Supermachiner – Rust

Supermachiner Rust: A little something old, a little something new. This is a 2 CD re-release of Supermachiner’s first, and only, album “Rise of the Great Machine”. Supermachiner was the side-project of Jake Bannon from Converge. Rather than make just another Converge clone, Bannon decided to ambient metal-like music that was about machines’ place in [...]

Manegarm-Vargstenen

Manegarm Vargstenen: This album takes the crappiest aspects of power metal, death metal, and black metal, and mixes them together, for the expressed purpose of torturing your ears and psyche. Lyrically the album focuses on wolves, stones, and wolf stones. The vocals are either Gollum-esque croaks, or a ridiculous operatic yell. Musically its your standard [...]

Saros – Acrid Plains

Saros Acrid Plains: Somewhat interesting metal that combines thrash, black, and doom metal into an enjoyable sound. The lyrics can be lame, but the music is good enough to make you not care. This album sometimes get self-indulgent, but these moments are usually followed by something neat thus they are forgiven Rating: 11/15 dudes with [...]

Neurosis – Given To The Rising

Neurosis Given To The Rising: After a bit of a nap, Neurosis come back re-energized. Thanks to some help from Steve Albini this disk is one of the most focused Neurosis albums in a while. While it’s not super heavy on experimentation, it makes up for that by being interesting and solid. Defiantly worth a [...]

Kylesa – Static Tensions

Kylesa Static Tensions: Oooh it might be early, but this album should be in consideration for best of 2009. Imagine if the current incarnation of the Melvins added a female singer/guitarist and then played metal. Yeah that’s how awesome Kylesa are. This disc is full of great riffs, awesome tribal drums, and a killer three [...]

Jesu-Conqueror

Jesu Conqueror: An interesting mix of heavy metal and shoe-gaze, with a greater emphasis on the shoe-gaze. Long melancholic songs with layered vocals and plodding riffs, which occasionally get distorted and involve growling are the norm for this disk. A good album to sit back and listen to, though it stays with certain riffs too [...]

Tomahawk-Anonymous

Tomahawk Anonymous: A band of guys used to tackling noise-rock and various forms of metal interpret Native American hymns and chants. Mike Patton actually sings which is always a plus. The end result is dark and mystifying as the source material carries with it a verifiable ton of cultural association and often related to shamanistic [...]

High on Fire-Blessed Black Wings

High on Fire Blessed Black Wings: Metal which takes equal parts from The Melvins and Slayer. Theres a decent amount of filler on this album, but the strong tracks make up for it. The intro track and the title track rank as the two strongest. Rating: 10/15 demon oriented  lyrics

All Else Failed – Good Enough For The Girls We Roll With

All Else Failed Good Enough For The Girls We Roll With: Sounds like Unsane with worse recording quality. Kinda a shame since there are some really cool tracks, but they are marred by tinny vocals and weak drums. Rating: 9/15 needs some re-mastering.

Tardy Brothers – Bloodline

Boring music from the brothers in Obituary