I’ve been writing album/EP reviews for what seems like forever, but actually goes back to 1996, on my days writing for ROAR. This archive, like others, goes back as far as 2003. I don’t write as many album reviews as I used to, but they still get posted from time-to-time.
The title of this section comes from a track on The Afghan Whigs’ first album Big Top Halloween.
I think it's fair to say that I had begun to wonder if this album was ever going to appear. Endlessly delayed – 'Modern Ruin' was first revealed as the album title way back in 2009 at least – and seemingly with something of a difficult gestation, with various tracks debuted live and then not […]
It’s been a while since I’ve really hunted out any new extreme metal. Part of that is down to being a little bit detached from the scene nowadays, with it being a couple of years or more now since I ceased the three years of fun that was Stormblast. And to be honest, part of […]
Here’s a question for you. What is “urban” music? Is it really just hip-hop, rap, R&B and various forms of dance music? For me, urban music brings to mind music that could only be created in the environment fostered by living in a city – and that isn’t always music you can dance to. The […]
There has been a steady procession of reformations and/or long-awaited returns in the past couple of years, either bands returning for one last shot at success that perhaps eluded them in the first place, bands simply looking at making some (more) money on the back of previous success and a feeling of nostalgia, and then […]
Initially I thought this was a new artist, although the name sounded vaguely familiar from somewhere. Helpfully their MySpace page fills in the gaps – a surprisingly long-lived artist that has been around since the late 90s, although this is the first new album from them in eight years.
Maybe it’s just me, but the idea of an album with Dramacore in the title would immediately suggest an emo band favoured by teenagers, or someone taking the piss in a big way (Caustic, did you miss a trick here?). But no, a quick look at their website suggests a band who are deadly serious, […]
Remarkably, it’s now nearly five years since Transhuman first made it’s splash into the industrial world, and my full marks review still holds. And, I’m delighted to say that the new album is also brilliant, taking similar lyrical themes (scene apathy and fashionistas, medication, politics) as before but advancing the lyrics and the music that […]
Fresh from his great breakthrough album last year, four more tracks to keep us going, from an artist that is continuing to be very interesting indeed.
It’s been a few years, now, since the last Seabound album proper – in fact, nearly four – and in the time since a fan’s appetite has been sated by a live album, a collection of B-sides and rare moments…and also now two albums of Frank Spinath’s “other project” Edge of Dawn, who had been […]
Maybe I’m just getting my hopes up, but it seems like there is something of a resurgence in what might be called industrial music right now. I’m not meaning your average 120bpm oontz-oontz best danced to with the aid of glowsticks, I’m meaning music that sounds like it was forged from steel by people whose […]
It’s long been clear that Matt Fanale couldn’t give a flying fuck about what genre he should fit in, whether he is industrial or not, and what musical fashion he should be following. So after a bunch of well-received albums on Crunch Pod, he’s gone it alone with this one, self-releasing it. And not to […]
You could never accuse David Thrussel of following the herd. Staunchly anti-capitalist, anti-music industry, and more than willing to indulge his apparent love of god-knows-how-many different genres of music and also a wickedly droll sense of humour on every release he can, he has returned under his long-running Snog moniker for ‘their’ first album in […]
Never mind this album having been out a little while, it was quite a while in coming, too. It is five years or so since I first came across Joseph Byer’s work, when a couple of fantastic tracks appeared on two US-based compilations. Not a lot else was then heard for some time, and when […]
This is, by all accounts, a bloody odd coming-together of minds. I’ve come across Punish Yourself before, an insane French industrial-punk-dayglo soundclash of a band, but not Sonic Area, who appear to be a lot more restrained and experimental on first listen. So, why have they come together? It appears to be related to the […]
Time to come clean, first. Despite various people playing previous Lingouf releases to me, I’d never got around to listening to his work of my own accord prior to getting this to review. The website, while a little out of date, helps to give an idea of what you are letting yourself in for – […]
When this artist first appeared on my radar a while ago, it did appear to be something unusual. But then, when I thought about it, it’s not so much of an anomaly these days, perhaps. “Instrumental” industrial acts seem to be ten-a-penny now – but not many of the current acts are looking into the […]
Silent, huh? You have to laugh at the irony of the title, really. Those of you, like me, who were all-too-aware of their debut album and subsequent EP will know full well that silent is about as far from this artist’s modus operandi than it’s possible to be. The first album was a utter brute […]
It’s been a relatively short time, slightly over a year, since Tony Young’s previous album, Love No Longer Lives Here. And, in that time, he’s clearly not been resting on his laurels. Each of the previous albums has shown a distinct progression from the last – not only in quality, perhaps, but also in the […]
It’s three years now since I first came across this artist, on the Glitch Mode compilation H0rd3z Ov Thee El33t!, as one of many artists that I first heard there that I thought “hmm, must check them out again sometime”. Some vanished, others I went and bought the albums. This was one, I’ll admit, that […]
Sometimes, it’s best to ignore all the writing and promo material about a band before listening if you’ve not heard them before. Which is what I did here – other than knowing the label that they were on. D-Trash records are a small label that I’ve not really come across other than their release of […]
