Tag Archives: new releases

A band that’s been buzzed about as “a force to watch”, Mini Mansions hit BBC 1’s Single Of The Week with “Death Is A Girl” in mid-December, 2014. With that kind of accolade, and an upcoming full UK tour with Royal Blood, this sun-drenched American band are this week’s obvious Pop Focus choice. …

There are some genuinely grinding, aggressive moments tucked away in the 11 tunes that comprise The Crown‘s early 2015 release, Death is Not Dead. These Swedish extreme metal veterans have reconvened to bring their fans some more fairly melodic, high speed death-thrash as only they can. Death is Not Dead …

Do you like the band Flyleaf? Do you like to read? Here’s something made with you in mind! Flyleaf Spreads Their Wings, a digital edition of which was offered three months ago for review, is about the “Christian but not Christian” band Flyleaf, who is currently apparently on hiatus. The …

Canadian-born musician Pat Travers is fortunate to have a long and storied career playing rock and roll. He’s got an extensive discography with The Pat Travers Band, including at least one touchstone live release. This latest live album, Live at The Iridium NY, released through Frontiers Records in 2015, adds …

Part homage, part parody, and all in-your-face, Massachusetts thrash-mongers Lich King‘s seven-song EP, titled Do-Over, is a jungle of fist-pumping, headbanging riffage. Released by Evil Eye Records on Christmas Day 2014 (as a present to the band’s fans old and new), this EP is an advance warning shot, serving to …

German stalwart thrash metal act Sodom has released it’s latest, a four-song EP titled Sacred Warpath, in 2014 through SPV/Steamhammer. Tom “Angelripper” and his cronies knew as far back as 1982 how to thrash an audience, and they still seem to have that black magic spark. Sodom has a formulaic …

The musical brainchild of Troy Van Leeuwen (Failure, A Perfect Circle, Queens of the Stone Age) and Serrina Sims, California’s alt-rock Sweethead takes it’s name from a vintage “vulgar” David Bowie song, and it’s sound from the various eras of rock music. “Antony”, this first piece, recorded and shelved, not …

Veteran death metallers Obituary, from Florida, have returned with their latest studio album, titled Inked In Blood. The disc was crowd-funded by Kickstarter (later picked up by Relapse Records), so it should come as no surprise that these songs have been honed to a razor’s edge with demands from the …

What can be said of Cannibal Corpse, Metal Blade Records and Brian Slagel‘s “biggest-selling death metal band of all time”? (pp. 149) This five-piece American extreme metal band has accumulated career highs usually only available to rock bands: full-production music videos, boxed set sales, even a cameo in a blockbuster …

And now for something different, and decidedly non-metal, in metal-land! Guitarist Carl Verheyen, of Supertramp fame, released his fantastic solo album, Mustang Run, on August 1. Verheyen has a short tour of the UK lined up to support the release. The 11 tracks (ten instrumental) presented here are a wonderful …

Dissonant, fast, unsettling, and brutal, Austrian veteran black metal band Abigor‘s 2014 disc, Leytmotif Luzifer, is everything a purist black metal fan should want. Leytmotif Luzifer contains seven original songs, with no excesses, no poor recording or bad sound, just pure Satanic splendor and bleakness. Focusing on the seven “temptations …

The hardscrabble, oft-bloodied bastard child of blues-based rock and roll and youthful angst, punk music has found a ready and willing audience with the disillusioned and disaffected for decades. A near-antithesis to virtuosity, punk’s raw edge favors instant consumption: quick composition, hard-hitting rhythms, and raucous riffing guitars. It’s common-man folk music for …

Sweden’s Freak Kitchen, featuring guitar virtuoso Mattias “IA” Eklundh, have returned with a ripping slab of musical whimsy, titled Cooking With Pagans. This 12-track, progressive rock album simultaneously “roasts” contemporary culture and explores new, quirky ways of musical self-expression. Neither pure “djent” nor pure progressive metal, this heavy music is …

Los Angeles-based guitar virtuoso Paul Gilbert released his 13th and latest studio album, Stone Pushing Uphill Man, on August 5th, 2014. The 11-track disc features instrumental adaptations of eight famous “oldies” tunes, along with three of Gilbert’s original songs. The result is something like being at the mercy of his …

Barcelona’s Kilmara have released their third full-length disc, Love Songs And Other Nightmares, an 11-song sojourn into melodic metal. Very nicely recorded, mixed and mastered, the album doesn’t have a raw “demo” sound that many acts seem to foster lately. Pleasant and paced well, the disc’s tunes don’t seem to …

Current Vista Chino vocalist, former Kyuss member and desert rocker John Garcia has finally released his eponymous debut solo disc. This 11-track romp has plenty to offer the fan of good ol’ American rock and roll, particularly flavored with a “stoner” edge. He’s enlisted fellow partner in crime (and Queens …

Swedish metallers Falconer have returned with 2014’s full-length disc, Black Moon Rising. This is the band’s eighth studio effort, a nice blend of melodic, power, and folk metal elements. This 11-track disc is packed with classic heavy metal, power metal, and folk metal in spades. Top-tier musicianship only helps to …

Young Bavarian eighties thrash ‘revival’ band Dust Bolt have dialed in some classic tones, with their new, 12+ track full-length Awake The Riot ready for enjoyment by anyone who appreciates solid, well-played thrash metal. The band wear their influences as players and as a band on their sleeves, harnessing the …

Who can forget Goatwhore? From Sammy Duet‘s quip on the Relapse Records message board so long ago “I’m going to start a band and call it Goatwhore” to today’s mayhemic brutal machine, Louisiana’s purveyors of musical insanity have bluntly carved a well-deserved niche for themselves within extreme metal’s upper echelon. …

“Bloody Hammers are a heavy rock band from Transylvania County, North Carolina.” Their latest ten-song disc, Under Satan’s Sun, was released in 2014 on Napalm Records. “Although commonly viewed as gothic rock, the band have incorporated elements of doom metal, stoner metal, and psychedelic rock.” By their name and the …