Reviews
Trudger - Dormiveglia
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Trudger; a name on its way to prominence in the sludge scene. This British band presents a new be-all and end-all for sludge metal, which is to progressively crush the listener into a fine paste with their hardcore assault and use said paste to paint a vision all their own. Trudger are artistes from the school of "hit 'em hard," closely affiliated with the school of "hit 'em where it hurts." Their creative debut, Dormiveglia demonstrates all that is fresh in the genre of sludge.
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Reviews
Origin - Omnipresent
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Anyone play soccer or some other sport as a kid? Remember when the team went to the pizza restaurant after the game, and when the kiddies got bored they sat there and poured anything they could find on the table into one horrifying concoction? The salt, the pepper, the ice cream, maybe spit in the drink a bit for good measure.
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Reviews
Funerary - Starless Aeon
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How the hell do you judge an album like this? It's so good, yet simultaneously flat and deflated. Welcome to Starless Aeon... an album of amazing atmosphere built through cavernous production, yet somehow is just irritatingly substance-less.
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Reviews
House Of Lords - Precious Metal
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House Of Lords never really made it out of the '80s. While we all wish that we could say the same of certain bands, House Of Lords are not so much experiencing a perennial case of the glory days as spinning their wheels in a creative wasteland.
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Reviews
Thine - The Dead City Blueprint
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Disclaimer: This isn't metal. If you are a metal and only metal kinda person, best be off with you.
Hailing from Peaceville, home to early/mid 90's corpsepainted Norwegians howling their hatred of Zarquon and disgust for society because their mum and dad didn't buy them a pony for their 6th birthday, we have Thine, who sound exactly nothing like most of the PV roster you might be familiar with on this site.
Thine play atmospheric (dark) rock/prog. Or so other authors have decided. Apparently modern rock is as tag-nerdy as Metal. Which is to say its moody music that is far more complicated than simply bashing out barre chords.
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Reviews
Martyrdöd - Elddop
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Were you to isolate most of the riffs on Elddop, crust probably wouldn't be the first thing that'd come to mind; the technical, dissonant riffing here floats and coils about, practically glittering half the time. It's flashy, often unstable-sounding stuff.
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Reviews
Ocean Districts - Expeditions
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There I stood still amidst a dull, soundless, oppressively scorching night of July, steadily gazing at a horde of howling demons hanging low in the heavens and dancing to barren dirges of insufferable gloom and hollow emptiness. A quaint, rugged sound strangely resembling serenity post-mortem, oddly redolent of the reveller's trance upon opium, shifted, touch by touch, onto unceasing waves of progressive drone, sludge and post-rock madness. A mark, though unique, had reeked up from the summoned souls of three different shadows - God Is An Astronaut, Pelican and Russian Circles.
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Reviews
Bölzer - Soma
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There's no denying. The underground has been taken by storm. Bölzer has so far released material that barely scratches an hour in total, yet they have been recognized by almost everyone as a force to be reckoned with. How are they able to create so much with so little?
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Reviews
Harakiri For The Sky - Aokigahara
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A relatively new metal movement has taken me aback, leading me down an exhilarating, spiral path of emotionally charged and blissfully saturated musical sensibility. The blackgaze concept is a combination of black metal axioms with more dreamy and mellow textures and Harakiri For The Sky, a two-piece outfit from Vienna, Austria, have nailed it.
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Reviews
Dog Fashion Disco - Sweet Nothings
Reviews
Belphegor - Conjuring The Dead
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Have you ever tried to start an epic slow-clap moment in a room full of people, hoping it'll catch on and break into some massive applause, but instead end up standing there like a total dope, beating your hands together in an otherwise totally silent crowd? That's how every Belphegor fan feels when they release something even slightly better than Walpurgis Rites...and so it continues with Conjuring The Dead.
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Reviews
Entombed A.D. - Back To The Front
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Now we have two Entombeds lurking around? Details on this fiasco are vague, but the most obvious scenario is that these guys were ready to do battle metal style...Which is less Braveheart meets Conan The Barbarian, and more of Judge Judy...But Judge Judy on a metal musicians budget for legal representation, which is probably something like Barry Zuckerkorn meets Lionel Hutz. Alas, Alex Hellid packed up his toys and went home, leaving the rest of the Entombed crew to release this as Entombed A.D.. Bad news for Hellid, because Back To The Front slays pretty damn hard.
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Reviews
Accept - Blind Rage
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Now that Accept have climbed back to the top of their game and swept up the spotlight with a pair of excellent albums, their challenge lies in maintaining their grasp on success. Despite song titles like "Dying Breed," "Fall Of The Empire," and "Final Journey," Blind Rage does not spell the end to Accept's second wind; it is the next chapter.
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Reviews
Chaos Moon - Resurrection Extract
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One man bands have more or less always caught my attention, mostly due to the inspiring testaments to individual potential that lurk within them. Many of metal's repeat offenders within this realm of solidarity have kept relatively quiet this year, but now the silence is being broken once more by the little known, though highly accomplished Chaos Moon, beloved offspring of America's very own Alexander "Esoterica" Poole.
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Reviews
Fozzy - Do You Wanna Start A War
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It seems a little too easy picking on a band like Fozzy. The soapbox-contrarian part of me wants to love this album out of spite...But I just can't do it. Do You Wanna Start A War? is about as bland as it gets.
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Reviews
Krokmitën - Omicron-Omega
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Remember when you weren't a miserable prick? Back when the prospect of hearing a new, underground death metal band filled you childish glee, rather than that tired sigh and shrug? Well, here's something nice for your sad little existence ... Krokmitën; a band straddling the line between classic death metal standards and fresh, innovative sounds.
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