Tag Archives: Wil Cifer

ALBUM REVIEW: Lord of the Lost – OPVS NOIR Vol. 1

Posted on by

Lord of the Lost is back with OPVS NOIR Vol. 1 (Napalm Records)  which is a grandiose take on Metal that feels like it’s gotten bigger this time around. Midway into the opening track, you can hear how they ae moving up the bill on European festivals with this album. This album comes on the heels of opening slots for Iron Maiden, which forced them to step up their game. They have not dumbed things down for an American audience, so you are either into this or you are not. Yes, the harsher vocals might appeal a little more to Western audiences, but they’re only one aspect. 

Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Alice Cooper – The Revenge of Alice Cooper

Posted on by

The Revenge of Alice Cooper (earMusic) is the first album with the original Alice Cooper band since Muscle of Love. Making it the band’s 8th album together, and Cooper’s 30th. Bob Ezrin is handling production duties to help them remember what they did back in the day. It opens with the lead single “Black Mamba,” which is slinky and theatrical. Rather than try to recapture the fire that was burning when they recorded Muscle of Love, they are side-stepping this favor of touching on a more “Schools Out” style of borderline Broadway-drama mixed with the Garage Rock sound Cooper has been dipping his boots in the past few albums. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Tar Pit – Scrying the Angel Gate

Posted on by

The sophomore album from Portland’s Tar Pit, Scrying the Angel Gate (Transylvanian Recordings), sets Lovecraftian themes against a style of doom that relishes the blues-based jams. An organ haunting the opening track from the back of the mix. The backbone of the song is a lumbering wall of fuzzed-out riffage. This song eventually builds the dynamic into a more metallic attack. Vocalist Don Gozalo brings an emotive howl to the songs. Unlike most doom frontmen, he is not as blatant an Ozzy disciple. This helps set their overall sound apart from their peers. Continue reading →


EP REVIEW: Phobetor – A Solitary Sigil

Posted on by

For Metal to feel its heaviest, it must also hold with the powerful attack of the guitar, a bleak emotional darkness to it, or it is just guitars beating your ears as fast as they can.
Phobetor has succeeded in finding the sweet spot here with their new album, A Solitary Sigil (Black Jasper Records).

Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Hell – Submerus

Posted on by

On Submerus (Sentient Ruin Laboratories/Lower Your Head for digital), his fifth full-length from Hell, the sludge project leans into a nasty wall of downtuned rumbling. This wall of rumble is set behind the tortured screams of someone who’s more intent on losing their mind than adhering to the bounds of songwriting. It feels more like someone who create art from a dense heavy sound, that is impressive due to it’s sheer heaviness, but in consuming an album the goal would be for the music to hook you in rather than a test of endurance as to what you ears can stand at high volumes, though not to kink shame anyone who is into sonic masochism.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Daron Malakian and Scars On Broadway – Addicted to Violence

Posted on by

Daron Malakian of System of a Down is back with his solo project, Scars on Broadway. Addicted to Violence (Scarred For Life) marks the project’s second album without the drummer who played on the project’s first album and made it feel like a more direct extension of System of a Down. Much like the band that put these guys on the map, there is, at times, a punk feel that owes a great deal to the Dead Kennedys. Where this project finds its own identity is stepping away from some of the Hip-Hop bounce that drove Nu-Metal. This does not mean it forsakes groove; it approaches it differently, which can be heard on a song like “Satan Hussein.”Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Pixel Grip – Perceptide: The Death of Reality

Posted on by

Are you feeling sexy? If the answer is no, that is about to change once you press play on Pixel Grip’s Perceptide the Death of Reality. The grooves on this album will stir your loins in a way that will have you side-eying that jar of Vaseline you’ve been too depressed to touch in weeks. There is a bit of foreplay to set the mood as it opens with an atmospheric pop song that simmers with introspection. Rita Lukea is very aware that singing is a lot like sex, as it requires putting your heavy breathing in all the right places, which she has mastered on “Bet You Do.” This gives the song a sensual slither that licks your ears and tells you to turn the lights off. Continue reading →


EP REVIEW: Freeze the Fall – The Red Garden

Posted on by

Spoiler alert, this is one of the best albums released so far in 2025. If you do not know this young power trio, Freeze the Fall, from Canada, it’s time you did. This is the band’s second EP, but the path from gaming and internet buzz to the Rock perfection achieved here on The Red Garden (604 Records) found Freeze the Fall coming into their own as songwriters along the way. They went from being known as the kids who covered The Warning to being a superior band to their early inspiration in a short time. Most of this growth came thanks to the depth Quinn Mitzel sings with, in order to nail uncanny hooks in every anthemic chorus she utters.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: The Cure – Mixes of a Lost World

Posted on by

The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World was my favorite album of 2024, so hearing it remixed by 24 different artists gave me pause. It’s not the first time Robert Smith has loosened his notoriously tight grip to allow artists to remix his work. With Mixes of Lost World (Fiction Records), it’s obvious Smith was in control of curating who he trusted with these songs. There are the obvious culprits who you almost expect having their hand in a re-mix album like Paul Oakenfold and Oribital, then he handed it over to bands in his close circle like tour-mates The Twilight Sad and Mogwai to not just prep the songs for the dance floor but applied their instruments into their reworkings which were both very true to the creative spirt of the band. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Activity – A Thousand Years in Another Way

Posted on by

As a genre, Indie Rock hit its peak in the mid-2000s, as bands like Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie became mainstream, thus causing bands to branch off into the post-punk branch of punk rock. Activity’s new album A Thousand Years in Another Way (Western Vinyl) takes you back to the last great days of indie rock. The album opens in a tense, more brooding mood than their previous work. They balance this out with the fragile plea of the pained tenor vocals. The trembling urgency of this vocal approach brings Radiohead to mind.Continue reading →