THE LOUDER STUFF
BRANT BJORK – Tao Of The Devil
Warning: This album will cause your bong to spontaneously combust. (7)
CANDIRIA – While They Were Sleeping
An offspring of New York’s early 90’s hardcore scene and best known for flawlessly incorporating free jazz elements into their sonic mayhem, Candiria return with fascinating proggy concept album. Frontman Carley Coma is particularly impressive on this one, showcasing a vocal range to rival Mike Patton’s. (8)
DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN – Dissociation
DEP say farewell with another strong effort, a schizo album mapping out their progress from “Calculating Infinity” onwards and pushing metal’s technical limits to the extreme. (8)
EVERY TIME I DIE – Low Teens
Metalcore veterans sound chaotic and fun as usual. One for the mosh pit. (8)
GREEN DAY – Revolution Radio
Green Day’s in top form on this one, an explosive pop-punk gem that manages to channel The Who via the usual suspects Ramones/Clash/Buzzcocks. (8)
KHEMMIS – Hunted
Second album by solid traditional epic doom metal band firmly rooted in the Candlemass tradition. (8)
MESHUGGAH – The Violent Sleep of Reason
If metal was a high-security prison, every djent band would be Meshuggah’s bitch. (8)
OPETH – Sorceress
Adding quite a bit of British psych-folk to their post-2010 progressive rock sound and allowing the metal to slowly creep back in, Opeth come up with a strong album. I still sort of miss the growls though. (8)
PALLBEARER – Fear And Fury
Short and sweet EP featuring one new song and a couple of covers (Black Sabbath’s “Over And Over” and Type O Negative’s “Love You To Death”, both duly nailed). (8)
TEMPLE OF THE DOG – Temple Of The Dog (25th Anniversary Reissue)
Legendary, hard to find one-off album by Seattle supergroup (call them Pearl Garden or Soundjam) re-released with extra goodies. It’s fucking awesome. (10)
VARIOUS ARTISTS – I’m A Freak Baby: A Journey Through The British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-72
The title of this 3-CD set is self-explanatory. Fantastic edition, great booklet, basically what you get is a handful of hits (Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, “Brontosaurus”, “Race With The Devil”, the original “Green Manalishi”) plus a whole bunch of bands you’ve never heard before or you’d forgotten they ever existed, including but not limited to Hellmet (not Helmet), The Kult (not The Cult), Skid Row (not “the” Skid Row) and The Iron Maiden (not the The-less Iron Maiden). (10)
WATCHTOWER – Concepts Of Math Book One
Christ, it’s been 27 years since “Control And Resistance”? Any of those who bought that one (i.e. practically nobody) still alive will love this EP. For the rest of you youngsters let’s just say if you like Protest The Hero and/or Dillinger Escape Plan then you should probably check this one out. (8)
THE OTHER STUFF
BON IVER – 22, A Million
Just when you decide you don’t get this pretentious bearded pop futurism hipster shit, a song like “8 (Circle)” comes along and makes you seriously reconsider. (8)
BRENT COBB – Shine On Rainy Day
He’s the cousin of Nashville producer du jour Dave Cobb (who lends a helping hand here) but sounds like the long lost son of Kris Kristofferson. (8)
DANNY BROWN – Atrocity Exhibition
Quite possibly the best rap album of the year, and as dark and claustrophobic as you’d expect from an album named after a Joy Division song. (8)
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS – American Band
Exactly what an American band should sound like, at least one from a southern state. (9)
GOAT – Requiem
This is Goat’s “folk” album, i.e. they’ve added pan flutes to the expected afrobeat/krautrock/Funkadelic freakout madness. Fucking pan flutes. (7)
GRUMBLING FUR – Furfour
UK psychedelic pop studio masters release highly enjoyable fourth album. By the way one of these guys has also been playing with the likes of Ulver and SunnO)))) for the past 6-7 years. (8)
HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER – Heart Like A Levee
Country rock as re-imagined by someone like Van Morrison. (8)
MARISSA NADLER – Bury Your Name EP
Marissa still does her gothic folk chanteuse thing on companion EP to album released earlier this year. (7)
NORAH JONES – Day Breaks
Jones returns to her jazz roots, records with Wayne Shorter and John Patitucci, creates what is quite possibly her strongest record to date. (8)
TODD SNIDER – Eastside Bulldog
Ten fun throwaway rock ‘n’ roll tunes flying by in 26 minutes. Great party album but you’re probably better off checking out Snider’s Hard Working Americans album, also out in 2016. (7)
