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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.
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| Album Scote: 9/10 |
Judas Priest is a band that needs little introduction -- they’re the Metal Gods. They have a legacy unmatched in heavy metal except maybe by Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden (sorry, Metallica). After their 1991 tour, frontman Rob Halford announced that he was leaving the band, leaving a huge void in his wake. Journeyman Tim “Ripper” Owens filled in admirably for a while, but there was no replacing Halford. So when the band finally put their differences aside and Halford returned to the mic for 2005’s Angel of Retribution, fans around the world were ecstatic. The album was considered a solid return to form, and ‘Priest promptly embarked on a massive world tour. The result was Rising in the East.
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| Album Score: 8.5/10 |
Giant Squid are a slippery bunch. They began as an indie-rock outfit with Monster in the Creek, hit us with the contemplative, doomy Metridium Fields, and then threw the playbook out the window on their wonderfully bizarre follow-up, The Ichthyologist. Attempting to pin Giant Squid’s sound down is an exercise in futility, but much like their namesake, it’s generally dark, massive, and mysterious. In crafting The Ichthyologist, Giant Squid gallivanted about between genres that should never have worked together: swamp-rock tinged revenge tale “Dead Man Slough” led into the morbid, bluesy rocker “Throwing A Donner Party at Sea”, followed by the half-dirge, half-duet “Sevengill”, which in turn gave way to the heartbreaking and dissonant “Mormon Island”, composed entirely of banjo, strings, and Jackie Perez Gratz’s haunting voice. And you know what? The result was one of the most interesting and refreshing albums of the year. Sure, it was a lot to digest. Maybe “Sutterville”, with its stop-start rhythm and crazy jazz chords, took a while to warm up to. But what The Ichthyologist lacked in accessibility, it made up for with near-infinite replay value. So what does a band do for an encore after it’s already pulled out all the creative stops?
