Album Review: Hammock – Chasing After Shadows… Living With The Ghosts

...At the end of the day, nothing seems suitably comparable with the immersive and incredibly uplifting experience that Hammock offer. The songs are more like watery images of moments in time. ‘You Lost The Starlight In Your Eyes’, for instance, is a gentile train journey with lush, green landscapes drifting past before it all rapidly changes to ravaged sands beaten by the sun and the wind, all ending in a mist-covered, bombed-out ghost town. Then, ‘How Can I Make You Remember Me?’ conjures up a mental picture of a crystal-clear, bluer-than blue dive site swimming with all manners of marine life. No matter which track, there is always a mental image to explore.

Be it the echoic chime of a keyboard, the rumbling of an insistent bassline, the soft-shuffle of drum brushes, or an imperceptible, curiously winding series of vocalisations, you’ll find yourself lost in a world of your own creation. There aren’t many bands that allow their listeners to have so much input into the end product. Had enough of suckling the poison from vapid dancefloor stompers or soul-less copycat pop songs? Let Hammock be your antidote.

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/07/hammock-chasing-after-shadows-living-with-ghosts/

Album Review: Purified In Blood – Under Black Skies

'Under Black Skies' goes completely against the grain. For a start, it’s an album that gets stronger as it progresses. How refreshing to find a work that doesn’t have all it’s big hitters up front, ready-labelled to roll them out in single sequence. It’s almost as if Purified In Blood are holding them back to reward the devotees. This is also their, supposedly, difficult second album, coming four years after their debut, 'Reaper Of Souls'. Well they’ve made a mockery of that premise. One more thing to consider: between their first and second albums, this Nordic sextet announced their demise due to divisions in the band’s philosophies. So how have they managed to come back stronger than ever before?

Just the fact that they’ve got Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Isis, Botch) involved speaks volumes. Their committed lyrics have never been in doubt but here they seem even more focussed, controlled and pinpoint – yes, this is a band on a mission. You just have to listen to the demonic presence that lurks within this construct. It reaches out with great bony fingers to stir beligerently at a bubbling cooking pot of sounds. The drums regularly release allowing dark chords to gather strength before firing off great thundercracks; the sneering vocal seemingly rips out it’s own throat to lump wodges of hardcore and burnt black metal posturing at your feet; the double-kick has gone sub-level to make the floor around shake and rattle. There is so much here that sounds unhinged that by ‘Mouth Of Doom’ you’ll probably be cowering behind the sofa. This is the musical equivalent of letting an axe-wielding serial killer into your bedroom...

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/07/purified-in-blood-under-black-skies/

Album Review: Loathe - Despondent By Design

...Whilst you'll tire of the incessantly skiddy 'This Respect' very quickly, 'Children Of A Lesser God' will absolutely rip your head off and spit down your throat; whilst the repetitious snare, see-sawing guitar hook and weak fade-out of 'This Overwhelming Grasp Of Solitude' will seem like a tipping point (it's quite possibly what the hopelessly weedy brother of Lamb Of God's 'The Faded Line' might sound like). 'The End Of All Things Good' will drag you back from the edge and hammer home just how seriously good this band can be when they peak...

Full review = http://www.metalteamuk.net/july10reviews/cdreviews-loathe.htm

Competition: Win Tickets To Bloodstock Festival

Bloodstock 2010 competition - win 2 Weekend tickets with camping!

Metal Blade have teamed up with Bloodstock and The Noise Cartel to offer one lucky winner a free pair of weekend tickets with camping to see MB bands Cannibal Corpse and Powerwolf plus many more at the tenth anniversary Bloodstock 2010.

For your chance to win go to:
http://www.metalblade.com/uk/contests.php

The BLOODSTOCK OPEN AIR METAL FESTIVAL 2010 will take place at Catton Hall, Derbyshire from 13th – 15th August.

Weekend tickets are on sale now at www.bloodstock.uk.com

Album Review: Suma - Ashes

The anguished hellfire they summon forth for 'War On Drugs' prove they really can crack the earth open. No matter how many times you listen to what's on offer here, and there is well over an hour of sonic battery on display, you always seem to take away something new. It can, at times, seem utterly mesmeric, at others a complete chore. If Suma go easy on the see-saw structures, saving most for the playground of the practice room, and bring more complex crust-shattering tools to the studio they might just have the cojones to obliterate us all. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Full review = http://www.metalteamuk.net/july10reviews/cdreviews-suma.htm

Free Download: The Sword - Tres Brujas

This was too good to keep to myself.

So, you love stoner rock, right? You must love The Sword then? And it follows that you must know that they have a new album called 'Warp Riders' coming out next month, so you'd like a wicked track to download now so that you know what it sounds like then?

Well head on over to http://www.swordofdoom.com and you'll find the album track 'Tres Brujas' waiting for you to download for free. You're welcome.

EP Review: Cotheria - Icons

The songs are challengingly composed; stop-start structures that switch tack from clean vocals to a demonised, unhinged screaming. They are pitched somewhere between the progressive hardcore strata that bands like Architects or Protest The Hero are growing fat on, the rock plundering of Fightstar and Funeral For A Friend, and the full-on destruction that Bring Me The Horizon and Suicide Silence are selling. In all this, 'The Engagement' shines out amidst the mayhem of 'Ordeal' and 'Carnival's discordant posturing. It's devilishly exciting in the build with Steve Creek's guitar punching a great hole in the vocal before finger-tapping it back to life with some sublime work. The clarity in the chorus is tuneful, hearty and wickedly hooky...

Full review = http://www.metalteamuk.net/june10reviews/cdreviews-cotheria.htm

EP Review: Fell On Black Days - Bring Out Your Dead

'Tooth And Nail' is, predictably, full-bore groove with all guns blazing; the bastard son of Machine Head's 'Bulldozer' and DevilDriver's 'Bound By The Moon', and, as such, is a fine opener to set the mood, whilst 'Mea Culpa' and 'Cold Rapture' open a whole new musical Pandora's Box to reveal a dirty, black interior which Matt Hall and Mark Tranter's guitars proceed to explode from in all directions. The latter introduces a cleaner vocal on the chorus, a choppier rhythm and a flurry of double-kick that add a whole array of extra layers to focus on...

Full review = http://www.metalteamuk.net/june10reviews/cdreviews-fobd.htm