Blogcritics Category: Music: Metal

Music Review: Testament - Live at Eindhoven '87

Chris Beaumont — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:07:46 EDT

Testament live in their youth.
In 1987 I was still in my musical infancy, listening to acts like Def Leppard, Poison, and Warrant. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I still like them and others of that era. All I am saying is that I had not made the jump to the heavier stuff yet, although my childhood best friend was into the more extreme acts of the day and I was...

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Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:07:46 EDT

Music Review: Silver Ginger 5 - Black Leather Mojo

Rylee Strange — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:12:59 EDT

Ginger, lead singer of the Wildhearts offers us one of his most solid albums ever with Black Leather Mojo.
Unless you’re European, you most likely have never heard of a Punk/Metal band called the Wildhearts. They were quite famous in their home country of England, and most of Europe and Japan during the 90s, with heavy punk songs such as “Sick of Drugs”, “Suckerpunch”, “TV Fan”, “Caffeine Bomb”, and...

Music Reviews: The Bakerton Group, Black Crowes, Hanging Doll, The Great Kat, and the To Live is to Die Book

Marty Dodge — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:38:52 EDT

The Great Kat appalls, Black Crowes disappoint, while Hanging Doll & The Bakerton Group enthrall.
The tea pary is over and I can finally return to my music listening in earnest. This week is a mixed bag, as is the norm, but there was still enough for quite an astonishing surprise.CD ReviewsThe Bakerton Group: El RojoI confess to have never known about this lot of jazzy proggers. One thing I can say without hesitation is from the first listen I...

Movie Review: Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Damian Penny — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:04:19 EDT

A hilarious and absorbing documentary about heavy metal veterans who refuse to quit.
Nearly every hard rock or heavy metal group has been compared to Spinal Tap, but the comparison between Tap and Canadian metal veterans Anvil is extraordinary. The absorbing documentary Anvil! shows the group recording on equipment with knobs that go to 11, visiting Stonehenge, suffering from a string of scheduling and managerial screw-ups on tour,...

Jane's Addiction Headlines 2009 Lollapalooza Festival

Josh Hathaway — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:40:26 EDT

It's back to the future for the festival Perry Farrell invented
It's back to the future for Lollapalooza... almost. What began as a traveling circus of diverse music created by Perry Farrell and headlined by his band Jane's Addiction has come full circle. It's now a three-day festival in Chicago, Illinois but will once again be headlined by a reformed Jane's Addiction, featuring all four...

Music Review: Isis - Wavering Radiant

Mirza Gazic — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:48:05 EDT

Isis bring to the fore a mix of their best experimental sounds in their latest mind- bender.
Forget about genre classifications and under what category to place Isis; they have, as a band, always been bigger than that. When listening to Wavering Radiant all you have to do is take in the nuances of the record and think about how far the band has developed since the early stages. Their brooding type of musicianship has travelled from the...

Music Review: Queensr�che - American Soldier

Stuart A Hamilton — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:29:25 EDT

Queensr�che return with another concept and, this time, almost pull it off.
It can't be easy being Queensrÿche. Whatever you do is always going to be compared to either the Operation: Mindcrime concept album or their finest release, Empire, from back in the olden days, and when you try something new like Hear In The Now Frontier, you get roundly castigated. Fairly, in that instance, because it was a bit rubbish....

Concert Review: Tragedy - House of Blues, Anaheim, CA - 04/12/09

El Bicho — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:18:37 EDT

Yet another town decimated by the power of Tragedy.
Tragedy is the #1 Heavy Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees in the World and they certainly made their case in “Anaheim City” last night as they decimated Disneyland. While the notion of combining ‘80s metal and the Bee Gees initially sounds like a joke, and there was a lot to laugh at especially with the between-song banter, the band...

Music Review: Captain Beyond - Captain Beyond

Rylee Strange — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:05:19 EDT

The early '70s graced us with some of the most forgettable bands in history. Luckily, this ain't one of 'em.
Captain Beyond should have been Rock Gods. Had they been more commercially successful, they could probably have gone down in the books as rivaling Black Sabbath's reign over early 70s Hard Rock/Metal. It's baffling when one looks at Captain Beyond's eponymous debut, at its grandeur, depth, and sheer "heavyocity", to think that for the six years...

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Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:05:19 EDT

Music Review: Waylander - Honour Amongst Chaos

Scott Deitche — Thu, 9 Apr 2009 15:53:09 EDT

Waylander have shown tremendous growth in their musicianship, delivering a diverse, accessible, yet heavy album.
The flow chart of heavy metal is packed with various sub-genres that have spawned interesting and innovative bands over the past 15-20 years. Europe has traditionally been the area where the various sub-genre’s take hold. The sub-genre ‘folk metal’ is no different. Blending traditional instruments with power and death metal,...