Category: Metal
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A lot of heavy metal bands from when I was growing up have re-recorded their hits during the past decade. My understanding is that most of them do it because their former record labels no longer produce copies of their albums, so new fans can’t obtain their songs unless they shell out some serious money…
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Watain is a black metal band formed in Uppsala, Sweden in 1998. The Wild Hunt is their fifth full-length album and their first for Century Media Records. And, considering how many magazine covers they’re currently featured on — Decibel, Terrorizer, Metalized, and Rock hard, just to name a few — it seems poised to be…
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Prior to this album, the only thing I’d ever heard by New Year’s Day was their scorching cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” which is easily my favorite Lady Gaga cover to date. Alas, I’m a bit late to the party here, as the band, which hails from Chino Hills, California, has actually been around…
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Hey! Hello! is one of many side projects by the prolific front man of The Wildhearts, Ginger. These days he goes by Ginger Wildheart, apparently to ensure that fans of The Wildhearts will realize it’s him when they come across his releases and not just some other dude named Ginger. (Or should I say bloke?…
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I was curious to hear this 5 piece Los Angeles metal band after learning that they have two female lead vocalists. I figured their sound would have to be pretty unique, that the women would be singing in different styles. After all, what would be the point in having two singers if they were both…
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Fires of Life is the fist full-length album by the Chicago-based band Starkill, who previously self-released an E.P. in 2010 under the name Massakren. The band was formed in 2008 by Parker Jameson (lead guitar, vocals, keyboards, orchestral programming), Spencer Weidner (drums) and Charlie Federici (guitars). Bassist Mike Buetsch was added later, completing the line…
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Hailing from Sweden, Darkane blend melodic death metal and technical thrash metal, yielding a highly energetic and wholly captivating sound that reminds me of early, Kill ‘Em All era Metallica at times, while calling to mind later day Slayer and newer bands like Mastodon and Opeth at others. The Sinister Supremacy sees the return of…
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Every time a new Megadeth album comes out, I listen to it and find myself thinking, damn, this is the best Megadeth in years. Perhaps, then, they’ve been getting progressively better. It’s also possible — if not probable — that I’ve forgotten how good the previous album was by the time a new album comes…
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Initially, I was disappointed that this new Black Sabbath album, the first in something like 20 years to feature Geezer Butler (bass), Tony Iommi (guitar) and Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), didn’t have any catchy songs like “Iron Man” and “Paranoid.” I felt like, didn’t they want to hook people? I’ve been frustrated with Iron Maiden for…
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United World Rebellion: Chapter One is Skid Row’s third release to feature vocalist Johnny Solinger, who’s been their singer for a decade now, which is probably close to how long original vocalist Sebastian Bach was in the band. Their first release with Solinger was called Thickskin and it found the band trying on an alternative…
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If I understand correctly, this is the chorus of “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here,” the title track of Alice In Chain’s new album: “The devil put dinosaurs here / Jesus don’t like a queer / The devil put dinosaurs here / No problem with faith just fear.” Now analyze that. Seriously. Because I don’t get…
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Back in April a Queensrÿche album called Frequency Unknown was released. And it was terrible. The 10 new songs were so generic that they were painful to listen to. Or maybe it was the production and/or mixing. The drums sounded like tin cans. Actually, that’s an insult to tin cans. I don’t mean that as…
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Once upon a time a Norwegian group released a couple of acoustic jazz albums. But, apparently having diverse tastes in music, their next two albums incorporated progressive rock and experimental metal sounds. Then they worked with black metal vikings Enslaved on a concerto that was actually commissioned by a top European jazz festival. That collaboration…
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Usually when a band takes its name from another band’s song, they’re doomed to never be as good as the band they’ve gotten their name from. For all of their accomplishments, Godsmack will never be as good as Alice In Chains. At least not in my opinion. Doom metal band Demon Lung have taken their…
