Back catalogue: Metal

Review: Tarja's What Lies Beneath, originally released in 2010 showcases her versatility as an artist. The album seamlessly blends genres, from symphonic rock to Europop, creating a dynamic and engaging listening experience. Tarja's powerful vocals take center stage, soaring effortlessly over the dramatic orchestration and infectious beats. The lyrics delve into themes of love, loss, and personal growth, resonating with listeners on an emotional level. Standout tracks include the anthemic 'Until My Last Breath' and the haunting 'Falling Awake.' The album's reissue in 2024 is a testament to Tarja's artistry and her ability to connect with audiences through her music.

Review: Originally released in 2012, the eleventh full-length from thrash metal titans Testament proved that former laurels or passed glories didn't need to be egregiously rehashed in order to maintain relevance (a lesson that several of the band's more acclaimed peers should really have taken note of by now). Reuniting with drumming machine Gene Hoglan for his first project with the band since 1997's Demonic as well as serving as their final endeavour with bassist Greg Christian, Dark Roots Of Earth is a vital, retro-fitted concoction of classic thrash fury sonically re-purposed for aging ears and newcomers alike. Over a decade since its release, the LP now crawls out of that latter-day material grey area so many legacy find themselves, and demands earnest reappraisal.

Review: Louisiana based sludge-doom auteurs, Thou, made the most of the pandemic with their compilation of utterly crushing Nirvana covers, 'Blessings of the Highest Order.' Now, coinciding with the release of their covers EP, 'They Don't Love You Like I Love You', comes another scorching collection, further highlighting the band's diverse array of intrinsic influences as well as their penchant for reimagining sonics to fit their grooving bedlam. With renditions of tracks from the likes of Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Shellac, and, Minor Threat, 'A Primer Of Holy Worlds', looks to further the Thou canon by finally offering their legions of rabid fans a chance to fully encapsulate the discography with wax homes for their myriad of essential, visceral tributes.

Review: Baton Rouge, Louisiana based doom-sludge auteurs Thou have become renowned for their uniquely punishing brand of psych-tinged, heaving, fuzzed-out metal, while their myriad collaborations with the likes of noise-sludge duo The Body has prevented the collective from ever resting on their laurels for long. While most recently working with Mizmor on 2022's Myopia EP, and the two preceding years spent on both the Emma Ruth Rundle full-length May Our Chambers Be Full and companion EP The Helm of Sorrow, it's now been almost six full years since the band released an LP of their sole design. 2018's Magus served as a monolithic, 75 minute statement of artistic despair whilst highlighting the catharsis found in the most crushing of sonics. Featured in the top metal releases of 2018 by Decibel, Noisey, BrooklynVegan and NPR, to name but a few, this limited tan vinyl 2xLP reissue is long overdue, and just might signal the coming signs of new Thou material out on the horizon. Whatever may come, revisit the gargantuan Magus in the meantime.

Review: Originally a digital-only release unveiled back in 2020 with little to no fanfare, Blessings Of The Highest Order served as a compilation of Nirvana covers from Louisiana sludge metal behemoths Thou. No strangers to collaborative projects or cover versions, the band's bevvy of Nirvana renditions stretched from album tribute compilations to lesser known recordings, with some cuts on the tracklist shocking even the most devout and studious of fans. This pressing marks the first time the collection has ever been made available to wax, complete with updated intimidating homo-erotic artwork, while the tracklist avoids the low hanging fruit of the most well known Nirvana singles, instead opting for deeper cuts such as 'Floyd The Barber', 'Milk It', and 'Territorial Pissings'. That isn't to say 'In Bloom' isn't a majorly popular track, but apart from that and perhaps the grinding slow-burn reimagining of 'Something In The Way', this is Nirvana worship for lifers and bruisers.

Review: While Tiamat have gone through many different iterations and shapeshifts over the course of their 25 year tenure, there's no denying the Swedish goth-rockers penchant for the gloomy and macabre with Lovecraftian and Poe sentiments weaved throughout.

It's arguably why their often misunderstood seventh full-length, 'Judas Christ', is regarded as the outlier in their expansive canon.

Leaning deep into lovelorn themes with retro Sisters Of Mercy influences lending cuts like 'Fireflower' and 'Angel Holograms' a death-rock hue, it was perhaps too less death obsessed for the morbid fanbase upon initial discovery.

This 20 year anniversary reissue allows fans old and new to revisit, reassess and pay residual respect.

Review: Following on from 1989's majorly successful and admittedly more commercial sounding fourth full-length Intuition, Trondheim glam metal-tinged hard rock heroes TNT would find themselves on the radar and eventual roster of Atlantic Records, who in 1992, would distribute the band's fifth album and first on the major label, Realized Fantasies. Praised by fans for its exceptional production with ludicrously bombastic percussion the whole way through, the project saw a sonic retracing of their more hardened edges, so as not to lose sight of their creative prowess. That being said, cuts such as the cheerful 'Easy Street' and epic ballad 'Lionheart' seem like they were purposefully designed to keep snooting record label execs off their proverbial backs. Never mind what glassy eyed nostalgia-baters say, Realized Fantasies goes hard as hell while delivering barrages of riffage, melody and playfully epic grandeur.

Review: Tomahwat remain cult favourites amongst fans, and the number of followers of the band is sure to expand as their music is reissued here on black wax though other colors are available. Dwarfed by the likes of Faith No More, Fantomas and Mr Bungle, Tomahawk debuted in 2001. Frontman Patton teamed up with The Jesus Lizard's Duane Denison, Battles/Helmet stickman John Stanier and Melvins veteran Kevin Rutmanis on bass, Tomahawk took a direct shot at the melodrama of nu-metal and tapped into a truer, more evocative idea of disturbed America. It's a masterpiece from start to finish, wildly unhinged but with a dead-eye focus.

Review: In the labyrinth halls and corridors of Mike Patton's musical endeavours, there are always hidden treasures to be unearthed. Dwarfed by the likes of Faith No More, Fantomas and Mr Bungle, Tomahawk has retained more of a cult appreciation since their first album came out in 2001. With Patton teaming up with The Jesus Lizard's insanely talented guitarist Duane Denison, Battles/Helmet sticksman John Stanier and Melvins veteran Kevin Rutmanis on bass, Tomahawk took a direct shot at the melodrama of nu-metal and tapped into a truer, more evocative idea of disturbed America. It's a masterpiece from start to finish, wildly unhinged but with a dead-eye focus, and surely ranks among the finest projects Patton has ever turned his distinctive larynx to.

Review: The fourth full-length from Canadian progressive death metal trio Tomb Mold marks their first full-length since 2019's Planetary Clairvoyance, but in the interim, they offered last year's Aperture Of Body EP, which served as a sonic signalling to the expansive and cosmic direction their next full-length would take. The Enduring Spirit weaves jazz-trio flourishes, prog-rock virtuosity, and dream-pop hues into a head-melting, other-worldly concoction of complex, dizzying and utterly frenetic tech-death, while never falling into the cracks of masturbatory pomposity. Though somewhat impenetrable to the unseasoned ear, what's most surprising is the manner in which many of the cascading compositional elements become regular motifs or "hooks" (if you will), leading to a project that does the unthinkable by crafting a prog-death metal opus designed to welcome and not negate. This isn't your granddaddy's death metal, mind you...

Review: Canadian progressive death metal auteurs Tomb Mold have been relatively inactive since the release of their third full-length Planetary Clairvoyance in 2019. Returning last year with the Aperture Of Body EP, and reigniting listener thirst for head-melting, absurdly psychedelic tech-death, September of 2023 saw the trio announce their fourth album The Enduring Spirit, which would see release just a few days after unveiling. Mixed and mastered by Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Code Orange, Trapped Under Ice), and accompanied by a statement from the band that detailed how they'd spent the past three years "spiraling in the cycle reincarnate necessity" and revealed that the "myriad of consciousness" has now coalesced into one hive mind. In layman's terms, this is avant-garde, complex, hallucinatory death metal far more interested in challenging our astral purpose within the cosmos than displaying macabre tales of viscera and gore.

Review: Fear Inoculum brought a 13-year Tool hiatus to an end in typically dramatic, knock-your-socks-off and blow wind through your hair style. A fine example of what the group have always done so well - running with wolves like Mogwai, only with far more metal sensibilities, and a damn-sight bigger helping of experimentalism, when this bad boy arrived in 2019 it shot straight to the top of the US Billboard 200, the third consecutive record from the group to do so.

Of course, those charts don't necessarily mean as much in this age as they did when the preceding Tool LP dropped, but 270,000 album-equivalent units within the first week do not lie. Nor does the quality of work here. From the avant-garde percussion and awkward synths of 'Chocolate Chip Trip', to the almost-ethereal ambience of 'Legion Inoculant' and the riff and crescendo heavy 'Pneuma', it's a wild thing of beauty.

Review: Originally recorded in 1987, Seventh Day Of Doom was the debut demo/EP from Hungarian black metal outfit Tormentor. Retrospectively adored and newly discovered by many newcomers to the genre due to vocalist Attila Csihar's presence, before he would go on to join Mayhem (who he still continues to front), the project was tracked just one year before their debut full-length Anno Domini. With neither work able to see wide distribution until the end of communist rule in Hungary, the tape-sharing phenomena of the late 80s underground scene would carry Tormentor's abrasive cacophony across country borders and into the ear canals of metalheads with little to no realisation of the history they were taking part in by simply putting on their headphones.

Review: For the uninitiated, Russian trio Trna have been making waves for the better part of a decade, due to their crushing, cavernous unification of grandiose post-rock and shoegazing black metal.

On their fourth full-length, 'Istok', the group elevate their dynamism to spectral planes with warring elements of chaos and cohesion, crafting instrumental epics of ethereal and abrasive beauty.

The sole vocals are found on album centrepiece, 'Shining', with a horrifically unsettling feature from Portuguese depressive black metal outfit, Gaerea, which allows for the band to fully embrace their malevolent side, while cuts like 'Burning Bridges, Shattered Dreams' are spellbinding in their hypnotic blackgazing.

Review: For the uninitiated, Russian trio Trna have been making waves for the better part of a decade, due to their crushing, cavernous unification of grandiose post-rock and shoegazing black metal.

On their fourth full-length, 'Istok', the group elevate their dynamism to spectral planes with warring elements of chaos and cohesion, crafting instrumental epics of ethereal and abrasive beauty.

The sole vocals are found on album centrepiece, 'Shining', with a horrifically unsettling feature from Portuguese depressive black metal outfit, Gaerea, which allows for the band to fully embrace their malevolent side, while cuts like 'Burning Bridges, Shattered Dreams' are spellbinding in their hypnotic blackgazing.

Review: The influence of Type O Negative continues to be felt long after Peter Steele's death signalled the end of the band. The goth metal band have a generous number of high points in their career, and 2003 album Life Is Killing Me is surely one of them. Drawing on his personal struggles at the time, Steele created a powerful statement draped in the grandiose style of rock he had cultivated since the band's debut. As well as the single 'I Don't Wanna Be Me', there was a cover of the song 'Angry Inch' and the opening track 'Thir13teen', a piece of music from classic TV show The Munsters. Two decades on from its original release, this is the first time the album has been released on vinyl, presented as a triple black and green pressing in a trifold sleeve.

Review: One of the countless (yet possibly first) bands to sport the Tyrant name, this German 80's thrash metal incarnation rode a delicate path between early, nigh on proto-black metal and glammy cheese.

While titles like 'Making Noise and Drinking Beer', 'Blood Suckin' Woman', and 'We Stay Free' might show their age, scratch beneath the surface and you'll discover a bevvy of vehement, precise riffs and era-appropriate howling theatrical vocals scattered across this underrated debut.