Redcoats
Redcoats
Island 4/5
Redcoats score a slam dunk before you even put this CD on thanks to good
graphic design, and the material backs it up: greasy, dirty hard rock
with a slightly dark edge.
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Elsie
The Horrible Crowes
Relapse/Riot!
The Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon and his partner in crime Ian Perkins have crafted the darker, mellower offshoot to Fallon’s musical identity: The Horrible Crowes.
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Cephalic Carnage
Misled by Certainty
Relapse/Riot!
Deathcore can be a really dirty made-up word – incessant metronomic drumming, directionless vocal hemorrhaging, extreme metal that has taken its adjective too literally. Cephalic Carnage are the ultimate in anti-deathcore; actively opposing all of these things with experimentalism and creative bombast. This is their magnum opus. more>
Future Of The Left
Travels With Myself And Another
Remote Control/Shock 9/10
Australian fans have got every right to expect this second album by Future Of The Left to be something very special. After all, the Welsh trio cancelled a tour on us back in January in order to spend more time making this album. Thankfully, the extra effort seems to have been worth it. Travels With Myself And Another picks up right from where their stellar debut, Curses! (2007), left off. The sounds are just as gnarly, the riffs just as arresting, the hooks just as hooky and the social commentary just as biting. more>
Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky
The Grand Partition, And The Abrogation Of Idolatry
Nuclear Blast/Riot! 7/10
I’d make a witty remark about this band’s name but I’m going to assume that anyone reading this has already uttered the words: “What the fuck?” That aside, The Grand Partition And The Abrogation Of Idolatry is a fairly impressive affair, one that pays homage to the band’s Floridian death metal roots whilst incorporating a healthy dose of modern grind and metalcore (see chugging breakdowns). Although I’m not entirely convinced that SWWAATS need a designated member to rock the sampler/media (um, what?), more>
Green Day
21st Century Breakdown
Reprise/Warner Music 8/10
Every eye (and ear) in the rock world is on Green Day right now. It’s been five years since the trio completely reinvented themselves with the ‘punk-rock opera’ American Idiot. Can they live up to such a monumental achievement both from a creative and commercial standpoint? The time has come for them to answer that question with the release of 21st Century Breakdown. more>
Taking Back Sunday
New Again
Warner 7/10
Taking Back Sunday, if anything, have always embodied – perhaps even defined – the melodramatic era of the post-hardcore/emo ‘movement’. You know, the era that seemed to abruptly end when the ‘genre’ moved onto the tongue in cheek irony pop of 2008/2009. So while their over-the-top, dual vocal, strained voice, psychoemotional ballads we’re getting kind of annoying (if not disturbing – in a “chill out dudes” kinda way) back when they released 2006’s Louder Now, it now seems high time for another TBS emotional thrill ride… Only it seems this time around Adam Lazarra and crew have grown up. more>
