Dan Slessor

Contributions

While She Sleeps "have stepped their game up mightily" with 'Brainwashed' (review)

While She Sleeps Brainwashed Hailing from Sheffield (the Northern England city that also gave the world Bring Me The Horizon, Arctic Monkeys and rock titans Def Leppard), While She Sleeps are all about the metal. Maybe that’s not wholly accurate: On their previous releases, the metal was wall to wall, but on Brainwashed they bring […]

Silent Planet - The Night God Slept

Silent Planet The Night God Slept Dealing in coiling, contorted, brutal and melodic metalcore, Silent Planet make a strong impression on their debut full-length. While The Night God Slept provides plenty of thick riffs and pulverizing rhythms for those who want to lose their minds in the mosh pit, it is the haunting qualities that […]

Unearth - Watchers Of The Rule

Unearth Watchers Of The Rule If there’s one word that sums up Watchers Of Rule, it’s “battering.” Anyone expecting the successor to 2011‘s Darkness In The Light to take its cues from that record’s soaring choruses and plethora of hooks should brace themselves, for this is the hardest, most obstinate and all-out aggressive Unearth release […]

Obey The Brave - Salvation

Obey The Brave Salvation At heart, Obey The Brave are a meat ’n’ potatoes hardcore band. With muscular riffs, rampant rhythms, weighty breakdowns and plenty of gang vocal shout-alongs, the Canadian quintet embrace the old school, and fans of Sick Of It All, Madball and their ilk will find plenty to love. At the same […]

Opeth - Pale Communion

Opeth Pale Communion On 2011’s Heritage, the 10th full-length of a career dating back to 1990, Opeth stepped away from their metallic origins and strode into the prog-rock territory they had flirted with over their preceding releases. While it had some solid songs and was at heart still an Opeth record, it was hard to […]

Real Friends - Maybe This Place Is The Same And We're Just Changing

Real Friends Maybe This Place Is The Same And We’re Just Changing Real Friends’ greatest asset is their capacity for evoking poignant nostalgia in both their music and lyrics. Tapping a similar vein to the Ataris at their Blues Skies, Broken Hearts…Next 12 Exits best, as well as the Get Up Kids and the Starting […]

Structures - Life Through A Window

Structures Life Through A Window Having vomited up the likes of Gorguts, Neuraxis, Beneath The Massacre and Ion Dissonance, Canada has given the world some of the most brutal technical metal in existence. Structures may not quite scale the same nightmarish heights of their fellow countrymen, but they know how to make music that hurts. […]

Makthaverskan - II

Makthaverskan II Having introduced their post-punk-meets-dream-pop with 2009’s eponymous full-length, Makthaverskan’s influences were clearly entrenched in early British punk and shoegaze. With a sparse, somewhat rough sound, the Swedish quintet veered between iciness and warmth in an intriguing manner, and though it was a good record, too often their reverence for Buzzcocks and the Only […]

Animals As Leaders - The Joy Of Motion

Animals As Leaders The Joy Of Motion Since dropping their eponymous debut in 2009, Animals As Leaders have redefined the boundaries of progressive metal. Eschewing a vocalist, the band’s two eight-string guitarists and drummer create immensely complex yet immediate sonic collages influenced as much by jazz as that which exists at the heavier end of […]
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