Category: Uncategorized

Review by Joseph Michael

Editor’s Note: As you can tell from the past coverage I’ve given to Revocation on this site, I absolutely love the band and would have reviewed the album myself. But, my review would have been predictable and hence I decided to bring in a different perspective. So just to clarify, this review by Joseph Michael doesn’t reflect my own opinion of the album.
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For those of you who’re new or unfamiliar, Revocation is an American technical death metal band from Boston, Massachusetts founded by guitarist/vocalist David Davidson, drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne and ex bassist Anthony Buda, who’s now with the band Squalor. They changed from their original name Cryptic Warning to Revocation in 2006, and have released three studio albums and an EP. Now, we have the obligatory self-titled full-length release. American Technical Death Metal? Sounds scary. Let’s Dive in. Continue reading “Revocation – Self-Titled”

By J.C. Green

Sweden has always been a strong exporter of black metal bands, rivaling in quality with the Norwegian scene. In the 90’s, bands like Dissection were considered among the elite. After Dissection’s demise, fans and the press began to look for worthy successors to their throne and plenty agreed that Watain were the genre’s saviors. Formed in 1998, Watain released four full-length albums, getting huge exposure even among the mainstream fans, which gained them a contract with highly acclaimed label Century Media Records. So, armed with a better budget they went on to release their best sounding album to date “The Wild Hunt”. Continue reading “Watain – The Wild Hunt”

By J.C. Green

Occasionally we face some bands that despite having been active for a while suddenly conquer the music world with one album. This is the case with Italian symphonic extreme metal band Fleshgod Apocalypse. Their breaktrough album “Agony” released in 2011, shook the metal world with their almost perfect combination of symphony and extreme metal, creating what could be described as the perfect chaos. And I said almost, because even though “Agony” was one of the best releases from 2011, there was room for improvement, and the band recognized it. This led us to their new album titled “Labyrinth” where we can safely say that the guys reached the perfection they were aiming for. Continue reading “Fleshgod Apocalypse – Labyrinth”

By Avinash Mittur

The Distortion Field has been a long time coming for Trouble fans. The band will forever be one of the earliest pioneers of doom metal, and their best albums remain among the most unique and original in their genre. That being said, it’s been rather depressing keeping up with Trouble’s activities over the past fifteen years. After releasing the phenomenal Plastic Green Head in 1995, the band slowly faded into obscurity. An attempted reunion with their celebrated original lineup bore little fruit; the resulting album, Simple Mind Condition, proved to be a noble failure and singer Eric Wagner and drummer Jeff ‘Oly’ Olson left the band not too long after its release. Fast forward to 2013 and original guitarists Bruce Franklin and Rick Wartell have found themselves armed with one hell of a new weapon. Former Exhorder and Floodgate singer Kyle Thomas mans the mic for The Distortion Field, and the results are startlingly solid. This is the album that Trouble fans have deserved for years and years, and a more than worthy addition to one of doom metal’s best catalogs.  Continue reading “Trouble – The Distortion Field”

By Avinash Mittur

Few people would readily call Ozzy Osbourne a good singer. If there’s one thing that the Ozzman knows how to do well though, it’s find great guitarists out of nowhere. Now let’s turn to a far more talented (and far less batshit crazy) individual, White Wizzard’s Jon Leon. White Wizzard have had over fifteen members pass through their ranks; all of them exceptionally rule at their instruments. Seriously, Leon has managed to run into and scoop up absolutely amazing musicians again and again- ordinary bandleaders don’t strike musical gold fifteen times in a row. The latest three additions complete what might be White Wizzard’s most talented group of guys yet. If that isn’t some serious heavy metal black magic, I don’t know what is. The fruit of this new lineup’s labors, The Devils Cut, is White Wizzard’s most mature and cohesive record yet. Not only an astonishing display of this lineup’s talents, The Devils Cut is a plain badass slab of classic heavy metal from the very band that brought the style back to prominence. Continue reading “White Wizzard – The Devils Cut”