This is the latest EP from Cranely Gardens, a deathcore band from the US.
Heavy and aggressive, this is modern deathcore with some metalcore and djent influences thrown in for good measure. Continue reading “Cranely Gardens – House of Decay (Review)”
Skies in Motion are a UK modern hardcore/metal band and this is their debut album.
Combining raging intensity with heartfelt emotion, this is modern metalcore played with passion and skill. Continue reading “Skies in Motion – Life Lessons (Review)”
Shattered Sun are a metalcore band from the US. This is their second album.
Metalcore is a much maligned sub-genre, usually for good reason; there’s a lot of generic dross out there, sadly. However, if you’re looking for a ripping example of how to do metalcore right in 2017, your sights should immediately land on Shattered Sun. Continue reading “Shattered Sun – The Evolution of Anger (Review)”
Darkest Hour are a US metal band and this is their ninth album.
Darkest Hour are one of the original and best proponents of combining hardcore, metal and thrash.
One of the first to take the Continue reading “Darkest Hour – Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora (Review)”
Iron Reagan are a crossover band from the US. This is their third album.
Made up of current and ex-members of bands such as Municipal Waste, Cannabis Corpse, Mammoth Grinder, Darkest Hour and Deathcrown, Crossover Ministry is 18 tracks spread across 29 minutes of riotous metallic hardcore thrash. Continue reading “Iron Reagan – Crossover Ministry (Review)”
This is the second album from US metalcore band Forty Winters.
This is metalcore in its original, hard-as-nails metallic hardcore incarnation, before the advent of sing-along choruses and radio-friendly unit shifters. Forty Winters mean business, and they’re here to stomp all over your breakfast.
This is angry music for angry people doing angry things. If you get off on bands like Hatebreed, Himsa, Thy Art Is Murder, Suicide Silence, Walls of Jericho, Darkest Hour and the like, then this should be Continue reading “Forty Winters – Rotting Empire (Review)”
This is the début album from this US hardcore/metal band.
Hollow Bones play modern metalcore, but with a little bit of a twist. Essentially the band take the tried-and-true NWOAHM metalcore template and put their spin on it through force of passion, a heightened emotive melodicism, and captivating female vocals.
The songs are enjoyably heavy slabs of metal with lots of tasty riffs. The guitars have Continue reading “Hollow Bones – Lionheart (Review)”
Aterra are from Poland and this is their début album. They play modern Metal.
This album is full of heavy guitars and enough beats to dance to. This is distinctly from the modern school of Metal that fuses Metalcore with elements of Thrash and even Nu-Metal.
This is quite a varied release, with plenty of different styles and flavours touched upon over the 37 minutes of music here. There are frequent small interludes between the main tracks and these take a wide variety of different forms, adding texture as the album unfolds.
How to describe the band…take a bit of Sepultura, (Chaos A.D./Roots-era, vocals and music), a pinch of Korn’s funkiness, some of the Metal stylings of Darkest Hour and Killswitch Engage, the added electronic parts of Rammstein…it’s quite a melting pot of influences that makes me quite nostalgic for this kind of music during the late 90s and early 00s in some ways.
This has the variety and pop-Metal foundation of Nu-Metal, hardened up by Metalcore’s grittier influence. And, unless you’re completely allergic to this kind of thing, it works well. This is helped greatly by the fact that the vocals, (for the most part), are mainly barked out at full volume throughout. Yes, there is the odd spoken-word and clean vocal, but for the most part they’re uncompromisingly un-radio friendly, which is always a bonus.
Very good. Loud, brash, unapologetic and shamelessly enjoyable. All Born in Pain works well.
Recommended.
Inner Sanctum are an Indian Thrash/Groove Metal band and this is their début album.
After a rather cinematic opener, Inner Sanctum reveal themselves in their full glory as Thrash/Groove Metal with some Death Metal influences included for added impact. Think the mid-00s-type NWOAHM, only with a darker, more classically Death Metal side to it that emphasises the European Melodic Death Metal heritage of the American style.
The album boasts a sexy, professional sound that’s polished and strong.
The singer has a gruff voice that shouts out with the best of them, occasionally including some semi-cleans that remind me of some of Darkane’s work in places.
The songs are well-written and it’s clear that these tracks have been constructed with care and enthusiasm. The Thrash and Groove influences never take over or embrace the mediocre side of both styles; Inner Sanctum play their brand of heaviness with vibrancy and passion. They deliver everything on here with skill and it’s clear that the band have the talent to succeed.
Legions Awake is a strong collection of songs that make a good impression and showcase a band who really know what they’re doing. If they were American and picked up by a large music label then they would get very far indeed, I think. Unfortunately that isn’t the case, so make sure you support them – bands like this deserve it.
For fans of – Pantera, Lamb of God, Chimaira, Shadows Fall, Darkest Hour, Legion of the Damned, Kreator, Arch Enemy, Testament, etc.
Fathoms are from the UK and play Metallic Hardcore. This is their début album.
The band play modern Metalcore with gruff, angry vocals and plenty of beatdown guitars.
The songs feature twisting, distorted guitars that are halfway between Djent and Hardcore, with more Metal influences sneaking into the mix on occasion.
It’s passionately played and delivered, and none could fault the band’s convictions. This comes across in the songs and the impressions they make.
The heavy riffs are performed with energy and enthusiasm. They seem to thunder out of the speakers and land causing furious damage.
Lives Lived is not all brutal riffs and angry intent though. The band do flirt with a melodic edge sometimes, and the shouted vocals even give way to some more melodic cleans on occasion. These moments are kept relatively infrequent however; enough to make an impact when they are used but not enough to become commonplace or boring.
Incorporating aspects of bands like Dead to Fall, Martyr AD, Martyr Defiled and Darkest Hour, Fathoms have created a very enjoyable début release that hits the spot like a lot of US Metalcore did in the mid-00s, before the style became mired in mediocrity and generic copying.
Highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 