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Black Dice

Roll Up / Drool
Paw Tracks (2007)

Black Dice are ridiculous; they have the spottiest and most transformative of musical histories even when compared the most dysfunctional bands. After ten years and numerous experimentations in sound, the band is somehow still cooking up and destroying music, and with plenty of gusto to boot. The first of two songs is "Roll Up," and it starts the record off … Read more

Last of the Believers

Paper Ships Under a Burning Bridge
Independent (2007)

Paper Ships Under a Burning Bridge is the debut offering from Last of the Believers, a new project spearheaded by former members of the extremely underrated Reach the Sky, as well as Ignite and Spark of Life. The music that Last of the Believers offers on this, a five-song EP, combines the members past experience into one impressive debut. Paper … Read more

Rocky Votolato

The Brag and Cuss
Barsuk (2007)

Rocky Votolato has been a busy man of late. He released last year's Makers to wide acclaim and only just recently re-issued A Brief History with his long time collaborators at Second Nature recordings. This brings us to his latest musical foray. The Brag and Cuss is Votolato's sixth album since he began releasing his solo material in 1999, and … Read more

Lymbyc Systym

Love Your Abuser
Mush (2007)

The limbic system controls a fairly large part of the human brain. It helps us get aroused, remembers important facts, and regulates the sleep cycle, among other cerebral functions. Exchange a few vowels and you end up with Lymbyc Systym. But what could this subtle transformation mean? The Bell brothers of Arizona are Lymbyc Systym; one deals with the keyboards, … Read more

Cruel Hand

Without a Pulse
6131 (2007)

It's time to play the ex-member/members of game again. This time we have members and former members of the Maine hardcore unit, Outbreak. If I'm not mistaken Cruel Hand is actually the same Outbreak lineup that gave us the You Make Us Sick EP, but with a different singer. So if you haven't guessed Cruel Hand does at times sounds … Read more

Loser Life

I Have Ghosts and I Have Ghosts
Magic Bullet (2007)

Loser Life comes from a place called Bakersfield, California, an area the band has numerously described as "the armpit of California." This is what Loser Life is influenced by, and the band's sound makes their pleasant description seem all too realistic. Loser Life is dirty, grimy, filthy, and fucking pissed off at their little hole in the world, and the … Read more

The End

Elementary
Relapse (2007)

For anyone unfamiliar, The End is a Canadian band that have established themselves as a math metal powerhouse, similar to a more controlled and brooding The Dillinger Escape Plan. Within Dividia and the Transfer Trachea EP were intense, frantic and at times almost impenetrable. Someone should have gotten to them earlier, because with three and a half years between albums, … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Sleep Terror

Probing Tranquility
Feeling Faint (2006)

Luke Jaeger is a one-man metal making machine; Sleep Terror is his solo project and musical outlet. Fifteen staggeringly technical tracks make up Probing Tranquility, but the album barely surpasses half an hour. I'm no metal aficionado, but I am an avid guitar player; however, it hardly takes a musician to sense the complexity of this release. Blast beats mesh … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Ceremony

Scared People
Bridge Nine (2007)

One of the better bands currently existing in hardcore returns with a new EP, their first release since signing to Bridge Nine Records. This time around Ceremony shows they've got more in their songwriting arsenal than just lightning fast demonstrations of hate a la Infest. Showing even more variance in writing than their last release, Scared People shows what promise … Read more

Fucked Up

Year of the Pig
Whats Your Rupture? (2007)

Fucked Up are on intimate terms with ambiguity. It's a rare virtue, since as a rule rock bands tend to seek the comfort of ham-fisted moralism or an apathy either hard-partying or self-pitying. But like Sylvia Plath circa Ariel or the earliest punk bands, Fucked Up stamp their works with an intimidating and sometimes uncomfortable symbolic resonance, leaving it to … Read more

Deathspell Omega

Fas- Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum
Norma Evangelium Diaboli (2007)

Wow, I haven't been keeping up with Deathspell Omega. I was lucky to end up with a promo copy of the Kénôse EP from 2005 and I've been hooked on Deathspell Omega ever since. Fas- Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum is supposedly the second installment in a trilogy - Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice being part one - and it marks … Read more

Bad Religion

New Maps of Hell
Epitaph (2007)

Bad Religion may not need any introduction due to their notoriety in punk, hardcore, and various independent and even some mainstream circles, but there are several impressive facts that New Maps of Hell bring to light with its release to the public. One, Bad Religion is, minus a few break ups in the eighties, closing in on thirty years of … Read more

Mark Ronson

Version
Columbia (2007)

To steal from the classic Ben Stiller movie Zoolander, "Mark Ronson is so hot right now!" After producing the latest Amy Winehouse album, Lily Allen's debut, and the best bits of an otherwise awful Robbie Williams album, the New York based, London born hip-hop club DJ turned producer can do no wrong. And now, he's decided to rope in the … Read more

Goon Moon

Licker's Last Leg
Ipecac (2007)

Let's not beat around the bush. Licker's Last Leg is the album Queens of the Stone Age should have put out instead of the bands recent Era Vulgaris. Why the comparison? Well, there's the obvious one founder/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Chris Goss has long been the unofficial fifth Queens of the Stone Age-er for quite some time, appearing on or producing every album … Read more

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