Heavy metal is a stubborn genre that it is generally not accepting of any sort of deviations from the norm (please see exhibits A – Metallica/Load and B – Machine Head/The Burning Red). Heavy metal has only ever had one commandment – Play harder, louder, and faster. This puts obvious constraints on a band wanting to play metal music some thirty years after the emergence of the genre. The peak of human riff speed has already been achieved and the throat can only be so guttural before it gives out. So what’s a new band supposed to do? Continue reading Album Review: Fear Control – The Monster →

Catfish and The Bottlemen explode out of the gates on their debut, The Balcony, with an immediacy I haven’t felt since Stereophonics Language. Sex. Violence. Other? This album sounds like the album that The Strokes, Foster The People, and countless other mid-00’s bands wanted to make but fell just short of. The difference is where most of the other potentially great bands relied on style to elevate them, Catfish & The Bottlemen appear to simply rely on strong songwriting. Continue reading Album Review: Catfish and The Bottlemen – The Balcony →

Think about someone you’ve know who was both bitingly clever and charmingly aloof; someone who knew they were magnetic but didn’t actually care if anyone acknowledged it. Remember how much you enjoyed being in the presence of that person? I Love You, Honeybear, the sophomore album by Father John Misty, is very much the musical version of that rare person from your memory. Continue reading Father John Misty – I Love You Honeybear →