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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)

The Goslings

Plexuses, Planes
Independent (2025)

For experimental rock artists torn between noise-rock abrasion and torturous drone immersion, one side usually wins. It is either a certain sentimental and ethereal quality or an oppressive noise dimension that prevails. But there are some acts that can balance between these worlds. Names like The Angelic Process, and of course Low exemplify this strange balance in different ways. A more obscure name, that felt to be slipping into oblivion, is The Goslings, who have just made their mighty return. The Florida act released some of the heaviest, most distorted underground music of the '00s. Combining lo-fi aesthetics, abstracted noise rock and drone soundscapes, there was no lack of extravagance in their music. However, a shoegaze injection opened a new dimension. The resulting sentimentality did not take away from the oppressive sounds but instead led to a stunning dichotomy. This in-between state produced some excellent specimens, including Between the Dead and the magnificent Grandeur of Hair. Now, after nearly two decades of silence, The Goslings return, reworking some of their early material and finally releasing it for the first time in Plexuses, Planes. What has always defined The Goslings is a sense of overwhelming, and that is still the case … Read more

Bee Bee Sea

Stanzini Can Be Allright
Wild Honey Records (2025)

I believe the first I heard of this album was when Wild Honey released the limited edition It’s All About … Read more

Second Harbour

Coalesce EP
Sharptone (2025)

Formed around the tight-knit chemistry of brothers Xavier and Vincent Morency with drummer John Muggianu, Canada’s Second Harbour are that … Read more

Stay The Course

Red Flag
Punkerton Records (2025)

Hailing from Wichita, Kansas, Stay The Course brings their brand of pop-punk/easycore onto the scene. This is the band’s second … Read more

Witness Chamber

Bronze Gates
Brain Floss (2025)

Straight out of Boise’s unforgiving hardcore pipeline, the band Witness Chamber returns with Bronze Gates, their most suffocating and sharpened … Read more

Home Front

Watch It Die
La Vida Es Un Mus Discos Punk (2025)

There's a song on Watch It Die called "Dancing With Anxiety," a title that wraps up Home Front's style quite … Read more

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One from the archives

Mastodon

Crack the Skye
Reprise (2009)

Multiple Authors

It's really hard to place Mastodon into one genre. Yes, they are mainly a metal band but what sub-genre? Sludge metal? Progressive metal? Groove metal? You'd be right and wrong with all three since the band has experimented with each of those different sounds on all of their albums, but they are so much more than that. Hell, there are even some that consider them more of a progressive rock band rather than a metal band. Their newest album, Crack the Skye will make classifying the band even tougher as the band goes even deeper into prog territory and explores areas they have never touched before. Crack the Skye is much slower than any of Mastodon's previous releases with the band focusing less on delivering crushing riffs and focusing more … Read more

More album reviews

PitchBlack

Walking on Burning Ground
Producciones Paganas (2025)

Formed in the mid-2000s, PitchBlack have always been one of Danish metal’s most overlooked heavy hitters. A band is sitting between old-school melodeath grit and European thrash aggression, building a reputation on intensity instead of trends. They debuted with Designed to Dislike in 2007, followed it with The Devilty in 2011 (which landed them spots at Copenhell and Download UK), … Read more

Speed

All My Angels EP
Flatspot Records, Last Ride Records (2025)

If you haven’t hopped on the SPEED train when they broke through, now is the time. The band formed in Sydney and blew past “local band” status the second the world caught up to what Australia already knew. BIPOC-fronted, community-driven, and fueled by the belief that hardcore is supposed to mean something. They went from DIY shows to global festivals … Read more

Anna von Hausswolff

Iconoclasts
Year0001 (2025)

One of the most distinct voices of the current generation, Anna von Hausswolff's sound is wide and far-reaching. From dark ambient atmospherics and organ music fixation, to noise rock momentum and neo-classical arrangements, her music always balances a primordial ritualism and contemporary applications. It is an ongoing process, one that Anna has been refining over the years. In 2018, the … Read more

Radioactivity

Time Won't Bring Me Down
Dirtnap, Wild Honey Records (2025)

"When I've had enough of modern life, I go back to my analog ways." It's a simple quote, yet it captures so much about Radioactivity. It's been 10 years since the band released Silent Kill, and this time around the Jeff Burke-led group shows clear growth and change, while still capturing the same vibe as the previous two records. In … Read more

Tony Molina

On This Day
Slumberland Records (2025)

I went to a birthday party for my wife and six or seven other friends and acquaintances last night. I guess people liked having sex in January in the late 70s-early 80s? In Canada at least, that’s how we keep warm in the winter! Anyway, I was foraging at the smorgasbord with a couple former co-workers talking about my recent … Read more

Often Wrong

The Figs Are Starting to Rot
Far From Home Records (2025)

Often Wrong is an emo/grunge/screamo hybrid born out of the DIY scene. It was built through the kind of friendships that start in basements, not boardrooms. The band formed in 2024 and quickly started carving out their own lane. They are blending fragile, journal-entry emo with blown-out guitars and throat-shredding catharsis. They’re signed to Far From Home Records, a label … Read more

Armor for Sleep

There Is No Memory
Equal Vision (2025)

Armor For Sleep return with an album that treats memory like a weapon. It’s delicate, devastating, and impossible to disarm. For those who may not be as old as me and missed their emergence into the emo/indie scene, the Teaneck, New Jersey band started in 2001. Led by frontman Ben Jorgensen, they dropped gems like Dream to Make Believe (2003) … Read more

Imploders

Targeted For Termination
Neon Taste Records, Static Shock Records (2025)

Back in or around 2007 my buddy Jake invited me to a show, I’m not even sure he told me who was playing or if he did I hadn’t heard of them yet anyway. Turns out it was Toronto’s Career Suicide who were on tour with Regulations from Sweden. Both bands fucking ripped and I still remember being pretty blown … Read more

Imperial Domain

Portentum
Wormhole Death (2025)

Formed in 1995, Imperial Domain cut their teeth in the Swedish death metal underground with early demos before dropping In the Ashes of the Fallen (1998) and The Ordeal (2003). After the 2014 death of original vocalist, Tobias Heideman, Imperial Domain could’ve folded into the past like so many of their era. Instead, they came back swinging. The band returned … Read more

Chairmaker

Leviathan Carcass
Independent (2025)

There are some musicians that come along and can literally play every instrument and do it well. Such is the case for the grindcore brainchild behind Chairmaker, Neil Erskine. He drops his self-released, debut album titled “Leviathan Carcass” on November 14th. Fueled by the perils of the late capitalist society we inhabit, Neil has been able to craft a fierce … Read more

The Devil Wears Prada

Flowers
Solid State (2025)

Twenty years into the grind and The Devil Wears Prada haven’t lost their edge. However, in recent years, it’s a bit more refined and less jagged than their earlier release. The band’s latest release, Flowers, feels like their sharpest, most well-oiled bloom yet. From the opening track “That Same Place” to the closing “My Paradise”, this record is a reckoning. … Read more

DFMK

Playa Nuclear
Alternative Tentacles (2025)

DFMK have been playing since 2009, but Playa Nuclear is just their second full-length. It kicks off with exactly what I expect of the band in "Mi Rutina" -- a driving punk song with lots of high energy, guitar-driven bridges; Mr. Cap on vocals and doing near-splits between songs; and a general melodic flow that balances nervous energy with a … Read more

Action/Adventure

Ever After
Pure Noise (2025)

Chicago’s Action/Adventure have been grinding the pop-punk trenches since 2014. They have always played pop-punk like it still has something to prove because for them, it does. They went viral in 2020 on TikTok with their song “Barricades” by calling out the exact thing no one in the scene wanted to say out loud. The genre is full of white … Read more

217

In Your Gaze
Time To Kill (2025)

If you didn’t know, hardcore and punk are alive and thriving in Italy. When I come across bands from there, their scene never ceases to amaze me. Italy gave us Raw Power and Negazione in the ’80s, Slander and Strength Approach in the 2010s. Now 217 picks up that lineage with their own mix of fire and reflection by keeping … Read more

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