Review: Alice In Chains' 2009 release, Black Gives Way to Blue, marks a significant moment for the bandia poignant farewell to the late Layne Staley and the beginning of a new chapter with vocalist William Duvall. The album opens with 'All Secrets Known,' a track that signals a fresh start, with lyrics like 'Hope. A new beginning,' underscoring the band's evolution. Jerry Cantrell's guitar work remains as powerful as ever, driving the album with emotional intensity, particularly in tracks like 'Your Decision,' where the raw honesty in the lyrics is striking. Duvall's contributions shine, especially on 'Last of My Kind,' where he brings a new energy to the group without attempting to replicate Staley's iconic voice. The title track, 'Black Gives Way to Blue,' is a heart-wrenching tribute to Staley, featuring a sparse yet haunting arrangement with piano by Elton John. The song's quiet fade-out leaves a lasting impact, a fitting close to an album that balances grief with renewal. Black Gives Way to Blue not only honours Alice In Chains' legacy but also sets a strong foundation for their future, proving that the band's creative spirit remains unbroken.
Review: Boris's Amplifier Worship, first released in 1998 and now reissued by Third Man Records, stands as a monumental testament to the band's uncompromising vision of heavy music. This album showcases their ability to push metal to its extreme boundaries, blending doom-drone, psych-sludge, and unrelenting noise. It's an intense, chaotic, and visceral experience, not for the faint of heart. The remastered version brings new life to this brutal classic, housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket and pressed at Third Man Pressing for a high-quality vinyl experience. Boris's signature sonic landscapes are rich with mythic weight, as tracks shift from slow, crushing doom to explosive bursts of sound. The group's bullish experimentation, combined with their powerful live performances, has earned them a devoted fanbase worldwide. This reissue is essentialia timeless blueprint for Boris's expansive future.
Amen (feat Lil Uzi Vert & Daryl Palumbo Of Glassjaw) (3:27)
[ost] Puss-e (3:24)
Die4u (2:51)
Dig It (6:34)
Review: Bring Me The Horizon were once known as Nottingham's emo-fringed MySpace deathcore scene kids, but the near two decades since have seen them balloon into the latest gateway mainstream metal outfit, taking the reins from the likes of 30 Seconds To Mars and Linkin Park before them. Returning with the highly anticipated sequel to their 2020 nu-metal-centric 'Post Human: Survival Horror' EP, their seventh album (and first proper full-length since 2018's Amo) Post Human: Nex Gen does its utmost to level up on every front just like a true sequel should. Condensing practically every sonic well the group have previously toe-dipped into one noxious bucket of hallucinogenic fluidity, the material here might make numerous nods to their metalcore and post-hardcore beginnings, but that's only to calm the trip with familiarity before being utterly doused in swathes of everything from pop-punk to trap, hyperpop, nightcore and even Anime music. Best described as "ADHD maximalism", the band and project make no qualms over its self-professed over-stuffed, chaotic, messy, obnoxious, overwhelming nature, though it's nearly impossible not to be impressed by the effortless fusions on display at every sonic turn. Their final work with longtime keyboardist/programmer/producer Jordan Fish, while offering a bevvy of dichotomous features from the likes of Aurora, Lil Uzi Vert, Underoath and Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw and Head Automatica, the Post Human saga continues to rage through the mainstream and underground metal and punk circles like a coked-up unicorn, simply too farcical to be fucked with. Where the trip takes us on Part 3 is, for now, anyone's absurd guess.
Amen (feat Lil Uzi Vert & Daryl Palumbo Of Glassjaw)
[ost] Puss-e
Die4u
Dig It
Review: While there was once a time Nottingham's Bring Me The Horizon were known as the knife-edged fringe sporting MySpace era deathcore easy target, it's highly unlikely anyone ever had it on their bingo cards that within the span of a decade the band would become the torch bearers for mainstream metal, following in the footsteps of Linkin Park and 30 Seconds To Mars. Serving as the long-awaited sequel to 2020's nu-metal indebted Post Human: Survival Horror EP, their seventh full-length (and first since 2018's Amo) Post Human: Nex Gen doesn't simply follow suit, but creatively clusters essentially every sonic guise the group have adorned throughout their tenure into one singular sonic headfuck. Touching on everything from metalcore, post-hardcore, pop-punk, hyperpop, trap, nightcore and Anime music; the album is a testament to ADHD maximalism, and while it may come off as messy, obnoxious or utterly overwhelming, it's nigh impossible to not be impressed by the sleek effortlessness in which they appropriate vastly differing soundscapes like they were always theirs to begin. Marking their final effort with longtime keyboardist/programmer/producer Jordan Fish and boasting equally dichotomous features from the likes of Aurora, Lil Uzi Vert, Underoath and Daryl Palumbo (Glassjaw, Head Automatica), the second instalment of the Post Human saga simultaneously serves as the end of one era for Bring Me The Horizon, and the dawn of an equally promising new age. Report back for Post Human 3 in due course.
Review: Originally released in 1994, Transilvanian Hunger would serve as the fourth full-length from one of Norway's true black metal sons Darkthrone, who are often mentioned in the same frosted breath as Mayhem, Emperor, and Burzum (with controversial figure Varg Vikernes himself even penning the lyrics to four cuts on this very album). The band's first LP to be recorded as the duo of Nocturno Culto and Fenriz (a line-up they've maintained ever since) following the departure of Zephyrous the year prior, the project is often heralded as the final instalment of their quintessential trilogy beginning with 1992's A Blaze In The Northern Sky, and 1993's Under A Funeral Moon, while the year of its release also saw the sentencing of Burzum's Vikernes for the murder of Mayhem's Euronymous, marking an incredibly tumultuous time in the second wave Norwegian Black Metal scene that saw the genre garner exposure for all of the worst, yet macabrely fitting reasons. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this reissue comes on a limited "corona" black and white smash vinyl.
Review: Departing Roadrunner Records for the more fitting label home of Century Media, Portland, Oregon's Unto Others (FKA Idle Hands) have consistently been referred to in the music press as the likely torch bearers of the goth-metal revival, with many even heralding them as the 21st century successors to The Sisters Of Mercy or Type O Negative. While their macabre 2019 debut Mana and the more abrasive sophomore effort Strength both provided glimpses of this perceived greatness, it's with their highly anticipated third full-length Never, Neverland the band truly seize the mantle and rise to the weighted pressure. Tapping producer Tom Dalgety (The Cult, Ghost) has proved a stroke of genius, as his experience and melodious sonic penchants allow for glossy synthwave to pulse beneath gloomy, gothic, lovelorn death-rock bangers as accessible and instantaneous as they are menacing. Dust off your black shades and leather jacket, it's cool to be a sad, verbose goth with a deep voice again.
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