This is so slick. From their polished progressive metal to the neat production and tidy cover art, it’s hard to believe ‘Between the Here and Now’ is A Fine Line’s debut. The Florida foursome’s chunky, shifting riffs and upbeat tones are as good as any in the genre but Matt Levesque’s smooth, soulful voice sets them apart. Capable of lilting […]
Read moreThis might never have happened. Since 2014’s ‘From Parts Unknown’ the line-up and lives of Every Time I Die have been overturned. The band are used to upheaval of course, they’ve barely gone two years without changing at least one member, but real life kicked in their door with dumb, ugly force at the end of last year. Out on […]
Read moreI can’t do this justice. It’s a jaw dropping record, in more ways than one, and I simply don’t have it figured out. I’m not sure I ever will. It is safe to say that Justin Vernon has left the cabin. There are no rootsy unrequited love songs here, verse-chorus-verse is all but abandoned, and connective tissue with ‘For Emma, […]
Read moreReinforce your walls, bolt down the roof, maybe invest in some kind of emergency bunker, hide your kids and hide your wife. ‘Stranger’, the fourth full-length from Norwegian quartet Kambodsja, is a runaway train of a record, loaded up with lightning, thunder and unstoppable raucous energy. These songs are battering rams, rolling boulders, hypnotic high-octane hammer hits. Seriously, if any […]
Read moreTaking Back Sunday have grown up. Oh sure, the actual dudes in the actual band grew up a while ago. Eye bags, marriages and kids are testament to that. But even throughout early success, internal strife, emo feuds, a break-up and a reunion, it feels like the New York outfit have always sung their songs with a wink and a […]
Read morePreoccupations used to be called Viet Cong. But that isn’t the only dramatic change behind this record, it’s an album effected by cross country relocations, relationship breakdowns, and a band on the edge. It’s not a totally fresh start, you don’t have to lean in too close to catch the gloomy resonance from Viet Cong’s only full-length, but you can […]
Read moreTölva don’t quite fit in. The French quartet are, by their own admission, a post-rock band but their debut release hungrily covers ground from barely-there ambience to big riff rock’n’roll. The quiets, like the sombre and fantastically restrained ‘Puzzle’, are truly beautiful, and the louds, like the ballsy and direct ‘Renton’, have the push and poise and power of modern-era […]
Read moreNorma Jean change. It might be the band’s shifting line-up (there are no original members at work here) or just the unstable nature of the music they play, but since the release of their ferocious debut the Atlanta outfit have never settled on a sound, and, for better or worse, rarely repeated themselves Sometimes that’s a good thing. The airless […]
Read moreEverything is here. The big riffs, the barrelling drums, the foreboding doom, the post-metal power. ‘Guidance’ contains all the requisite ingredients for Russian Circles, a band on an unrivalled run of form, to lay down another incredible marker. But it falls short. Oh, it’s not desperately wide of the mark but where the Chicago trio usually compose whole songs (or […]
Read moreI could rant and I could rave. “Buy this album,” I could yell, caps lock jammed down. But that’s not what ‘Centres’, the latest work of art by Vancouver native Ian William Craig, would want. This is a precious whisper of an album, see, a magnetic and masterful but almost always quiet and careful record. There are waves and swirls […]
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