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Our latest album reviews, featuring the records we've most enjoyed (or not) over the past few weeks.

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Browse our album reviews according to score: Highest (9.5/10 or more) or Lowest (2/10 or less)

Martyrdöd

Paranoia
Southern Lord (2012)

Sweden’s Martyrdöd are whole heap of metallic vitriol interspersed with a frenetic melody and more spiky riffs than you can shake a stick at. Furious and without mercy, latest record Paranoia is a crust-laden festival of punk-infused spite. Blackened hardcore at it’s very finest, Martyrdöd are here to rip your world apart with their insanely tight package of darkness and rage. Opener “Nog Är Nog” bursts with a whirling energy and Mikael Kjellman’s filthy black metal tinged vocal writhes with force and pure fucking contempt. Staying true to their Swedish roots in the groove of “Hör Världens Rop” and the obnoxious swagger of “Ett Hjärta Av Eld,” this band show no mercy and punish without discrimination. Paronoia is as incensed as you’d expect from these forerunners of the crust/d-beat scene. The record itself is filthy as hell and the malice contained within rolls out in palpable waves of destruction yet Martyrdöd are adept at controlling this anger, never coming across as though they are preaching but as comrades in the eternal struggle of life. Thrashing away with a wild abandon, Paranoia reeks of bile and intensity; the title track itself an enraged combination of taut riffs and boisterous momentum. Kjellman’s … Read more

Drivin' N Cryin'

Songs From The Laundromat
New! (2012)

Drivin’ N Cryin’ formed in Atlanta back in 1985 have announced their plans to release four EPs over the next … Read more

Better Than A Thousand

Just One
Revelation (1997)

Seeing how I feel about Youth Of Today (i.e. I do not really care for them at all), it may … Read more

Youth Of Today

Break Down The Walls
Revelation (1988)

Please allow me to drop this little disclaimer here before we delve any further; I am not nor was ever … Read more

Kiss It Goodbye

Choke (EP)
Revelation (1999)

Waiting for a follow up record from Kiss It Goodbye felt like an eternity, and rumors were rampant regarding a … Read more

Shelter

Quest For Certainty
Revelation (1998)

Now a days, seeing a bunch of dudes with weird looking tufts of hair sticking out of the back of … Read more

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One from the archives

Grouper

Ruins
Kranky (2014)

Though I’ve been familiar with the name Grouper for some time, perhaps it’s not entirely coincidental that the solo project from Portland, Oregon-based artist and musician Liz Harris has never quite made an impression on me. While many of today’s groups strive to work their way into a listeners head, Grouper almost seems to be trying to achieve the opposite, trading in fleeting melody and palpable moods instead of bombastic rhythms and quirky lyrics. This is certainly true of 2014’s Ruins, which appropriately enough was released on Halloween. Even if the production here is purposely rough, the album as a whole is very calming, made up largely of piano-based compositions into which Harris only intermittently injects whispered vocals. As such, Ruins seems like something that a listener would have to … Read more

More album reviews

Judge

Bringin' It Down
Revelation (1989)

Who has never seen the iconic (OK, iconic in the hardcore punk scene) crossed hammers logo (that shaped an “X” ) of the band Judge? Judge ultimately proved to be a short lived musical unit that produced just one album Bringin’ It Down (discounting the very limited release of Chung King Can Suck It which in it of itself has … Read more

Pinkish Black

Self Titled
Handmade Birds (2012)

Texan duo Pinkish Black employ synthesised loops of terrifying, droning pulses and a deliciously dangerous swagger filters through this debut. Daron Beck’s clouded voice dips in and out of throbbing electronic beats whilst currents of perilous doom cut through the loaded atmosphere, Beck’s voice often hidden in the murky depths of the all consuming sounds layered by cohort Jon Teague … Read more

Touche Amore

Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me
Deathwish Inc. (2011)

Touche Amore have made a name for themselves in the hardcore scene with the release of their past record To The Beat Of A Dead Horse and a slough of 7inches and splits. While some Internet drama has led to a backlash against the band, this new full length Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me can be held as … Read more

Struck by Lightning

True Predation
Translation Loss (2012)

Struck By Lightning came out the gate hard and fast about 3 years ago with their first LP "Serpents". That record truly set them apart from the ex-members of... tag that they could've carried. Instead of playing the post metal of past projects they built a sound that was more indebted to Discharge than Isis. This worked well for them … Read more

Sleep

Dopesmoker (Reissue)
Southern Lord (2012)

Imagine, if you will, that doom rock band Om and a still-young drone metal band Boris got together in a hallucinogen-induced haze one night. Their inevitable pothead lovechild would undoubtedly be doom/stoner outfit Sleep, as evidenced by their final album, Dopesmoker.Having been released at least four different times (with four different running times, not to mention two different names), this … Read more

Feersum Ennjin

Feersum Ennjin
Dissociated Press (2011)

I really hate being heavily reliant on comparisons to past work in order to form a judgement, but in the case of Paul D'Amour (aka Feersum Ennjin), it's hard not to. As the former bassist for Tool, one of most prolific and undeniably best progressive bands today, it's difficult to take him on his own terms and out from under … Read more

Lionize

Superczar and the Vulture
Pentimento Music (2011)

I rarely listen to music that isn't at least fifteen minutes long per song or lacks internal movement titles, so when I received Lionize's Superczar and the Vulture, understand I was stepping pretty far outside of my normal purview--I was pretty much giving this album a chance based on the incredibly intriguing title alone. Much to my surprise, I wound … Read more

Quelle Chris

2Dirt4TV
Independent (2012)

Hot off the heels his underappreciated 2011 debut full-length Shotgun & Sleek Rifle, Detroit MC/producer Quelle Chris drops his latest EP, 2Dirt4TV. This time around Quelle steps from behind the boards, leaving the production to “Legendary underground MySpace producer” Mr. Dibia$e. The result couldn’t be more seamlessly harmonized, as Dibia$e’s laid-back boom-bap balances Quelle’s nonconformist flow in way that recalls … Read more

Various Artists

Police Bastard & War//Plague - Attrition split LP
Profane Existence (2011)

Attrition brings together two punk bands from opposing sides of the Atlantic Ocean—England’s Police Bastard and the United States' War//Plague. Most of the material was recorded at various points in 2009 but not released on vinyl until May of 2011, when Profane Existence Records pressed up a couple thousand slabs of wax to unleash to patched-up masses. Former members of … Read more

Morning Again

As Tradition Dies Slowly
Revelation (1998)

Without a doubt, As Tradition Dies Slowly is easily the most metal record that Revelation ever put out (at least so far); and the idea of them even touching this album and even Morning Again as a whole with a ten foot pole really just blew me away back in the day (when this came out), and, at the time, … Read more

Elliott

False Cathedrals
Revelation (2000)

There are those records out there where people can point to them as a turning point in their musical taste or a shift in their musical aesthetic and say that the record really changed how they viewed entire swathes of music or entire genres, and I will never forget the day that I bought False Cathedrals from Elliott in part … Read more

Burn

Self Titled
Revelation (1990)

Now this is a classic Revelation release and for some, the classic Revelation release; Burn kind of blew up some people’s sense of what a hardcore record could be, springing from a New York hardcore scene with what at the time were some pretty known names in that scene (members of Absolution and Beyond comprise this group’s make up or … Read more

Himsa

Self Titled
Revelation (1999)

Long before this band went the way of the metal ear candy purveyors that they eventually turned into (check out Courting Tragedy And Disaster for a reference), Himsa dropped this terribly under appreciated and short eponymous EP on an arguably rather stagnant era of hardcore and punk with a dark tone and a bit more of a nuanced view of … Read more

The Nerve Agents

Days Of The White Owl
Revelation (2000)

Though not as revered as the final album from The Nerve Agents, Days Of The White Owl is certainly a turning point for the band and a definite precursor to the critical darling of an album that succeeds it, and this is perhaps a monster injustice to The Nerve Agents because with their last and best album for Revelation, they … Read more

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Browse our album reviews according to score: Highest (9.5/10 or more) or Lowest (2/10 or less)