You’ve all heard the hype. First album with Ozzy in 35 years, Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine replacing Bill Ward on drums, yet another metal album referencing the number 13, a huge world tour etc etc, blah blah. Sure it’s big news. Massive in fact. The whole rock world has been salivating over […]
What is it with bands obsessing over the number thirteen as an album title? First there was Megadeth’s mediocre effort of a couple of years ago, now Suicidal Tendencies’ newie and soon Black Sabbath! Yes we know what year it is thank you! ST may be able to claim ownership of the number slightly more […]
Iron & Wine…sort of rolls off the tongue nicely doesn’t it? Likewise does the name of the man who is Iron & Wine, singer/songwriter Samuel Beam. With a name like that, what else could he have been but a purveyor of gritty folk music and Americana? Say it again….Samuel Beam…Iron & Wine. Cellar door anyone? […]
No names, no faces, no identities, a ghoulishly papal stage presence & 2 albums….and we have Sweden’s Ghost. There’s been much hype surrounding their sophomore effort Infestissumam (Latin for hostile), and none of it appears to be self-propagated. The metal community seems to have gone bananas over it for whatever reason and praise for them/it […]
Any new release from The Flaming Lips is sure to be met with a degree of anticipation from critics and fans; they’ve recently put on some spectacular live shows and their catalogue of work contains some absolute classics. So when a band with their kind of reputation releases an album called “The Terror” you can’t […]
Right! What have you got for us after ten years then Dave…? Critiquing a new album from someone of Bowie’s legendary status (the first in ten years no less) might well fill many a reviewer with a sense of trepidation, however this little reviewer has made critical hamburgers out of some musical sacred cows recently […]
15 albums in nearly 20 years. So is the celebrated career of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Their last offering Dig, Lazarus, Dig!! was released in 2008, but sating Cave appetites between the aforementioned and this release was the energetic Grinderman project which was a veritable adrenaline rush compared to most of the (impressively […]
An electronic project featuring Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Flea of The Red Hot Chili Peppers named after a speech by Dwight Eisenhower? Hmmm…. This is the debut effort from Atoms For Peace (the band, not the speech, although the speech’s ’53 debut is not to be sniffed at!). Of course, based on the appearance […]
“Nobody listens to a whispering fool. Are you listening? I didn’t think so. I’ve been quiet as a church house mouse. Tiptoeing everywhere I go…”. So goes the introductory lyric of opening track “Bombs Away”, and a poignant notion it is. Eels have indeed been quiet for the last few years. Wonderful, Glorious is somewhat […]
Any new release featuring Mike Patton is sure to pique the interest of many a musical pundit, and interests were more than piqued when the band described this album as being like “like a heavy version of the Beach Boys” prior to its release. I for one was intrigued about the concept, despite Tomahawk being […]
34 years. That’s how long Bad Religion has been a functioning entity! Occupying a genre not known for cultivating longevity in its participants, they’ve endured line-up changes, fluctuations in popularity and label changes and are (deservedly) absolute icons of punk rock. However to use sporting parlance, you’re only as good as your last game… so […]
This is the second album from Projected Twin, the brainchild of Adelaide local Shaun Holton. Following on from the similarly titled, self-produced debut Earth to World, Earth vs World was made possible by the increasingly successful Pledge Music organization. For those unfamiliar, Pledge and similar organizations take donations towards the cost of recording upcoming albums […]
Nuclear Blast Records Sophomore albums are always an interesting proposition. Not only because they are supposedly “difficult”, but also because they often give a more realistic representation of a band’s sound and future direction than their debut. Many bands skew off in a radically different direction on their second albums, eager to avoid stereotype and […]
Sixteen years. That’s how long it’s been since Seattle heavyweights Soundgarden have released a studio album! Down on the Upside was the band’s swansong, or so it seemed at the time. No one could have guessed we’d see another album from them, much less with the classic lineup. Can a band who’ve been apart for […]
Byron Bay’s finest are back with a brand new album. Following on from 2010’s Deep Blue, Atlas has seen a flurry of press releases waxing lyrical about the band being world beaters and the cream of the metalcore crop. That’s all well and good, but does the album live up to expectations? Here’s the verdict… […]
Let’s get something straight from the outset. Don’t bother with this review if you think Metallica are good, but Slayer are a bit scary. This album is brutal. This is as hard and heavy as it gets. If you’re an adventurous listener or you like your metal extreme and violently frenetic, then read on. If […]