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Our latest album reviews, featuring the records we've most enjoyed (or not) over the past few weeks.

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Browse our album reviews according to score: Highest (9.5/10 or more) or Lowest (2/10 or less)

Sabertooth Zombie

…And Your Fathers are Dead in the Ground
Twelve Gauge (2009)

California's most intriguing current hardcore outfit, Sabertooth Zombie, returns with their latest full-length effort. Since they've last released Midnight Venom in 2006, the group has released a dual-EP 10" and a 7" EP as well as re-recording and re-compiling a few recordings for CD releases. Needless to say, Sabertooth Zombie has kept themselves busy. And You Fathers are Dead in the Ground brings forth eighteen brand new songs at just under fifty-minutes. Sabertooth Zombie pick up where they left off on their last offering, the 7" EP Dent Face. The group continues to mesh influences from a variety of styles - punk, hardcore, thrash, and stoner metal - to form their own niche within the hardcore world. "Guide Me" leads off and immediately we get the mixture of styles. The opening riffs are haunted by Sabbath-esque influence. The song eventually moves towards a more hardcore punk direction with a quickened pace thanks to the upbeat rhythm section and scorching riffs; even later on there is a wicked guitar solo that recalls the classic Bay Area thrash scene. Throughout the entirety of And Your Fathers are Dead in the Ground Sabertooth Zombie experiment with different sounds, further expanding their reach beyond … Read more

Junior Battles

Hotel Bibles
Black Pint (2009)

Ah, summer in full swing. For those of you attempting to battle high temperatures, I empathize as I sit in … Read more

Shook Ones

The Unquotable A.M.H.
Paper + Plastick (2009)

Now on their third album, Shook Ones already have a pretty solid reputation. After the melodic hardcore masterpiece that was … Read more

Oceans

Nothing Collapses
Copper Lung (2009)

Chicago natives Oceans offer up nine tracks with sixty minutes worth of music on their debut effort. The five-piece maintain … Read more

Phoenix

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Glass Note (2009)

Phoenix has always been successful at lifting spirits and making people dance. Based out of Versailles, Phoenix has been going … Read more

Anchor Down

Steel to Dust
Solidarity (2009)

It's always great to find all of these new breeds of punk bands coming about lately. There have been so … Read more

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One from the archives

Various Artists

UNFUN/Despite Everything - Split EP
Hahaha Cool! Records (2012)

200 Words Or Less

It's always cool when bands from opposite sides of the world do a split together. It worked great for Thursday and Envy. Here, we have UNFUN from Canada and Despite Everything from Greece. Both have a different brand of dirty punk-rock. In the case of this split though, the Canadians lost. UNFUN's songs have great material to dance and sing-a-long to. The only problem is the quality of the recordings are so muffled and hard to understand that it ruins the listening experience. You can just barely hear the vocals and at times you can barely even make out what they're playing over the distortion. I know it's kind of their thing, but if they cleaned it up just a bit it'd be so much more enjoyable. Despite Everthing's half … Read more

More album reviews

200 Words Or Less

Outbreak

Work to Death
Think Fast! (2009)

I'll be honest here. I was never a huge Outbreak fan. You Make Us Sick was fairly decent, but I was never really sold on the group. I have a lot of friends that swear by that record and the subsequent release of Failure. but I'm just not one of them. Anyway, Work to Death is a new 7" single … Read more

200 Words Or Less

The Reed Sea

No Help
Independent (2009)

Hailing from Oregon, this four-piece outfit has brought forth a four-song EP titled No Help. The title of the EP is fitting as the band has recorded and packaged the entire release themselves. Granted, it's limited to screen printed cardboard sleeves, but that's still cool. I appreciate the DIY effort. "Holy Pigs" is the lead song and immediately you're greeted … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Man Overboard

Hung Up on Nothing
Independent (2008)

Man Overboard is the latest bubble-gum pop-punk band to come around, joining the existing one hundred thousand others. This four-piece hails from New Jersey, and like so many others they take influence from groups like Blink 182. I'm not blaming Man Overboard by any means, but I'm starting to get sick of these kinds of bands By the way, if … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Outrage

Savior
Panic (2008)

Here we have a decent seven-song slab of 90's hardcore with some newer influences. Outrage sounds like they take the best riffs from the New Age catalog of 1995, speed it up and toss some impassioned vocals on top of it. I can see anyone into Outspoken to Defeater enjoying this band. I found it to be an enjoyable listen … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Tim Easton

Porcupine
New West (2009)

This new release finds Easton actually fronting a band after many years of mainly playing solo acoustic. Electric guitar leads are abound, and the music is powered by the drumming of Sam Brown. But don't worry kids, the ace songwriting is still in full force. "Broke My Heart" is great pop song, but more heady subjects are also addressed. "7th … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Steve Kilbey

Painkiller
Second Motion (2009)

The first solo record from The Church frontman in seven years, Kilbey handles all the instruments here except drums. Thankfully it does not sound like a Paul McCartney record. Tim Powles, drummer from The Church covers the sticks and production duties. But there's still a strong guitar presence on this one. "Outbound" features a flowing bassline, while 'Wolfe" seems to … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Bulldozer

The Hammers
Motherbox (2008)

Sadly this is not a album by recently reformed Italian thrashers Bulldozer but a disc made by a New York band playing bog-standard punk rock with melodic and shouty sing-along choruses. It's hard to get wet and excited over another punk band that has flashes of rock'n roll and sounds like they came straight from the practice room - especially … Read more

Disappearer

The Clearing
Magic Bullet (2009)

Massachusetts-based Disappearer returns with their long-awaited second release. The Clearing marks the band's first full-length effort, which follows up the band's 2006's self-titled EP release (which is actually the group's 2004 demo reworked). So it has been, in a way, five years since we've gotten fresh material from Disappearer. For the super-fans, I am aware of last year's Steven Brodsky … Read more

We're All Broken

Blacktop Cry
Devildance (2009)

We're All Broken's name may sound familiar to you because they've opened for a lot of big names like Thursday, Minus the Bear, and The Gaslight Anthem over the years. This five-piece have just undergone a bit of a change in style with their new EP, Blacktop Cry. Their former post-hardcore stylings have been abandoned in favor of a more … Read more

Alexisonfire

Old Crows/Young Cardinals
Vagrant (2009)

I've always considered Alexisonfire one of the "better bands" in the whole "post-hardcore" scene or whatever you want to call it. However, their last album, Crisis received a lot of mixed reactions among fans with a lot of them believing that the band had lost their fire and were aiming for a more "commercial appealing" album. While that may be … Read more

Wrnlrd

Oneiromantical War
FSS (2008)

Wrnlrd drops a dense black metal album on listeners with this limited LP and digital album, Oneiromantical War - which I believe is the sixth album from the outfit. Now, in my growing education in black metal, this is my introduction to Wrnlrd, and it certainly provides me intrigue as the record mastering is the work of Bob Weston of … Read more

Paint It Black

Amnesia
Bridge Nine (2009)

I hate to be that guy, but I got to admit that it's getting more and more difficult to find an impressive hardcore album these days. I'm not talking about that record you listen to several times, really rock out to during the first week, rag on your friends for having never heard of it, and then retire it to … Read more

Geisha

Die Verbrechen der Liebe
Crucial Blast (2008)

What a weird mix (sound wise this is really thin sounding without much bottom end) for the opening track to a record because I really was hoping to be immediately crushed by Geisha's Die Verbrechen der Liebe, and instead, "Prelude to Amber Pays the Rent" is a bit of thin riffage being pushed through a thick haze of white noise, … Read more

Anti-Flag

The People or The Gun
Side One Dummy (2009)

It takes a lot for me to completely lose faith in some of my favorite bands, and I came pretty close to completely giving up on Anti-Flag after the disaster that was The Bright Lights of America. My faith was then restored a bit after hearing that they left RCA Records and joined the ever growing roster at Side One … Read more

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Browse our album reviews according to score: Highest (9.5/10 or more) or Lowest (2/10 or less)