Where I'm going to begin is the production/mixing portion; dear God it is awful. If Avenged Sevenfold dropped an album that sounded like this, it would be the St. Anger of modern metal music. I loved "Life Is But A Dream". I really did. This is what the album sounded like to people who hated the album. I don't really know how they try to be so different nowadays but then end up sounding like horse shit. And really, this song would be decent if whoever produced it... KNEW HOW ... read more

This is my favorite metalcore band along with Converge. Even without their iconic vocalist Howard Jones here, they still have some absolutely killer stuff here. I mean, obviously, since they still got Adam D on guitar and production. Adam D is a great producer by the way; I mean this album is one of the more interestingly produced KSE records out there. Definitely more raw and hardcore influenced, while something like As Daylight Dies may still kick ass, it's clearly more polished. But ... read more

What a straight to the point album. Step one, get the Opeth vocalist in the studio. Step two: Get some other goofy metalheads in the studio. Step three: Swedish death metal. It might be the most relevant supergroup in my library because they're currently the only supergroup I relatively cared enough to listen to. That might be because I had no IDEA that they were a supergroup until I researched the band. Well, apparently they are, and they kick ass. These riffs are BRUTAL. "So You ... read more

So if I had to be honest, obviously the production is kind of wack since it is made in GarageBand, but honestly coming from one of my friends it's something that I really think is hilarious in its own regard; it's kind of like that one black metal project that Seth Putnam did but instead of that it's slammy[1]. Now if I WAS taking this at face value, and trying to be some sort of geeked, showerless Fantano, I would be like...

"Erm... Thish suckhs and thish persuhn should ... read more

I was a hard "Scream Bloody Gore" enjoyer for a while. Like, a long while. I had only heard "Leprosy" once, and that was about two years ago. I came back to it, and it is literally twice as good as "Scream Bloody Gore" was. "Scream Bloody Gore" was great for sure, but Leprosy is backed by significantly better production and guitar work in pretty much every single aspect. While "Scream Bloody Gore" was the much more fun and obnoxious album, ... read more

Love this EP. Their last album really wasn't anything special other than a few songs that had radio potential, but this is banger after banger. Everything from the last album is brought up a notch, and there's only four songs on here. A very nostalgic listen for those who grew up in that era with Call of Duty montages and the like, because this stuff was extremely prevalent in that kind of thing. Also, the title track is a freakin' baller song.

If you like Breaking Benjamin or ... read more

While Converge was working on this record, I feel it's necessary to talk about other bands that started to gain traction at this time for their more melodic take on metalcore: Avenged Sevenfold and Trivium were trying their hands at a melodic sound, and Killswitch Engage just pulled it off in the mainstream with their new noteworthy vocalist. So there was a lot of cheesy melodic metalcore that was coming about. That same year, 2004, Converge don't even try to get much more melodic. ... read more

Underrated? Nah. This album has like two single-worthy songs (the first two tracks), and the rest ranges from ok to good. There's one pretty corny song, "Like Shit", but that one went over my head pretty well. This really has nothing compared to their magnum opus EP that came out three years in the future. However it serves as a pretty great time capsule for someone who was wanting to go back to this era. I guess a lot of the project is still pretty good by itself, but this album ... read more

This is one of the weirdest metal albums I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. It's funky at one moment, then you get hit by some really slammy djent stuff that almost sounds industrial in a sense, then you get hit with some weird, mystical, mellow shit. It's probably not a good way to explain it, but I felt like this album was more or so a wall of djent sounds and it really felt like an art canvas. It's also just some pretty hardcore shit. Compared to Chaosphere I ... read more

This is some weird shit. Like, it's got that Instagram Reels kind of vibe to it, and honestly, it might only work as a 10/10 EP if you were completely frying your brain on TikTok or something. Extra points if it's Reels or Shorts that you were watching.

See I was kind of vibing with the song as like the most stock, bare minimum, overproduced radio rock you could give me, which sometimes can be servicable, and then, once again, like I predicted, there was a breakdown. Please come up with something more gripping than a build up to the most copy + paste breakdown. I'm surprised you guys don't have those copy and paste haircuts that I see virtually every core kid with for some reason.

On second listen, this is one of the most annoying ... read more

Let me start off this review by explaining that Converge is pretty much one of those bands that I absolutely dig and will consume literally anything that they create... But I just don't. I have to be in a very special mood for a Converge album, as goes for a lot of metalcore (hell, even that 2000s melodic stuff). When I do end up giving Mr Converge a try, though, it ends up being a pretty great listen. Converge is easily one of my favorite metalcore bands because of how ruthless yet ... read more

I'm... Amused. On one hand, I completely understand and vibe with the whole concept of this album and what it was trying to do. It's hilarious, and even at points there are some good riffs on here. On the other hand I'm not going to unironically spin this because it isn't technically good music. However, it's still very funny for a concept, and it showcases more of Seth Putnam's... "creative" side.

RIP to one of the GOATs.

This was extremely refreshing, however I still feel like the album drags a lot at points. Don't get me wrong, the first three songs or so just completely kick ass, but songs like "The Judas Kiss" just don't really cut it for me. Even the good songs are kind of just really solid Metallica songs. Nothing too insane, but honestly I'll take it over whatever was going on with St. Anger.

And I don't really understand the gripe about the production, I personally really ... read more

I think that if this album had good production it would've been... Still mediocre at best. Most of the songs here just don't even cut the songwriting aspect, and they happen to be some of the most alcoholic-dad-esque songwriting efforts I've ever heard (and it's sad because that point also happens to be matter of fact).

I've always hated the title track. It's the epitome of everything I don't like about this album:

1. Sound engineering/mixing: This ... read more

Wow... What a slump that was! Imagine "Load" but the load is so miniscule that it just doesn't make the baby. That's what this album is, and the worst part? The first four songs or so are really freaking good. I genuinely was thinking that this might be a bit of competition for the counterpart album. However, Reload falls short due to very lackluster guitar work, songwriting, and just overall a lack of originality. Most of the tracklist just goes in one ear and right out the ... read more

Honestly, I could see this album as more of an underrated album than anything. Despite it taking more of a pussification of their sound (which sounds cringe on paper, but it's true), there's some pretty solid riffing on here, and they seem to have made a good effort on songwriting. Though, that same songwriting seems to have been overdone a bit certain cuts on this album. Refer to my yellow ratings. These songs pretty much made me either bored or just rather annoyed. I get this was ... read more

This album makes Cannibal Corpse sound like Cocomelon. This is easily one of the most intense and brutal death metal albums I've ever heard, and even before this album, Cattle Decap had a pretty controversial run for a metal band in the 2000s. Their first album was "To Serve Man", where the distribution company SPV refused to distribute the album in Germany due to its graphic album cover. Well that obviously didn't scare off the band from making more... Interesting album ... read more

This is some old school industrial metal stuff and while I do think it's dated a little bit, I will say the band does show a lot of potential in the songwriting department. Allow me to sell you the listening of this album at least a little bit: there is a Cure cover on here. But honestly if you're really interested in stuff like Static-X, Fear Factory, or Mushroomhead, I might have to recommend this. It's rather good.

DevilDriver is pretty weird for me. From the looks of it, some of their album covers look way too typical for melodic death metal for me to enjoy it (like a lot of it, a LOT of it), but then something like this will stand out. I always preferred this easier to look at art direction than if it looks like a hella overblown Photoshop project from 2004 or something.

Well as of typing this short review I just found out that the vocalist here is from Coal Chamber, which was pretty hilarious to find ... read more