Category Archives: Review

Cloudkicker – Woum

by David Lopez Jr.

In a day and age where it’s hard to make a living through writing and or performing music it’s good to see people just doing it to express themselves.

Cloudkicker means a lot to me. I’ve always been exploring music actively and this blog is a huge reason for that. Now one of the oddest individuals I’ve seen since this journey has started has been the success and development of cloudkicker. I have even gotten the chance to catch cloudkicker live with intronaut as the backing band, there is a live album from the tour also. Now cloudkicker is … Read more

Mombu / Mosca Violenta – Hunting Demons

by Dæv Tremblay

a0742052546_16The presence of jazz in metal music seems to be an increasingly popular trend. Most noticeably, it’s the addition of the saxophone that’s often just enough to make us think that the band has successfully merged the two genres into one, but most of the times it’s just a clin d’œil to it, and the music itself doesn’t bear any of the subjacent characteristics of jazz.

The first ones to incorporate jazz, in a form or another, into metal were Atheist, Meshuggah, and Cynic, back in the early ’90’s. Since then, it gained in popularity and it’s … Read more

Sha’s Feckel – Feckel for Lovers

by Deidre House

Cover art

Reed player Sha has made a name for himself over the years among fans of the Swiss “zen funk groove” school of jazz pioneered by Nik Bärtsch and Don Li among others. The full-length debut from his project Sha’s Feckel, Feckel for Lovers, is a diverse and dynamic set of heavy jazz fusion tunes. Featuring Sha on sax together with a guitar, bass, and drums trio, this group weaves huge riffs with odd grooves within engaging and thoroughly fearless compositions.

The album starts out with “A,” a 13 minute piece that gradually crescendos from somber, pensive fusion to … Read more

Atena – Shades of black won’t bring her back

by David Lopez Jr.

In your fucking face. That is how this album will feel and that is great. Catchy grooves that are met with interesting layers and song structure bring life to this album. It just keeps you interesting in the content while giving you dynamic range to rest your ears from the typical squashed modern sound many bands seem to enjoy.

Atena seems like the kind of band that would be excellent to see live. Shouting, singing, grooves for days just make you want to shout along with the band and push everyone around you.

The production on it is a great … Read more

Zayn – Fields of God

by Dæv Tremblay

a1980823415_16Zayn is a Croatian post-metal quartet, and Fields of God is their third release; it’s also their lengthiest, at around 30 minutes, which barely puts it as an LP.

The music itself is some instrumental amalgamation of post-metal and progressive metal. Some grooves are reminiscent of early Tool, maybe because of the prominent bass guitar. Contrary to many post and prog outfits these days, they don’t do into lengthy songs. The most extensive one on this album is the seven-minute title track. This is also pretty contradictory with their focus on atmosphere rather than polyrhythmics, or technicality. Not that these … Read more