|
|
Items 1 - 20 of 20
Best Heavy Metal Album: Mastodon - Blood Mountain Mastodon is back!!! Blood Mountain could be one of the most anticipated Relapse albums since the Suffocation come back and finally we have the chance to hear what these guys are up to now. My hopes were really high as when I first heard this band (with their album Remission ) they shocked me like no other band has shocked me before. So here's my objective review about their new record. Mastodon began exploring a more alternative and even Emoish sound since Leviathan, now they evolved a little more and all the Hardcore overtones, all the magnificent aggression found in Remission is almost gone.
Details...
| |
Best Heavy Metal Album: Strapping Young Lad - The New Black Strapping Young Lad (SYL) don't compare to much else in this world. It's metal for sure, but difficult to confine to any subgenre. Elements from black, death, thrash and industrial mixed well together with insanity, rage and humour. Mastermind and workaholic Devin Townsend recently released a solo album and it was only last year that SYL's previous masterpiece Alien was released. No wonder that Devin Townsend has trouble finding the time to sleep.It was Alien that really got me into SYL so of course I was very excited to get my hands on the new album The New Black. After the insane metal mayhem attack of Alien, The New Black is quite different, yet with many of the same elements. Where Alien was a relentless attack of the senses, The New Black is more diverse, melodic and more accessible.
Details...
| |
Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life Or Death Although I find that the track by track format of reviewing is a rather boring if not
Un-impressive way of reviewing an album - that sometimes steals the albums thunder - by presenting it in a rather non poetic proportion - and causing a rather wrong perception by the public - I feel compelled to just use it once more.
Once again - props and thanks to my BRO - in America - I had a rather anorthodox - 1 hour transatlantic listening down the line-session hahahaha! Thank god for vo-ip !
Details...
| |
Slayer - Christ Illusion The original Slayer is back. As soon as Christ Illusion starts, there is no denying that Slayer still has "it," whatever "it" is. This album marks the first time that the original lineup has been in the studio together since the 1990 classic, Seasons in the Abyss. That combination of Tom Araya, Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman, and the returning Dave Lombardo, is a force to be reckoned with. Slayer has been at the forefront of thrash metal from the beginning pioneering the genre with albums such as South of Heaven and the landmark Reign in Blood.
Details...
| |
The Haunted - The Dead Eye What to make of this new HAUNTED album? It's hard to take it out of context and judge it on its own merits — on one hand, you have the band's formidable back catalog to measure it against, a smorgasbord of modern-day Swedish thrash that renders 95% of their colleagues obsolete. Tied to that is the reputation of the Björler brothers, late of the legendary AT THE GATES, whose "Slaughter of the Soul" grows in stature with each passing year as a milestone for modern metal. Throw in frontman Peter Dolving's recent penchant for crackpot blogging and riling up the punters, and you have a mixed bag of expectations no album should have to go up against.
Details...
| |
Trivium - The Crusade TRIVIUM blasts back onto the scene with a third effort that is one of the best metal releases of 2006 and quite possibly the heavy music album of the year. "The Crusade" sounds like the record that METALLICA could have made during the height of its early years, and while some may be uncomfortable with frontman Matt Heafy's occasionally too-dead-on James Hetfield impersonation, his sheer energy, bravado and fire, coupled with the band's relentless onslaught of blistering leads, amazingly technical yet memorable riffing, and dizzying rhythms captures not just the best of METALLICA, but MEGADETH, TESTAMENT and a number of other bands from the glory days of speed and thrash.
Details...
| |
Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage Should one believe the hype about DRAGONFORCE's extreme power metal prowess? Has the PR engine blown out of proportion the band's lightning quick shred fests and soaring melodic vocal passages? Probably, but that doesn't mean that the boys aren't a well-oiled machine. The members of DRAGONFORCE are immensely talented, the songwriting is good, if a tad too familiar after about 15 minutes, and the musical package is pretty goddamn tight. As for the "Inhuman Rampage", there is nothing here that would dissuade fans of predecessor "Sonic Firestorm" from glomming on to the new platter of brawn and bombast. Whether you fancy the band the height of power metal orgasm depends a great deal on what you consider to be ballsy, excessive, musically stimulating, or perhaps all three.
Details...
| |
Cellaedor - Enter Deception First Pennsylvania's PHARAOH knocks one out of the park with the superb MAIDEN-influenced, traditional/power metal leviathan "The Longest Night", and now Omaha, Nebraska's (yes, you read that right) CELLADOR delivers a crushing blow with a speeding power metal tour de force called "Enter Deception". Could it be that the Americans have stolen the fire from the European progenitors? I'm sure that won't spark any debate, now will it? "Enter Deception" is a stunning debut from an incredibly tight and immensely talented quintet of musicians from America's heartland.
Details...
| |
Stuck Mojo - Snappin' Necks I will forever associate STUCK MOJO in general and the 1995 debut album "Snappin' Necks" specifically with the band's performance sandwiched between opener WICKER MAN and headliner MACHINE HEAD (supporting "Burn My Eyes"). The scorching guitar work of Rich Ward, those energetic rhythms, and the off-the-rails insanity of lead vocalist Bonz who rapped the vocals in a way that recalled FAITH NO MORE's Mike Patton or THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS' Anthony Keidis, but so much heavier and with his own style! This was a combination that worked to a "T" and raised the band's coolness level to heights I would not have thought attainable by a seemingly risky style blend.
Details...
| |
Napalm Death - Smear Campaign Somehow, the phrase "on a roll" seems wholly inadequate to describe the phenomenon of NAPALM DEATH's years-old post-Earache renaissance. It's more like a fucking avalanche. For a bunch of guys getting acquainted with their late thirties and forties (that's, like, 104 in grindcore years), they've never sounded hungrier, angrier, or more dead-set on musical destruction. And "Smear Campaign" may just be the pinnacle of their lethal fury… at least until next year!
Details...
| |
Suffocation - Self Titled American death metal's most consistent and punishing standard-bearers, SUFFOCATION sometimes get overlooked in the rush to deify other bands. While it could be argued that they've never been a particularly innovative act, there's something to be said for the songcraft, torturous bits of melody, and impressive use of guitar hooks and thrash tempos that make old songs like "Liege of Inveracity" and "Pierced From Within" still slay today. There's also the undeniable fact that, as the sum of their individual parts, SUFFOCATION boasts some of the best and most underrated players in death metal, all hammering on these songs with balls-out conviction.
Details...
| |
Goatwhore - A Haunting Curse There's something manifestly wrong with any metalhead who doesn't bow down to GOATWHORE's charismatic, malevolent assault. These guys string the rotting skin of New Orleans' dark, mean underbelly onto the skeletal framework of early death and black metal — imagine HELLHAMMER if they could play their instruments, caked in swamp mud instead of corpsepaint, not so much writing songs as etching bone-basic manifests of hatred with acid onto the grooves of the record.
Details...
| |
Unearth - III: In the Eyes of Fire No, UNEARTH has not mellowed, nor have they altered their sound to fall in line with the oodles of growl 'n' crooners invading every mall in America. If you thought that "The Oncoming Storm" was a ripping American metal album, wait until you hear "III: In The Eyes of Fire". Enlisting producer Terry Date (PANTERA, DEFTONES, SOUNDGARDEN) and dispensing with the click track, UNEARTH leaves no stone unturned in creating a monstrous album that incorporates elements of everyone from IRON MAIDEN (guitar harmonies) to the best of the Swedish melodic death metal bands. The organic sound is hardly raw, but it is not nearly as polished as what was heard on "The Oncoming Storm".
Details...
| |
Vicious Circle - The Art of Agony What the hell is it with New Jersey? REVENANT, RIPPING CORPSE, HUMAN REMAINS, NOKTURNEL… this state has been responsible for some really twisted, ripping death/thrash. And lest you think that era is long gone, another voice from the past has made itself known in the modern day — VICIOUS CIRCLE, formed in 1989, finally releases their first significantly distributed CD since 1993, and their first new material since 2000.
Details...
| |
Nevermore - The Politics of Ecstasy A decade ago Seattle's NEVERMORE released an album that would be the first of several demonstrating its truly unique blend of heavy power/thrash/death metal, gloriously dark melody, and intelligent lyrical content. 1995's self-titled debut and the "In Memory" EP hinted at the massive potential that existed with the band, but it was "The Politics of Ecstasy" that would begin to solidify the group's standing as a world power in extreme metal. All three albums have now been re-released with bonus material.
Details...
| |
Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II Anyone still crying about the 10 that "Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I" got last week, please purchase another box of tissues before reading further. If it was possible to give this record an 11, I'd give it one — the first two "Keeper" albums are essential landmarks in heavy metal history, indisputable masterpieces, and touchstones that launched the dreams of a thousand next-generation bands. "Part II" is both sillier and more serious, catchier and more complex, and it set the band on a course for greatness (a course upon which they promptly foundered, but that's another story).
Details...
| |
Hatebreed - Supremacy Success has not softened HATEBREED's delivery one bit, nor has vocalist Jamey Jasta mellowed with age. "Supremacy" continues down the same metallic hardcore path blazed on albums like "Perseverance" and "The Rise of Brutality". One might even be tempted to call it the angriest and most brutal album yet. The one certainty is that if you were a fan of the band prior to this Roadrunner debut, then you will continue to be a fan once you've sopped up the blood spilled from "Supremacy". That does not mean that the songwriting has improved or that the band has expanded its style. It is a matter of continuing to do what HATEBREED has always done: create music that espouses virtues like self-respect and possesses all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the skull.
Details...
| |
Grave - As Rapture Comes What we have here is a good old-fashioned career upswing. The 2002 release of "Back from the Grave" marked GRAVE's comeback, while 2004's "Fiendish Regression" proved that the Swedish death metal legends had no plans to hang up the gloves any time soon. On "As Rapture Comes", GRAVE has hit bloody pay dirt! It is far and away the best of the three albums, and it delivers in a faster, more aggressive style than its predecessors.
Details...
| |
Hammers of Misfortune - The Locust Years (Cruz del Sur) Following up the work of insane genius that was "The August Engine", a fixture on many Top Ten lists in 2003, San Francisco's cult avant-metal weirdoes HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE confound the listener still further here. "The Locust Years" is a grandiose, ambitious and sprawling work, a bit less immediate than the band's previous efforts, but still full of the band's trademark perverse grandeur and theatrical metal.This is a no less than a progressive metal opera, with elements of '80s trad-metal, JETHRO TULL folk-rock, and '70s prog all colliding into one improbable masterpiece.
Details...
| |
Skinless - Trample the Weak If anyone is worried that the departure of long-time vocalist and fiery front man Sherwood Webber would mean the demise of SKINLESS' patented sound, trust me, you needn't worry. On "Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead", replacement Jason Keyser (brother of bassist Joe) does an outstanding job with his sickening guttural growls and maniacal screams. Stylistically, this new slab of vintage death metal has much more in common with the excellent "Foreshadowing Our Demise" than the more expansive, even experimental, fare of 2003's "From Sacrifice to Survival". And those glorious movie samples that vanished on the last effort are back and oh so fitting. This is a true return to form. Noah Carpenter's trademark riffs, the devastating breakdowns, memorable arrangements, and all out destructiveness make "Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead" one of the elite death metal albums of 2006.
Details...
| |
|
|
|
|
Best Heavy Metal Albums