What's New 6-25-21
The time period between The Absence’s previous 2018 release and the COVID outbreak saw the band stay busy with other outside endeavors, with drummer Jeramie Kling manning the kit for Venom Inc., bassist Mike Leon with Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy, and guitarist Taylor Nordberg with Massacre. With those experiences the band reconvened to put together 11 tracks of pummeling death metal that compose Coffinized.
Steeped in gospel, Southern soul, indie folk, and alt-country with tinges of blues, rock, and jazz, Quietly Blowing It is an intimate and introspective offering that finds M.C. Taylor ruminating on themes of growing up, alienation, obligation, hope, purpose, family, class, self-discovery, healing, and rebuilding, fashioned with impressionistic tones.
One of the words that John Darnielle used when talking about the direction for Dark in Here was "wild." Not wild in the sense of abandon - these aren't those kind of songs. But wild in the sense of something undomesticated, untamable. Wild like the immutability of nature. Like a powerful animal. Or a virus - the beast that awakes, emerges from a forest, and stops the world. You can fight the calamity all you want, but either way, it's going to demand your surrender.
This new gift from Dacus, which features vocal contributions from boygenius bandmates Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, was built on an interrogation of her coming-of-age years in Richmond, VA. Many songs start the way a memoir might, all of them have the compassion, humor, and honesty of the best autobiographical writing. Most importantly and mysteriously, this album displays Dacus's ability to use the personal as portal into the universal.
After his autobiographical debut album, The Good & The Bad, Brooklyn artist/actor Anthony Ramos returns with his sophomore release, Love And Lies, an adrenaline-filled record that leads listeners through a night out filled with lust, passion, and losing oneself in living on the edge. Proclaimed as Ramos’ most matured music to date, the album — like Ramos himself — is multi-genre from pop with “Lose My Mind”, to R&B on “Control,” and the Latin- inspired “Échale.”
A torchbearer of the Texas songwriter tradition, Emerson channels the straightforward truth-telling of his songwriting heroes in Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle into something fresh and distinctly his own. Where his 2019 debut proved that he is one of the most reverent students of country and Western musical traditions, his follow-up is a brave step forward that solidifies his place as one of music's most compelling and emotionally clarifying storytellers.
Heading into the spring of 2020, T. Hardy Morris had 12 demos that he thought would make-up his next album, then, everything changed. The world took a break and so his plans to record did as well. He scrapped the demos and began a collection of songs in quarantine where the unprecedented times and topics were unavoidable. “I wanted it to sound like how the world felt to me in the second half of 2020 - uncomfortable and chaotic, dystopian but still beautiful.”
The Golden Casket hovers in the liminal space between raw punk power and experimental studio science as frontman Isaac Brock explores themes ranging from the degradation of our psychic landscapes and invisible technology, to fatherhood. The twelve tracks behave like amorphous organisms, undergoing dramatic mutations and mood swings that speak to the chronic tug-of-war between hope and despair that plays out in Brock’s head.
Unleashing influential albums with devastating anthems for over 30 years, Fear Factory is widely recognized as both crucial and innovative in extreme metal circles. Fear Factory manufactured, demanufactured, and remanufactured a sound that reverberates across several subgenres. Aggression Continuum is the band's tenth studio album, their latest since 2015's Genexus.
With the upcoming new album, which not without reason simply bears the band name as its title, Helloween are opening a new chapter in their glorious career after more than 25 years of band history: From now on, the future of one of the most influential German metal bands in the world will take place together and with three singers - what started as a live idea was the birth of a seven-piece metal instance in a unique line-up.
