he’s finally presenting it to us now in the form of a double album.” Music is immortal.

Wino – Forever Gone Review

Wino – Forever Gone Review

“Scott “Wino” Weinrich is at a point in his lengthy and influential music career where he can do pretty much anything he wants. He can cut more albums with his seminal doom act, The Obsessed, or perform with that other seminal doom act, Saint Vitus. He might even pursue collaborations with a who’s who of musicians as he did with Dave Grohl in Probot and with German dark folk artist Conny Ochs. Another option would be to record an album of stripped down, bare bones acoustic Americana rock. It seems as Wino ages, his heart gravitates back to that final option more and more.” Forever Wino.

Watain – The Wild Hunt Review

Watain – The Wild Hunt Review

“Alright, so unless you live under a rock, by now you MUST have an inkling that Watain have carved another notch to their bullet belts with their fifth studio release — The Wild Hunt. This attractively adorned album (depicting the spoils of a lengthy musical journey) hit the shelves a few days back with all the usual hype and aggrandizement one would expect of a Watain album, released through their own label His Master’s Noise (under the umbrella of Century Media Records). Following on from their well received opus of 2010 (check out how Angry Metal Guy weighed in on Lawless Darkness here), The Wild Hunt sees Watain beefing up their orthodox brand of black metal, showing the middle finger to the dictators of the world and borrowing from a feast of decidedly odd influences. So what of it, have these gents from Sweden’s Uppsala, who cite the influence of Bathory and Dissection among others, delivered the goods.” Madam X breaks down the new Watain record The Wild Hunt. What does she think? The world may never know!

Victor Griffin’s In-Graved Review

Victor Griffin’s In-Graved Review

“As a long time fan of American doom pioneers Pentagram, I’ve been an admirer of Victor Griffin’s playing and his bluesy, but street tough style. Sure, he borrowed a lot of his sound from Tony Iommi, but he made it his own by mixing it with the sound of Cream-era Clapton and a touch of Hendrix. When he left Pentagram, their stock dropped precipitously, and when he returned for their Last Rites opus, everything was right in the doom world again. I enjoyed most of the material from his Place of Skulls outing, so when I heard of the new Victor Griffin’s In-Graved project, I expected solid results, which this delivered, along with a few surprises.” Doomy biker rock? Does Steel Druhm need to say more? Well, he will anyway because he’s wordy!

Manilla Road – Mysterium Review

Manilla Road – Mysterium Review

Manilla Road has more lives than Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees and much like those respective masked lunatics, they just won’t die. Although toiling away since the late 70s, Manilla Road and founder/vocalist/guitarist Mark “The Shark” Shelton have achieved nothing more than obscure, cult status in the metal world. They are the quintessential “true” metal act and have been releasing slight variations on their mega old school, American proto metal since I was in grade school.” Steel Druhm destroyed the last album by these legends, but loved the related Hellwell project. Will he find love on the Road or will the Hammer of Judgment come down again?

Steel Druhm’s Top 10(ish) of 2010

Steel Druhm’s Top 10(ish) of 2010

Well, it’s been a very interesting year for me, Steel Druhm since joining Angry Metal Guy Industries in April. Despite the no pay, brutal hours, an Angry Metal Boss based overseas and enough hate mail to choke a Belgian aardvark, it’s been tons of fun and I wouldn’t trade one minute of it for a million Amorphis CDs. This year, like every other year, saw it’s fair share of shining metal moments and plenty of steaming crap as well. All things considered though, it’s a great time to be a fan of metal and there’s so much out there to choose from, it can get overwhelming trying to stay current and hear all the worthwhile releases. As the year winds down and we get set for the start of 2011, I want to wish all our readers a happy holiday season and give a big metal salute to all of you (and an extra big salute to the Angry Metal Guy himself for giving me a forum for my metal rants). I hope we were able to turn folks on to some quality music and generally entertain with our opinionated and self-righteous musings, ramblings, tirades, manifestos and diatribes.