PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALSWalk Through Exits Only Housecore (2013)Rating: 8/10 I guess I’m really showing my age when I say that I always preferred Pantera’s first two albums – Metal Magic (1983) and Projects In The Jungle (1984) – to their extremely successful 90s battering rams. I always felt rather removed from Pantera’s […]
LAWLESSRock Savage Escape Music (2013)Rating: 8/10 I think a majority of people who first saw the band name and that album title probably thought this was going to be some type of Steel Panther sort of metal parody. What with so many bands attempting to recreate the 80s it wouldn’t have surprised me either, but […]
POWERWOLFPreachers Of The Night Napalm (2013)Rating: 7.5/10 Formed in 2003, Powerwolf are a German power metal band that have a strong affinity for Romanian werewolf legends, vampires, and the darker corners of religious tales. While distinctly power metal in sound, their presentation features corpse paint and a host of more extreme visual elements. Preachers Of […]
STOMACH EARTHStomach Earth Black Market Activities (2013)Rating: 7/10 I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a gravestone dropped on your head from a great height, but I’m guessing that Stomach Earth is the musical equivalent to such an unfortunate experience. Fans of this sort of gloomy music will no doubt be eager to categorise such […]
TYLA J. PALLASDevil’s Supper (Electric Sitting) King Outlaw (2013)Rating: 8/10 Tyla is the once mercurial frontman of sleazy, drunken Brit rockers Dogs D’Amour, who once said, and rightly so, that Rod Stewart was a bigger punk than most of the artists claiming to be punk. And it’s only natural that Rod Stewart – certainly circa […]
WOLFS MOONCurse The Cult Of Chaos Pure Steel (2013) Rating: 4/10 Mmm, for a start the album title is a bit of a tongue twister, and the band moniker suggests a modern gang on a revival trip maybe? However, that almost soulful, swooning introduction suggests a band experimenting with subtlety, until the riff kicks in […]
EXHUMEDNecrocracy Relapse (2013)Rating: 8/10 I don’t think my favourite gore-influenced band of all time, Carcass, will ever have any competition, but California’s Exhumed are certainly well placed when it comes to the Premier League table of such bands. These guys have been festering away since the early 90s, doing the whole demo and split project […]
Ministry: The Lost Gospels According To Al Jourgensen Al Jourgensen with Jon Wiederhorn Da Capo Press (2013) Al Jourgensen Pic: Allan Amato You know you’re in trouble when you try to say goodbye to your wife and all you can do is gargle blood. I was dying. Well, that was nothing new. I’d tempted fate […]
VIOLATORScenarios Of Brutality Kill Again (2013)Rating: 7/10 Album number three from these Brazilian thrashers comes three years after 2010’s Annihilation Process opus, and as expected it’s another reasonably notable foray into the realms of revival thrash with an American influence evident. Admittedly, Violator – for all of their clichés – are a tad more volatile […]
BUTCHER BABIESGoliath Century Media (2013)Rating: 8.5/10 Butcher Babies have been milling around for the last couple of years, gaining momentum from the mere fact that they have two gorgeous women fronting their seemingly horror metal band. Poorly shot cell phone video clips of Pantera covers, nipple-gated breasts, and blood-soaked knife-ro-phones have been making appearances online […]
