Imperial
Imperial We Sail At Dawn [2/5] Basic white-bread recipe, adjusted for metalcore success in 2006: Mix 3 1/2 c. At The Gates riffs with 3 Tbsp. screams, 2 Tbsp. clean vocals, 1 Tbsp. synthesizer accents and 1 pkg. Quick-Acting Spooky Atmosphere in major-label incubator program. Add scalded production values; beat for approx. 35 minutes at...
I Killed The Prom Queen
I Killed The Prom Queen Music For The Recently Deceased [3/5] You’d almost expect I Killed The Prom Queen to hail from Southern California, where it sounds like they got their start opening for similarly minded bands like Bleeding Through and Atreyu at local shows. But the heavy, double-bass-reliant quintet is actually from Australia, and...
Dream Evil
Dream Evil United [3/5] Dream Evil may be the most self-aware band of all time. Case in point: United’s opening track “Fire! Battle! In Metal” is a song solely about fire, battle and, well, metal. While Dream Evil may not have the technical chops of, say, DragonForce, they make up for it with magnificently crafted...
Borknagar
Borknagar Origin [1/5] Like their Norse brethren Ulver (with whom they once shared a vocalist in Kristoffer “Garm” Rygg), Borknagar have always toyed with the pretenses of black metal; and on their latest album, Origin, they abandon them altogether in favor of acoustic guitars, violins and, uh, bamboo flutes. And the songs-with titles like “Grains,”...
Amon Amarth
Amon Amarth With Oden On Our Side [4/5] Amon Amarth’s imagery may document gore-strewn battlefields, but their guitar harmonies resonate triumphantly above the carnage. The Swedish group’s lyrics reveal the key to their melodic buoyancy: Either they’re celebrating a Viking crew’s brutal victory or they’re voicing a dying narrator’s dreams of impending paradise. Their guitar...
Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
Brand New The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me The first time I saw Brand New live was in August 2001—the band were touring on their four-song demo CD-R at the time. And as unknown bands are treated at shows all across America, the meager crowd dispersed outside for the mandatory smoke break as...
White Magic
White Magic Dat Rosa Mel Apibus [1/5] First, let us say we love us some Drag City music, and when we got a hold of this disc, with its fetching sleeve and unpronounceable album title, we were ready to be transported to another plane of consciousness. What we weren’t ready for was to be moved...
Tristeza
Tristeza En Nuestro Desafio [3/5] San Diego instrumentalists Tristeza spent much of the time recording En Nuestro Desafio commuting back and forth across the U.S./Mexico border, and that sense of displacement comes through on these nine brief impressions of nothingness. (The accompanying DVD echoes this theme in artful sketches of travel and movement.) It’s rare...
Tahiti 80
Tahiti 80 Fosbury [3/5] The French popsters have gone all R&B on us! Well, not quite, but the English-singing Tahiti 80 are definitely digging deeper into funky grooves with their third disc and Militia Group debut. They even hired a couple of chaps (Neal Pouge and Serban Ghenea) who worked on Outkast and N.E.R.D. albums...