Pleasant surprises are when He Is Legend not so subtly tease a new release and then the gotdamn thing actually materializes within the same year those aforementioned teases were made. The band that refuses to die, He Is Legend, is back with their seventh full-length rekkid called Endless Hallway and it is a glorious BEAST from beginning to end.
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Remember when Nu-Metal exploded and all these bands came out of the woodwork with these impressive anthems trying to hook new listeners for the long haul beyond the initial fad? Rise As Equals is like ALL of those songs collected in one place. And it’s freaking glorious.
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‘Here we are. This is the band in its purest form.’ We’re fucking back. We’re here. It’s time to rock.”-Shuylar Croom, He Is Legend vocalist on White Bat
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Listening to Mark Morton’s debut solo album is like listening to the greatest heavy music mixtape of all time. Not only is Anesthetic a coherent flow of genres but the mix of talent involved is a veritable who’s who across the spectrum as well. You have Nu-Metal luminaries (The late Chester Bennington, Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix), Hard Rock Icons (Buckcherry’s Josh Todd, Myles Kennedy), Thrash Metal Gods (Testament’s Chuck Billy) alongside Indie Rawkers (Oni’s Jake Oni), Living Legends (Mark Lanegan), and Singer/Songwriters (Naeemah Maddox) beautifully woven together through Morton’s musical tapestry.
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Within Temptation is another one of those bands that has been on my radar for some time and I get the general gist of what they’re all about but never properly dove in before. And like so many times previously documented in these pages, I truly effed up. Especially if previous efforts sounded anything like Resist, Within Temptation’s seventh opus.
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Holy jeebus, if Nonpoint is really celebrating 20 years as an entity then that means…I’m old?!?!
But I digress. [Read more…]
What’s “Unreal” here is how effortlessly My Ticket Home seemingly capture the best parts of an entire genre and made it relevant again on their third full-length. It’s 2017. Nu-metal is dead. So what comes next? Some new nu-metal? Sure, why not! Or “puke rock” as the band themselves call it. [Read more…]
36 Crazyfists is an odd duck of a metal band. Always have been. They were emo before it was cool within the genre and lumped in with metalcore when it wasn’t. Hell, I even sold my copy of their Roadrunner Records debut because I didn’t give it a chance the first time around but feverishly sought out another copy after a chance hearing of a song or two from that album on a random compilation. [Read more…]
North Carolina’s He Is Legend is back! [Read more…]
Killing Joke is back. Again. Since the reformation of the original line up for 2010’s Absolute Dissent, Killing Joke has continued to impress, surprise, and grow stronger as a band which is a feat unto itself for any outfit together for almost 40 years. On Pylon, their sixteenth studio album, they complete the trilogy (With 2012’s MMXIII sandwiched in there) with perhaps their most masterfully executed album to date. [Read more…]