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Radical change in style and pace for these Swedish doomsters. The monolithic riffs are gone and in their place is delicate mournful acoustica. Alright, if a little directionless.
Wolves Among the Ashes. Blackened Metal that is heavy, crushing and corrosive, but ultimately lacks any shade or variety.
Let's cut to the chase, whilst this is alright it isn’t a patch on their previous two records.
Highly political raw punk. I enjoyed the power and passion, it just lacked a couple of killer tracks.
This is more art installation than rock record. It is also one of the albums that suffered from me not being able to conduct multiple listens. I am convinced that if I had been able to live with it a while its beauty would have been revealed. Sadly with just two run through it felt like impenetrable noise.
Perennially unfashionable Brummies (even when they were playing arenas in the late eighties). This is a slice of warm seventies prog. It's alright, but is unlikely to make any impact outside of their small but committed fanbase.
It’s got one phenomenal track. Namely the retrospective nostalgia fest Public Enemy number won. It features Ad-rok, Mike d and the remaining members of Run DMC and it is brilliant. It is likely to bring a tear to the eye of even those with a fleeting interest in true old skill hip-hop. The rest of the album just feels like it is building up to or away from that track.
Jaunty blackened folk from the Finnish veterans. They do what they do well, but there is little sign of progression or development.
At the time of writing Burton C Bell is no longer Fear Factory's vocalist. However, given the Hokey Cokey that is his membership of the industrial auteurs, he may well be back in by the time you are reading this. This is his gothic industrial side project/main band (delete as applicable). It sounds like Gary Numan.
Metal as they used to make it. Big, bombastic, obsessed with sword and sorcery and lacking in any level of self-awareness. It's fun and just a little bit silly.
Second solo album from Behemoth front man Negral. By some anomaly whilst I preferred this to the first album it seems to have missed out on the hundred. It’s very Nick Cave, very very Nick Cave.
Welcome to obscure Thrash act corner. Their fourth album in 33 years and first since 2009, this is old skool Thrash. It merrily chucks along and then stops.
Cult hero’s plagued by injury and tragedy return. This is perfectly serviceable post hardcore. Big sounding with even bigger choruses and crunchy guitar.
There is an unwritten rule that the Eurovision contest has to have at least one track every year that has its roots in metal. Well, Amaranthe have created a whole album of those type of songs. It’s slick, melodic, poptastic and sweet enough to decay even the most robust of set of gnashers.
There is defiantly something here and if I was still an Indie kid I think I would be getting very over excited about this lot. But, I have moved on and as good as I think this album is, I am just not sure whether it actually has anything for me.
Gus Gus is a veritable legend. In about sixteen different bands and also finds time to be Ozzy’s prime guitar slinger when Zack Wylde is off doing Black Label Society. Firewind are Greece’s big name in Metal. This is by the numbers Power Metal. Alright but nothing sensational.
Very technical Progressive Metal. Loads and Loads of notes and time changes. Initially I really liked it, but then I sadly got bored very quickly on the second spin.
Soundtrack to the Italian crime drama of the same name. Not quite a new record but still contains twenty-one new pieces of music from these extraordinary scots. There is no band like Mogwai. Lots of imitators but nobody actually like them.
Punishing Death Metal from Denmark. Harsh and non-compromising. Lacked any contrasts to break up the unrelenting noise.
On other lists this will be higher, much higher. That is not because I don’t like Lamb of God. I do, lots and lots and lots. I just was expecting more, much more from this. I found it OK, which for a band of Lamb of God’s calibre is simply not enough. I wasn’t inspired. It didn’t make my heart sing in the way that “Wrath”, "Sacrament” and “Ashes of the Wake” all did. It might well be me, but it just felt muted.
Dreamy indie-pop from Dream Wife. Pleasant and suitably uplifting but lacking in staying power.
They had me with the moniker alone. Fairly standard Black Metal. Unrefined, gnarly and full of menace.
More Black Metal. But of much more sculptured and palatable variety. This is Melodic Black. Essentially what Goats of doom are doing but with recognisable tunes.
Even more Black Metal. But this time with twists, turns and added weirdness. This is avant-garde black. Basically, what Goats of Doom are doing if they were doing it whilst on Acid.
Oh my god! Jon Bon Jovi wants to be Springsteen. I thought he had got that out of his system decades ago and was happy with being Jon Bon Jovi (which is a pretty cool thing to be on its own merit). But no, this is his Springsteen album. It so desperately wants to be a Springsteen album. It has socially aware lyrics, it has rousing tales of families ground down by the system, it has tales of forgotten America, hell he even sings like Springsteen. But it must be so galling to make this inferior facsimile of Springsteen record, only for the boss to then turn up with “Letter to You” not a month later and go “that’s not a Springsteen record, this is a Springsteen record!
Brutal but melodic Death Metal from Australia. Almost made the list.