California’s Bl’ast, one of the “founding father” primal hardcore punk bands, has returned with its first new music in two decades. A five-minutes-and-change listening trek, this two song EP, titled For Those Who’ve Graced the Fire! quickly whets fans’ appetites for more. As before, the band’s core members remain Clifford …

Corrosion of Conformity‘s Reed Mullin and My Ruin‘s Mick Murphy decided, along with Jon Lousteau as producer, to create a star-studded, ever-changing group of guests that would convene, as Teenage Time Killers, and create an album. Given the celebrity status for about half of the guests, at first glance this …

Oft described as “dark, sexy”, “gothic blues”, American hard rock band The Dead Weather has announced that its third full-length album will be released worldwide in September 2015, through Third Man Records. Titled Dodge & Burn, this effort purports to contain 12 original tracks, including four previously-released tunes (now remixed …

Baltimore, Maryland’s Hatebeak has released a new 14 track album, titled The Number of the Beak. The band’s music is highly experimental grindcore, noise, or even post-grind, with Waldo the African Grey parrot’s various noises used as ‘vocal samples’. Released through Reptilian Records, this is apparently a compilation of all …

Ireland’s Shardborne has released a seven song instrumental opus, titled Living Bridges. Formed in 2010, Shardborne released Aeonian Sequence, its four song debut EP, in 2011. Living Bridges is an odd, instrumental hybrid of progressive rock fusion, djent, atmospheric extreme metal, and regular thrash metal. Like listening to a great …

“Mr. Falwell, you are not my god.” bluntly states Paolo Rossi, at the end of Wasted Youth‘s 1986 release, a six song EP titled Get Out Of My Yard!. Channeling classic punk rock in every sense of the phrase, this disc scratches an itch to hear genuine, vintage high-energy music, …

  Guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani has released his latest studio album, titled Shockwave Supernova. The California native’s all-instrumental record explores a fairly loose, abstract concept of an alter ego, named Shockwave Supernova. The songs outline and follow this superhuman persona through journeys across stages both worldwide and intragalactically. This 15th …

Veteran German and Dutch extreme thrash-death act Dew-Scented has released its tenth and latest studio effort, titled Intermination, on Metal Blade Records. The digital edition of Intermination contains 15 tracks of high speed malevolence that promises to sweep rage and fury across the airwaves. The band seeks to build inter-album …

Fans of the original wave of Swedish death metal are in for a treat, from Entrails‘s latest release, Obliteration. As the band says, it’s ten tracks of “death metal and nothing else.” Entrails formed around the same time that bands like Entombed and Grave were just beginning to garner some …

After selling upwards of 80 million albums as a part of rock titan Journey, guitarist Neal Schon has released his latest solo offering, Vortex. For Vortex, a two disc set, Schon was joined in the studio by keyboardist Igor Len, and fellow Journeyman, drummer Steve Smith. Schon has the freedom and the space to explore …

Melbourne, Australia’s Deez Nuts brought forth their fourth studio album, Word Is Bond, in the spring of 2015. Word Is Bond is a 14 track disc filled with monolithic, aggressive hardcore crossover thrash metal that will sear your feet to the floor and melt your face simultaneously. The overall sonic …

SixStringNoise, from Greece, has independently released Snake Side Brotherhood, a ten song album. This offering, the band’s third, shows a natural progression in musicianship, songwriting, and technical mastery. As a duo, Markos and Alex have come up with a cohesive batch of songs which run a gamut from grunge or …

A band composed of collaborative writers, excellent arrangers, and fantastic musicians, titan Finnish folk metal band Ensiferum recently treated the world to it’s latest release, One Man Army. In 2015, the band celebrated 20 years together, partially with the release of One Man Army, their critically-acclaimed release for Metal Blade …

Bringing forth their 12th studio album, Sweden’s Unleashed has, with Dawn of the Nine, successfully continued an aggressive, fairly melodic saga. Their previous release, Odalheim, released in 2012, began this journey. Let’s pretend you’re a new fan, perhaps just introduced to death metal a little while ago, and your virgin …

2015 is fun. Here are some ‘Twitter’ Reviews by Iris North The gist: Very freely associate words and phrases with whatever comes to mind first, based on the prompts. Adrenaline Mob – Dearly Departed EP: They’re cursed. Aptly named! Karyn Crisis’ Gospel Of The Witches – Salem’s Wounds: Gospel?! *gasp* Metal …

Los Angeles-based trio FAILURE will release The Heart Is A Monster, the band’s follow-up to 1996’s Fantastic Planet, on June 30 via INgrooves Music Group’s artist services division, INresidence. “Trying to follow up Fantastic Planet was a bit daunting,” said Ken Andrews, who mixed the 18-song collection with the band …

Irish Metal 2 The Masses semi-finalists Megacone have released their debut EP, titled Fondle Fantasy. Like many bands who play instrumental music, particularly fusion, Megacone enjoys putting forth plenty to listen to. There’s a lot to ingest and process here: a lot of time swings, a lot of tempo changes, …

Wow, what a fantastic surprise. Hello=Fire‘s heavy, dramatic, bombastic single, “Angle To See”, released in 2013 for Record Store Day and recently promoted by Schnitzel Records, represents a near-180 degree turn from the melodic, varied rock and pop heard on 2009’s eponymous debut. Hello=Fire mainman Dean Fertita‘s tenure in The …

A brilliant 13 song offering released in late 2014, Once, Forever & Again by London-based The See See showcases the band’s latest sonic journeys, and is the subject of this week’s Pop Focus. Once, Forever & Again, The See See’s third full-length studio effort, finally breaks some ground and gains a …

Internationally acclaimed music legends Black Star Riders‘s ten track “second album, The Killer Instinct, is released via Nuclear Blast. Produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Mastodon, Rush), The Killer Instinct is hard rock in the classic tradition.” In 2012, the band was formed, and contains three former members of Thin Lizzy: …