Phil Freeman

Counterparts The Difference Between Hell And Home These five Canadians show that they’ve got what it takes to stretch hardcore’s boundaries on their third full-length (and second for Victory). Their sound is less knuckle-dragging than, say, Terror, and less metallic than Hatebreed, but The Difference Between Hell And Home is much heavier and more ferocious […]

Like Moths To Flames An Eye For An Eye Ohio’s Like Moths To Flames are sticking with what worked for them last time on the follow-up to 2011’s When We Don’t Exist. A pair of guests pop up (Shane Told of Silverstein sings on “Into The Ground” and Ahren Stringer of the Amity Affliction can […]

Attila About That Life Some bands are so breathtakingly stupid they tumble forward into a kind of genius. On their fifth album, Atlanta deathcore knuckle-walkers Attila have at last reached the lofty realm populated by Limp Bizkit, Emmure, Brokencyde and Hollywood Undead. Their blend of savage, downtuned riffing, concussive drumming and nihilistic party-till-someone-gets-hurt lyrics (alternately […]

The Bunny The Bear Stories The fourth album in as many years from Buffalo, New York-based electro-screamcore band the Bunny The Bear doesn’t break any new ground from their previous work—if you’re a fan of their heavy guitars-over-stomping-techno-beats approach, you’ll find 11 more doses of it here. Some tracks (“In Like Flynn,” “Melody,” “Imagine”) are […]

Flyleaf New Horizons New Horizons arrives burdened by the news that it’s Flyleaf’s last with vocalist Lacey Sturm, who’s chosen to step down from frontwoman duties and be a full-time mom. It’s hard to say whether that’s a good or bad thing, based on the new songs, most of which seem to indicate that even […]

Dethklok Dethalbum III Brendon Small, creator of the Adult Swim cartoon series Metalocalypse, which chronicles the adventures of fictional extreme metal band Dethklok, is a better than decent guitarist, and a serviceable if uninspired vocalist. He knows enough to hire seriously talented players—bassist Bryan Beller and drummer Gene Hoglan—to back him on these albums of […]

Becoming The Archetype I Am The fifth album by Georgia-spawned Christian metalcore quintet Becoming The Archetype features absolutely zero founding members, and only one member who was in the band on their debut album. Does this matter? Not really; new frontman Chris McCane has a thick-necked bellow every bit the equal of his predecessor, Jason […]

The Faceless Autotheism The Faceless were far superior to the majority of their tech-death peers even on their debut, 2006’s Akeldama; they blasted and broke down like everyone else, but genuinely necessary keyboards and other original touches vaulted them out of the pack. Two years later, Planetary Duality cemented their awesomeness, and now, on their […]

A Bullet For Pretty Boy Symbiosis A Bullet For Pretty Boy are a Christian metalcore trio from Texas; this is their second full-length, following 2008’s Beauty In The Eyes Of The Beholder EP and 2010’s Revision:Revise. The core band—vocalist Danon Saylor, keyboardist Josh Modisette and guitarist Chris Johnston—are augmented by studio drummer Matt Weir, as […]