Metal playlists from the underground
We are now at the half way point of a great year for heavy music. The first 6 months of 2010 have given a great assortment of powerhouse releases. If the year was to end right this second, these are my picks for the Top 10 Albums of 2010. 1. Overkill – Ironbound Legendary New […]
ARMORED SAINT: LA RAZA After a near-decade long layoff, arguably the biggest hard-luck metal band ever Armored Saint return with LA RAZA, an infectious multi-layered metallic creation brimming over with a deep wealth of hooks while retaining the ahead of their time eclectic heaviness that made the band stand out amongst swarms of bands from […]
ORPHANED LAND: THE NEVER ENDING WAY OF ORWARRIOR Israel’s Orphaned Land dazzles the senses and gives a bang for your buck with their latest 15-track offering. This unit’s multi-faceted metallic approach contains an abundance of ingrained native musical influences with genuine instrumentation intertwined with a progressive mix of ornate death metal underpinned with elegant epic […]
Oh yeah! Bringing on some more sleaze-pleasing hard rocking music in 2010 is Black Robot, a new and mighty project featuring three former members of Buckcherry. This album features all of the main ingredients that classic hard rock fans worship—the dirtbag lyrics, the badass guitar riffs, stomping beats, and infectious heavy grooves that will have […]
BARONESS: BLUE RECORD Baroness follows up their stunning previous effort THE RED ALBUM with another colorfully titled endeavor BLUE RECORD. Despite taking discernible steps away from their comfort zone this time around, most notably by choosing burgeoning producer John Congleton known more for indie rock savvy than sludge metal salvation, this unit’s unbridled spirit and […]
If you dug the tunes from Runnin’ Wild then you will love the latest single from Airbourne, because “No Way But The Hard Way” is identical in feel to “Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast.” AC/DC modeled guitar riffs are combined with stomp rock beats to ensure a head banging good time. However, in order […]
THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: DEFLORATE The Black Dahlia Murder returns with a terse homage bountifully bursting with Swedish metal influence with their unique blackened thrash twists embedded within on their 10-track, 34-minute collection Deflorate. Showcasing swift jabs of focused aggression with a familiar brutality behind it all (“Eyes of Thousands”), this Michigan troupe’s delectable twin […]
VOIVOD INFINI Finishing up where Katorz left off, the final round of posthumous musical output from deceased guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour has arrived in the form of Infini, a 13-track collection dutifully piecing together the remainder of the compositional odds and sods D’Amour left behind on his laptop before succumbing to cancer in 2005. The […]
1. Black Sabbath – Volume 4 (1972) – With Halloween a little more than two months away, this record makes it’s way back into lineup. The single power chord riff that opens “Wheels of Confusion” is frightening in its structure and eerie simplicity. “Snowblind” bears an irresistible groove while “Supernaut” sports a percussive orgy in […]
Newcomers to the neo-classic hard rock stage, Charm City Devils, offer this 11-track debut on Nikki Sixx’s Eleven Seven Music label. The Baltimore outfit summons the energy of early AC/DC (“Let’s Rock N Roll (Endless Road)”), Billy Squire’ s “The Stroke” with a squirt of Zeppelin (“True Love”), and Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” with a […]