Phil Freeman

Casey Crescenzo Amour & Attrition Let’s stipulate at the outset that writing a symphony is a Herculean task and any rock musician should be commended for taking it on. That said, just as rock bands should be made up of players who listen to a lot of rock music, classical music should be written by […]

The Bunny The Bear Food Chain The Bunny The Bear, the duo of screamer Matthew Tybor and clean singer Chris Hutka, are one of the most unique—and uniquely unsettling—acts on the modern heavy music scene. Their songs fluctuate between eerie, keyboard-driven verses and crushingly heavy metal choruses, occasionally heading straight for the dancefloor to inhabit […]

Ringworm Hammer Of The Witch Cleveland’s own Ringworm are easily in the running for Angriest Band On Earth. Their blend of hardcore primitivism (that bass intro to “Leave Your Skin At The Door”!), thrash riffing and the astonishing vocals of James “Human Furnace” Bulloch makes Hatebreed and Terror sound like Tegan And Sara. Hammer Of The […]

The Mongoloids/Broken Teeth Split EP It’s a four-song split 7-inch by two hardcore bands named the Mongoloids and Broken Teeth. What more do you need to know? Oh, fine. The Mongoloids are a straight-edge five-piece from New Jersey; their vocalist sounds like he’s in his late 40s and weighs about 400 pounds, though he’s actually an […]

InDirections Clockworks Dallas-based quintet InDirections make their full-length debut with a thoroughly faceless slab of digitally stuttering, ultra-produced metalcore. The downtuned riffs are exactly as heavy as those of their better-known peers; the clean vocals have the requisite, piercing, nasal tone; the keyboards show up when it’s time to get deep and earnest; you know […]

I See Stars New Demons I See Stars kickstart their fourth full-length with a song that steals the synth riff from Baauer's “Harlem Shake.” Yes, it’s just one element tossed into the blender with their usual high-pitched choirboy choruses and not-quite-Emmure breakdowns, but the fact that it’s there says ominous things about the band, who’ve […]

The 1975 The 1975 The debut album by this Manchester, U.K.-based quartet follows a series of EPs and includes re-recorded versions of several tracks (“The City,” “Sex,” “Chocolate”). Their sound is hard to pin down; while it’s primarily built around guitars, bass and drums, there are synths underpinning nearly every song, and the rhythms have […]

Born Of Osiris Tomorrow We Die Alive The fourth full-length (third if you think their barely-20-minute debut, 2007’s The New Reign, should only count as an EP) from Chicago-based sextet Born Of Osiris is, frankly, a disappointment in the wake of its two predecessors, 2009’s A Higher Place and 2011’s The Discovery. When you consider […]

Asking Alexandria From Death To Destiny Should a guy with addictions as well-publicized as Danny Worsnop’s really be starting his band’s new album with the line “You’re fucking crazy if you think that I’ll ever change”? Well, that’s the first lyric heard on From Death To Destiny, and it’s the perfect beginning to an album […]