Alcest
Kodama
Prophecy Productions (2016)
Kodama (loosely translating to “tree spirit” in Japanese) is a record that follows Alcest’s path of spirituality in music, and while Shelter (2014) was a lovely, warm, summery album, in retrospect it may not have been one of the best outings for the French duo. Kodama strips back to the basics of Alcest’s sound and lifts the mind into new … Read more
Alcest
Les Voyages de l'Âme
Prophecy Productions (2012)
What I love most about French metaller Alcest's newest release Les Voyages de l'Âme (roughly, The Journeys of the Soul) is how it invites your impressions to shift and change as you listen to it. At first, I picked out mostly the folk elements, comparing it to Opeth, except much more melodic in nature. Then I started hearing the ever-so-slight … Read more
Alcest
Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde
Profound Lore (2007)
To listen to "Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde" (which translates into Memories Of Another World) is to experience a world free of pain, darkness, and despair, and to enter a world of beauty and harmony. The scenario that such an album paints is one where pure joy and happiness triumph through the overbearing cascading light, where innocence prevails, and where the … Read more
Alcest
Spiritual Instinct
Nuclear Blast (2019)
Spirituality is one of the more personal topics that an artist can speak about within their music and it’s something that is coloured by experiences and by life as it happens around them. Where many find comfort, some find fear and where some find fear, many find comfort. For Alcest’s Neige (Stéphane Paut), that comfort comes from childhood experiences that … Read more
Alestorm
Seventh Rum Of A Seventh Rum
Napalm (2022)
Having left a suitable amount of time since it's release in June this year, I thought it was about time I wrote down my thoughts on album number seven from duck loving, pirate metal drunkards Alestorm. I'm sure everyone has picked up on the Iron Maiden reference and maybe the haters have rolled their eyes before even listening to it … Read more
Alex Ross
Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
Harper Collins (2020)
Richard Wagner and his oeuvre cast a big shadow in every sense of the word.In a time and age where the ostracism of cancel culture and systematic boycotts is prevalent, the question is if artists like Wagner, whose success was in large amounts due to the political relevance from 1933-45 and his anti-Semitism, are more than merely a guilty pleasure? … Read more
Alexeï Kawolski
My DC Offset Fields
Kalmar A Label (2014)
Recording under the guise of Alexeï Kawolski, Montreal-based composer and producer Alexis Langevin-Tétrault walks the line between making harsh and abstract material and more noticeably melodic compositions. Kawolski has built up quite a library of releases since the late 2000s and was nominated in 2013 for a Quebec Indy Award for best experimental album. That fact alone should provide some … Read more
Alexisonfire
Crisis
Vagrant (2006)
Scream, sing, scream, sing, scream, and sing. This simple recipe, which was discovered and completely exploited these past few years, has created a plethora of bands that for the most part are really really bad. Thankfully, there seems to be a lessening of this herd and some fine gleaning has thinned the crop to what we are supposed to believe … Read more
Alexisonfire
Old Crows/Young Cardinals
Vagrant (2009)
I've always considered Alexisonfire one of the "better bands" in the whole "post-hardcore" scene or whatever you want to call it. However, their last album, Crisis received a lot of mixed reactions among fans with a lot of them believing that the band had lost their fire and were aiming for a more "commercial appealing" album. While that may be … Read more
Alexisonfire
Watch Out!
Equal Vision (2004)
Back in the late nineties a handful of bands like Shai Hulud and Poison the Well began blending technical metalcore with more melodic, Midwest-style emo, building a sound that for the time was pretty innovative. After gaining a large amount of popularity, newer bands began emulating this style and making it more and more watered down. These are bands like … Read more
Algiers
Algiers
Matador (2015)
I feel like I’ve seen a lot of bands forcing genres together - black metal and shoegaze (Deafheaven), indie rock and hip-hop (Why?), jazz fusion and rap (Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead) - and I could go on and on. Often genre mashing can be a bit gimmicky, but if it’s done right, it can be a recipe for some of … Read more
Ali Muhareb
Existentially Wasted
Making New Enemies label (2016)
The concept of being “existentially wasted” seems somewhat appropriate in the context of increasingly confused (and confusing) modern society. It's a concept that could easily have been born out of something like The Matrix, a process of being burnt out on being. Modern humans are often simply swamped with information, much of which seems utterly useless in the bigger scheme … Read more
Alice In Chains
Rainier Fog
BMG (2018)
It’s been 12 years since Alice In Chains reactivated with vocalist William DuVall - making his time in the band roughly twice that of Layne Staley, but the shadow left by Staley was cast dark and long across the band’s last two albums Black Gives Way To Blue and The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Both competent albums that for better … Read more
Alice In Chains
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
Capitol (2013)
I'll admit, I'm a bit of a purist; though I didn't think it was a bad release, Black Gives Way to Blue always seemed to pale in comparison to Alice in Chains's earlier works. On some level, that's not entirely fair--without Staley, they are an entirely different band, and not necessarily even trying to recapture who they were before. But … Read more
Alien Nosejob
HC2
Iron Lung (2021)
It seems that Jake Robertson spent a lot of the past year playing with himself. But haven’t we all? Bad jokes aside, the one-man band put out multiple full-lengths in 2020 and now a new 6-song EP too. Overall, the project is diverse, falling generally within the punk umbrella but different influences scattered as Robertson feels like it. But this … Read more
Alien Nosejob
Once Again The Present Becomes The Past
Iron Lung (2020)
Alien Nosejob is a one-person project by Jake Robertson. On Suddenly Everything Is Twice As Loud, released in January, it was heavily influenced by melodic garage-punk. This time around the word was that Once Again The Present Becomes The Past is a hardcore record.So of course it starts with a short song called “Piano Prelude.” Because even when you know … Read more
Alien Nosejob
Suddenly Everything Is Twice As Loud
Drunken Sailor (2020)
With a name like Alien Nosejob I was expecting something a little more spacey or out there than what you get on Suddenly Everything Is Twice As Loud. A one man band of sorts, led by Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, Hierophants, Drug Sweat, and more), Alien Nosejob is melodic and thoughtful, playing a variety of punk-inspired sounds over 13 songs. The … Read more
Alien Nosejob
The Derivative Sounds Of... Or... A Dog Always Returns To Its Vomit
Anti Fade Records, Goner (2023)
Alien Nosejob, the one-man project from Australian musician Jake Robertson has been releasing a lot of records. The project began a garage rock bent and recently moved into hardcore-inspired raw punk. The newest record, a 13-song collection called The Derivative Sounds Of... Or... A Dog Always Returns To Its Vomit goes full circle -- really even further back, with some … Read more
