Album Reviews
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SEVENDUSTOneNapalm Records For weeks, I anticipated the arrival of SEVENDUST’s fifteenth full-length studio album, ‘One’ via Napalm Record. Not knowing whether I’d get an early listen or endure the wait with everyone else until its May 1, 2026, release was agonizing. As a longtime fan, finally receiving an advance copy felt almost like Christmas morning.…
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HARDLINEShoutSPV/Steamhammer Loud love!Animal magnetism!And giving a voice to man’s best friend! It’s impossible to tell the full story of HARDLINE’s new studio album ‘Shout’ without mentioning their 1992 breakthrough classic ‘Double Eclipse’. After all, that was the moment when this exceptional hard rock act’s unique artistic DNA was created, its first draft already done to…
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WAGE WARIt Calls Me By NameFearless Records There is something fitting about WAGE WAR returning to the swamp. Not just geographically, but sonically. ‘It Calls Me By Name’ feels less like a stopgap release between album cycles and more like a band wading back into the dark water that first made them dangerous. These five…
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THE SWEETReincarnationMetalville Records As time marches ever onward and the people and family members in your life sadly pass on, so do the movie stars, athletes and your musical icons that held a special place in your heart. That especially holds true for the ‘Classic Rock’ bands that I grew up on. Let’s call them…
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CRIMSON GLORY‘Chasing The Hydra’No Remorse Records Flower power!Transcending time!Metallic facewear! Since their inception in 1983, Sarasota, Florida-based metallers CRIMSON GLORY have been runnin’ down a dream with their brand of powerfully chaotic-sounding operatic metal. They were definitely the ideal band for the era just as heavy metal was transcending the mainstream as their self-titled debut…
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ARCHSPIRE‘Too Fast To Die’Self-Released The problem with extreme technical death metal usually isn’t so much just how ridiculously over the top the music is, it’s how ridiculously over-seriously the bands and musicians take themselves. And what you often end up with is an impressively/impeccably played but ultimately joyless mishmash of brutality, wankery and over-indulgence. Canada’s…
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IMMOLATION‘Descent’2026, Nuclear Blast Sometimes, when we struggle to find adequate words to succinctly express ourselves, our friends help us along. To that end, I defer to the sage words of my dear friend and colleague, Brian Krassman: “How dare IMMOLATION still be making records this good.” Praise be to the never-ending fire. Entropy is the…
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FROM ASHES TO NEW‘Reflections’Better Noise Music When a band scraps nearly an entire album’s worth of material and starts over, expectations of fans and the band itself skyrocket. That was exactly the situation facing FROM ASHES TO NEW heading into their latest release, ‘Reflections’ via Better Noise Music. After tossing out most of the original…