Happy Metal Boy

I don’t remember exactly where it was, but I have seen the sentiment echoed on the online metal discussion sphere (and I’m possibly also thinking of my own thoughts as well), that Demon Hunter are basically just the Christian Five Finger Death Punch, at least lately. And I don’t know why, but I do feel the need to address/debunk this before talking about their double release here this year, mainly because it was when Five Finger Death Punch tried their hand at a two-volume album release that I felt them really starting to go south. Anyway, first-off, like I said, I have had this cursory comparison enter my mind, so I understand the reasoning behind it. Five Finger Death Punch has been for the past few years, unfortunately, probably the biggest (in terms of success) representative of modern groove metal and alternative metal, even if it’s just in name only at this point. Demon Hunter play a similar style of groovy, melodic metalcore and alternative metal to what got Five Finger Death...

Venom Prison have been making relatively big waves rather quickly since the one-two punches of their debut EPs in 2015 ( Defy the Tyrant  and  The Primordial Chaos ), and their rather well-received debut LP in 2016 ( Animus ) landed them an opening spot on tour with Trivium. And for the most part, I can’t really find a reason to burst the hype bubble surrounding them. The band’s animalistic and 1st-wave-metalcore-influenced approach to furiously aggressive death metal . While that blend of styles often beckons the deathcore label, I and most of the band’s fans wouldnt really call the music they make deathcore in the most definitive sense; their sound is so much closer to straight-up death metal, and even powerviolence, than it is to deathcore. The hardcore elements the band bring in only really serve to enhance the punch their death metal instrumentation brings, and to vary up the vocal delivery from time to time. But for the most part, Venom Prison don’t resort to breakdowns...

As they’ve ascended through the ranks of the techdeath world, I’ve only ever minimally understood the hype surrounding Fallujah. The ever so slight metalcore tinge to their sound and energy in their performances, a lingering trait from their come-up in their hometown San Francisco hardcore scene, is the only significant difference I can discern between them and the bulk of the unexciting techdeath out there. And it’s not even a major differentiating element. Granted, it doesn’t take much deviation to stand out from the homogeneous techdeath norm. I don’t at all dislike Fallujah’s music, but what little novelty they bring to the table stylistically is hardly enough to set them apart (in my eyes) from the compositional rut they and their contemporaries fall into so regularly. I revisited their relatively short back catalog for this new release here, and while it’s a rather decent and consistent display of their comfort within the genre, I don’t see what exactly has compelled so many oth...

My introduction to Children of Bodom was through their 2005 album,  Are You Dead Yet? , an album that most fans (from what I can tell) regard as the break in the string of great albums that began their career, making way for the even less loved  Blooddrunk . Children of Bodom have long been one of those bands that, despite my well-discerned mixed feelings toward, I often feel this uncertain draw toward, yet when I give in and revisit their catalog, I find myself right back where I started as far as my opinion of them and their work is concerned. I often revisit albums like  Hate Crew Deathroll  and  Follow the Reaper  because those are the fan favorites. And while I see what made those albums so unique for melodic death metal at the time, they are hardly consistent in their wielding of what would become the band’s signature sound. Those albums capture well the beneficially less-ultra-serious angle I have enjoyed from the band, and it’s their knack for me...

Dream Theater arguably had their backs against the wall going into this album after the polarized reception of their massive prog metal opera concept album,  The Astonishing , in 2016. While initial reviews were positive for the album and the two singles it led with were promising, fans eventually complained of so much of the album not playing to Dream Theater’s strengths. Most notably, fans lamented the ballad-heavy track list, but also the length, the individual songs being too short for a band like Dream Theater to get any momentum going with them, and the forced approach to fit everything into the album’s narrative. And I do agree with all of those main criticisms that have been blown out of proportion by nonfans within prog circles to lambast  The Astonishing  as proof of Dream Theater’s inherent ineptitude. But  The Astonishing  is definitely an enigma of an album. In some ways it is Dream Theater doing something absurd for them, but in many, it’s just...

Over the years I have learned to become wary of “star-studded”, guest-feature-focused albums coming out of metal. It’s not because guest features don’t work as well in metal as they do in, say hip hop (Devin Townsend’s  Deconstruction  is living proof of it being possible), but because these kinds of albums rarely seems to have any kind of cohesive vision and because the guests involved hardly ever bring their A-game to projects like these, if ever outside their main project(s). Spearheaded by Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton,  Anesthetic  is the latest of these big-time conglomerations of various artists within hard rock and heavy metal, and Jesus Christ it is fucking terrible. I was actually kind of intrigued when I heard Mark Morton of all people had a solo album coming out. The dude’s not really the most public figure in his band, and he’s not really called upon too much outside Lamb of God as far as I know. But when I looked at the track list and saw the n...