album reviews

Soundgarden’s new old live album “Live on I5” is an interesting time capsule of music from fifteen years ago.

The entire experience of Crowbar's "Sever the Wicked Hand" comes down to a good news/bad news equation. The good news is that "Sever the Wicked Hand" is a brutal, straightforward attack on the senses that rumbles ahead with the kind of speed-killing finality usually reserved for broken ankles and police spike strips. The bad news is that from beginning to end, that's really everything the album has to offer.

"The Onslaught," the debut from Wisconsin thrashers Lazarus A.D. was, to speak plainly, brilliant. So it was with great anticipation that the metal universe greeted the coming of the band's follow up, "Black Rivers Flow." This new effort is similar but ever so different from its predecessor and equally masterful in its own right.

Among the fan circles of hard rock and heavy metal, only two names imply the kind of ultimate, all encompassing, you-know-what-to-expect legacy that is earned through a career of unflinching consistency. AC/DC, the forever hard-charging and ageless band from Australia is one. Motörhead, the heavy drinking, tough as nails biker-club outfit from England is the other.

The latter’s new release “The Wörld is Yours” is another entry into that legacy, and customary to idiom for Motörhead, is strong on character and low on depth. In this instance, that’s a particularly good thing.

For a band so comparatively young, Escape the Fate has been through the wringer, back again, and still find themselves able to conjure up their third, eponymous album.

What’s striking about this new effort is that from a musical standpoint, “Escape the Fate” is the album that Rob Zombie should have released in place of “Educated Horses.” There are enough heavy, chugging, downbeat riffs that could be isolated and restacked into a convincing Zombie simulacrum.

Wow, what a hot mess this is. The most frustrating is that it didn’t have to be. I salute The Famine for soldiering on after a fire quite literally destroyed their entire studio and all the original tracking for this new release “The Architects of Guilt.” Unfortunately, that’s about as far as that goes.

What seems like a lifetime ago, I can remember sitting in my college radio station and giving Stratovarius a shot. I had of course heard and read much from friends and in publications, but as a kid growing up in the whitewashed suburbs of New York State’s capital city during the days before downloadable music, Stratovarius albums eluded me.

Preconception can be a subtle but influential force on the human psyche. Often, knowledge of past or present environments and decisions can color a person's view of any new situation, person or object he or she encounters.

Sometimes, you get bored with eating filet mignon. Prosciutto with melon loses its kick, you grow weary of truffles, you get tired of fine wine and you can't stomach anymore decadent crème brûlée. Sometimes, all you desire and the only thing that will give you satiety is to trundle over to the local greasy spoon and choke down the drippiest, greasiest, densest cheeseburger on the menu.

So it is with Shroud Eater.

Even after repeated listening, it’s difficult to give this album sort of cohesive context. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it speaks to the creative and musical range of Danish rock/metallers Volbeat. They’ve been taking the world by seeming storm, and their rapid ascension is at least in part attributable to the wide range of talents they can showcase.