Phil Freeman

36 Crazyfists Collisions & Castaways 36 Crazyfists formed in Alaska, and now call Portland, Oregon, home. That nugget of bio-data is effectively useless, though, because it’s not like they’re some kind of folk-metal outfit, blending downtuned riffage with Inuit music, or starting their songs with the roar of snowmobiles, or soundbites from Sarah Palin speeches, […]

The Acacia Strain Wormwood The Acacia Strain are in no hurry. The songs on their fifth album, Wormwood,aim for the groove of Pantera, but slowed down to Crowbar speed; the band play an ugly, crawling style of deathcore, with some of the most creepily misanthropic lyrics in all of extreme music. Vincent Bennett’s delivery makes […]

Stick To Your Guns The Hope Division After one album on Century Media, SoCal hardcore band Stick To Your Guns return to Sumerian (the label reissued their debut album, For What It's Worth, in 2007) for a powerful, frequently surprising third outing. There's some clean singing here and there on The Hope Division, but that […]

Imperial The second full-length by San Diego-based screamo act In Fear And Faith has a manly swagger despite the occasionally wimpy crooning and the synth melodies that seep around the edges of their distorted guitar riffing and gated, thwacking drums. At his best, clean vocalist Scott Barnes heads into the upper-register territory that's Coheed And […]

Maleovlence Malevolence's back cover bears a remarkable resemblance to the front cover of Judas Priest's Sin After Sin. Also worth noting: The title of I Declare War's new album is just one letter off from "Male Violence." These two seemingly unconnected factoids kinda tell you what to expect once you press play. These Seattle boys […]

Recover This Christian-but-not-pushy-about-it screamo/metalcore quintet have members from all over, while calling Los Angeles home. Sonically, though, they could pretty much be from anywhere on Earth–this is the sound of MySpace, not any one regional scene. It's really difficult to leap out of the pack in a genre that's become astonishingly cookie-cutter in only a […]

Damn Rough Night EP The four ultra-catchy songs on this digital teaser EP by up-and-coming Dallas quintet Artist Vs Poet offer irrefutable evidence that it is possible to write quality, radio-ready pop-rock songs in 2009 that don't have pseudo-unfettered screaming in them. Indeed, when vocalist Tarcy Thomason reaches the top of his range, he sounds […]

August Burns Red – Constellations Pennsylvania-based metalcore band August Burns Red get harder and heavier with each release. Constellations begins with a drum roll and pick slide straight off a Disfear album, and things don't slow down much from there. This is a fierce, punishing album loaded with muscular breakdowns, screaming guitar leads and ass-kicking double-bass-drum thunder. […]

This Is My Voice And This Is My Heart "If you're not a teenager, you are tonight," says James Snyder of the Pennsylvania pop-punk-turned-alt-rock band Weston on This Is My Voice And This Is My Heart, recorded live at Hoboken, New Jersey's landmark underground rock space Maxwell's. That sentiment sums up the live album quite well, […]