Recent reviews

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

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

Sun-0-Bathers

Floater EP
Morning Wood Records/Thousand Islands Records/Paper + Plastick (2020)

Two years ago I reviewed Local Warming, the debut EP by Sun-0-Bathers. Two years have passed, but not much has changed for Sun-0-Bathers. I am not going to blame them for it. If you have a winning formula, why change it, right?That winning formula for Sun-0-Bathers is straightforward 90’s skatepunk. Summer is the best time for releases of this type in my opinion, so, again, their timing is brilliant (Local Warming was released late spring 2018).This time around we get slightly more songs. Seven to be precise. If you are now checking the track-list of Local Warming: that EP had an intro and outro. Those don’t really count as full on tracks. Floaters' closing track “Hate The Shade” could be considered as an outro, but with it's two minute runtime it would not do it justice regarding it as such. It is something of an experiment for the band it seems to me. Instead of the usual Epitaph-bands inspired tracks this is pure surf music. I dig it and feel that it adds to the summer-vibe I get from this album.Sun-0-Bathers don’t bring anything new to the scene. That is not a big issue to me as the energy and … Read more

Sanctifying Ritual

Sanctifying Ritual
Iron Bonehead (2020)

Most death metal bands exhibit a morbid quality to their sound but few would be believed if they said that … Read more

Einstürzende Neubauten

Alles in Allem
Potomak 2020 (2020)

It’s a fairly long story as to the exact circumstance, but a couple of years ago on a rainy winter … Read more

Skeleton

Skeleton
20 Buck Spin (2020)

There are a lot of skeletons out there. Stuffed in closets. Hanging on metal hooks in medical school classrooms. There … Read more

Sam Russo

Back To The Party
Red Scare Industries (2020)

Anytime it’s just one person on the stage, the music being created is going to be intimate and personal. Sometimes … Read more

200 Words Or Less

Broadway Calls

Meet Me On The Moon
Red Scare Industries (2020)

Meet Me On The Moon is a teaser single for the new LP, Sad In The City, which also happens … Read more

Browse our review archives

Reviews by year

Choose a year to view reviews of albums released in that year.

Reviews by artist name

Choose a letter to view reviews ordered by that letter (band name first).

Review categories

200 Words Or Less

753 reviews

Book Review

42 reviews

Classic Album

25 reviews

Multiple Authors

300 reviews

Review

4979 reviews

Video/DVD Review

19 reviews

One from the archives

The Instigation

No Way Out EP
Independent (2014)

200 Words Or Less

I feel like there are a million punk records named No Way Out, but I don’t really care because it’s one of those commonalities that makes punk music, well, punk. And staying within the vein of reiteration, there’s only so many ways to say that a band isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel; so I’ll just stick with that old adage here as well. Call me lazy if you will (boring if you must) but the truth is The Instigation are in fact not trying to reinvent the wheel whatsoever; metaphorically, punk rocking-ly, or otherwise. They understand that when a formula works this well, there’s no reason to fuck with it; that formula being the oft-traveled intersection of hardcore and garage punk. Think millennial bands like Social Circkle, Formaldehyde Junkies, … Read more

More album reviews

Mutant Reavers

Monster Punk
Wolverine records (2020)

Back in the late nineties I started listening to horrropunk. To this day it is one of my favourite scenes. Back in the day I listened to basically everything I could find that would match the description horrorpunk. Nowadays I am more picky. Still, if I see a promo mentioning horrorpunk I am so tempted to review it. I’ve skipped … Read more

Kissed by an Animal

Kissed by an Animal
HANDSTAND RECORDS (2019)

Kissed by an Animal is getting the vinyl treatment a year after release of their self title album from 2019. To describe these guys, well it’s hard to nail down a specific style that the Brooklyn, NY based band is trying to hit. To be honest, this album is hard to get use to in general.To prepare for a review … Read more

Xibalba

Años en Infierno
Southern Lord (2020)

Southern California's Xibalba is back with a new LP titled Años En Infierno. The title of their third studio album translates to "years in hell," and it is a loathsome pillar, raised in tribute to the pain of living in a world populated by misery and ruin. Somehow the band's sulfurous combination of doom and death metal and hardcore from … Read more

Havok

V
Century Media (2020)

To say that this album gives vibes similar to those of …And Justice For All, is an understatement. The newest album by Colorado thrash metal aficionados, Havok, starts with guitar harmonies that can only be described what it must sound like when descending into the metal underworld upon death.With raw intensity this album is the epitome of thrash. With screaming … Read more

Fake Names

Fake Names
Epitaph (2020)

Fake Names formed when two long-time friends decided to play music together at home, with no plans for it to grow into an actual group. But after Brian Baker (Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion) and Michael Hampton (S.O.A., Embrace, One Last Wish) put the pen to paper, they changed their mind and recruited a band. They’d attended elementary school … Read more

Vile Creature

Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
Prosthetic (2020)

There has been a shift in recent years, in heavy music, and it’s one that has given bands and artists the opportunity to use their platform to speak out, to uplift those who need help and to talk about difficult topics more openly. Heavy music is changing, for the better, and one such band using their space for good is … Read more

Died

Less Life
Independent (2020)

Does Died’s debut LP Less Life see the band growing up, or is it just them getting old? It’s an odd question to ask of a group who are in the midst of pushing out what should be their first (and best impression) to the world, but hardcore bands tend to operate on different rules. For instance, a band's early … Read more

Drain

California Cursed
Revelation (2020)

Santa Cruz is a convoluted place. It feels like the rest of the country erroneously thinks Santa Cruz is just like Santa Monica. It’s much more of a town than a city, and in a lot of ways it’s a microcosm of everything in California: conflicted and nuanced, beauty found at a high price with an oft-ignored grimy underbelly. Is … Read more

Jacoti Sommes

Travel Time
Orange Milk Records (2020)

Clocking it at just under 27 minutes, Columbus, Ohio electronic music producer Jacoti Sommes’ 2020 release Travel Time is all around better than his excellent 2018 effort Ubermensch. I think the album’s title accurately reflects what it’s all about. Featuring a handful of longer tracks periodically broken up by short ambient interludes (“Phases” I through III) that sound similar to … Read more

Cro-Mags

In the Beginning
Mission Two Entertainment (2020)

New York hardcore legends Cro-Mags's waste no time getting started on their new album In the Beginning. Opener "Don't Give In" kicks in the front door and immediately begins stalking the grounds looking for revenge, relief and solace, with deep growly, cross-over guitars leading the way like a pack of rottweilers hot on a guilty man's scent. When the tempo … Read more

The Suicide Machines

Revolution Spring
Fat Wreck Chords (2020)

Me: The Suicide Machines got really angry.[Looks at news coming out of Michigan.]Me: Oh, yeah. They should be.Flint’s waters crisis, militias, the widespread issues of race, violence and inequality across the US…Sure, this is 1990s-styled ska-punk. But it’s not your dance party, silly costume ska-punk. Much like Battle Hymns of 1998, Revolution Spring is angry and political. I kind of … Read more

Revenge

Strike.Smother.Dehumanize
Season of Mist (2020)

At this point Canadian extreme metal malcontent J. Read has had two entirely different but noteworthy careers. The man (something I assume he identifies as, and not a woodlen spirit, demon, or other apparition) helped to invent one of the more punishing confluences of metal subgenres as the vocalist and drummer for pioneering war metal generals Conqueror, and since 2000 … Read more

Western Addiction

Frail Bray
Fat Wreck Chords (2020)

There are bands who you rush to get the new record to see what direction they’ve gone. There are others you return to time-after-time because they have a style and they’ve nailed it. File Western Addition in the latter category. Frail Bray continues their West Coast melodic hardcore tradition without any surprise changes-of-direction.The band plays what used to be called … Read more

Pilkington

Pilkington
Independent (2020)

Pilkington's self-titled debut is at the same time their swansong. It serves as a testimony to the good time the band had together as a band. As they were recording this album back in 2018 the band members uprooted and spread out. This was basically the end of the band.Reading this information in the press sheet I was a bit … Read more

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