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| Album Score: 8/10 |
It's astounding how often mediocre bands consistently become huge while far more interesting artists remain in the shadows. Sure, there are the heavyweights of progressive metal like Tool and Mastodon, but the vast majority of bright ideas aren’t coming soon to a music store near you. Unfortunately, National Sunday Law’s work has so far fallen into that vast majority. The band’s 2012 EP Festival of the Horned God arrives too late for most “Best of…” lists, but it’s certainly one of the more pleasant surprises of the late year for fans of sludge and post-metal.
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| Album Score: 7.5/10 |
They’re in a largely stale genre. It took them seven years to land a deal with a major label. Their singer writes lyrics about failed relationships, rock and roll, and sex. They’re one of the more exciting rising rocks bands you’re likely to hear.
Huh?
Halestorm are a band that’s been waiting to explode for years now, and their high-octane live show and all-world lead singer have finally pushed them to the fore of US hard rock. The band’s primary appeal lies in their not-so-secret weapon by the name of Lzzy Hale, whose Joan Jett-attitude and four-octave focal range ensure that you won’t confuse Halestorm with any other band. Her supporting cast also happens to be excellent, as Joe Hottinger (lead guitar), Josh Smith (bass), and her brother Arejay (drums) show their solid chops and continue to improve with each album.
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| Album Score: 7.5/10 |
There are bands that try to be heavy, and then there are bands that just are. Svart Crown fall into the second category. The French foursome blend Death and Black metal in a tooth-rattling vortex, their sound falling somewhere between the crushing onslaught of Behemoth and the Sophisticated Black Metal Art of Emperor. Their second effort, Witnessing the Fall is largely driven by rumbling tremolo riffs and thunderous drumming, its ten songs tied together by themes of ancient Rome and “humanity in perdition”. While by no means the first to combine their two principle genres, Svart Crown – whose name translates to “Black Crown” and is pronounced as it looks – manage to create their own voice and vary their songwriting enough to make Witnessing worth hearing out.
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| Album Score: 6.5/10 |
One thing about The Seer is indisputable: this album is massive. Sprawling across 120 minutes and two discs, this behemoth is a radio DJ’s nightmare and a prog junkie’s dream. The songs range from a minute and a half to over half an hour, telling nigh-indecipherable tales of anguish and uprising, foresight and doom. Swans claim that The Seer is the culmination of 30 years of work, and the sheer scale of the album lives up to such a claim. And yet when it’s all said and done, the question remains: how much is too much?
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| Album Score: 8/10 |
Black metal and horror fiction would seem to be an obvious marriage of style and subject matter; on the other hand, concept albums have a propensity to be either exceptionally good or hilariously bad (take Swans and Metallica as recent examples). The Great Old Ones’ choice of H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon as their template is a bold move, but it pays off in spades on Al Azif. Drawing from black metal stylistically and post-metal structurally, the French quintet manage to craft a captivating debut through a chilling atmosphere and unorthodox musicianship.
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| Album Score: 8.5/10 |
Ever since Deathcrush was first swept beyond the Nordic forests on icy winds of hand-traded cassette tapes, black metal has been famous for the bleak, empty feelings that permeate its very being. While the cell-phone recording quality of early black metal was a combination of do-it-yourself philosophy and an anti-industry approach (as well as anti-Christianity, anti-social, and anti-everything, really), these traits have become a hallmark that many modern bands seek to recapture. American act Wolves in the Throne Room have come under some fire for shunning these cult roots of the genre, but really, their brand of American black metal – played by firelight on vintage amps – isn’t so different from Emperor and Ulver’s pagan aesthetics. In fact, Wolves’ 2008 DVD Live at Roadburn is about as black metal as it gets, as they blast and shriek through a selection of ten-minute epics about returning to nature, occult mythos, and stories of post-apocalyptic landscapes.
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| Album Score: 9.5/10 |
Gojira did not take the quick path to stardom. Formed in 1997 around brothers Joe and Mario Duplantier, the quartet spent nine years in relative obscurity until their third album From Mars to Sirius really made a splash in the international metal community. The band’s first live set, The Link Alive, was a solid take on their first two albums, but came too soon to capture Gojira’s creative explosion. 2012’s The Flesh Alive, however, takes full advantage of the strength and diversity of From Mars… and successor The Way of All Flesh.
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| Album Score: 9/10 |
It’s not every band that can release more live albums than studio LP’s and still have fans clamoring for more. While Live VI is the third proper live set from post-metal giants Isis (the other three were haphazardly assembled bootlegs), it’s significant for two reasons: it’s the first piece of music from the band since their 2010 dissolution, and it’s the most comprehensive document of their live show yet released. Despite the set being one continuous show, six different albums (including early EP’s Mosquito Control and The Red Sea) are represented here. The resulting sonic palette is accordingly diverse, from the primal raging of Red Sea and Hive Destruction to the brilliantly executed centerpiece trio 'In Fiction', 'Holy Tears', and 'Weight'. The latter even includes singer Maria Christopher, whose reverb-drenched mantras were sorely missed in previous outings.
