“Dream Theater is a good band” is not exactly a hot take, although, depending on which kind of circles you move in and their level of jaded cynicism, it might be. Still, as we stand at the foot of one of the most illustrious and divisive careers in metal’s brief…
Since this is my first review of the year, it’s a good time to mention one of my annual music resolutions. I try to evolve my listening habits with a new focus come Jan. 1, with this year’s theme being to cut down on my “Lazy List.” With all the…
Sometimes, a lead single can all but guarantee you’ll love an album, which was very much the case after I heard “Far from Where Dreams Unfurl.” As I outlined in my review, Wilderun have crafted my favorite prog metal albums of the year with Veil of Imagination by a wide…
“The passion caused by the great and the sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. … It is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind…
It’s been two years since we last spoke about Timeworn. Their last release, Venomous High, lived up to its name. It was a heavy, progressive stoner album that called forth the unavoidable Mastodon comparisons. But unlike many of the bands operating within this saturated genre, Timeworn made sure to live…
The best part about bands with a completely unique identity is the way they not only differentiate themselves from other groups, but from their own sound with each subsequent release. This trait applies directly to Dysrhythmia and the vast field of other projects involving Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Vaura) and Colin…
The Load In August may have been a relatively quiet month in terms of the volume of events I attended, but there can be no doubt that the quality has been exceptionally high. Having already spoken at length about Radar festival in my last column, I only have three more…
There has always been the sense of the eerie and the weird to Kayo Dot’s music. Perhaps that is in the nature of all the disparate styles we often clumsily bundle up together under the guise of avant-garde or art rock. This eeriness is, naturally, hard to define; it is…
What ever happened to unpredictability? The Baroness, the Mastodon, when they were sneaky. You miss those old familiar bands, waiting just around the bend. Now though they’re everywhere you look, they’re quite different from their reckless and wild beginnings. They reigned it in. They matured. It’s nonsensical to argue that…
Summertime. The living may be easy, the fish jumping and the cotton high, but Humanity’s Last Breath couldn’t give a shit about that. As Europe is broiled by a particularly ferocious heatwave, the Swedes prepare to deliver a relentless blast of bleak and uncompromising gloom on harsh Scandinavian winds. Abyssal,…
