They had me with the moniker alone. Fairly standard Black Metal. Unrefined, gnarly and full of menace.
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More Black Metal. But of much more sculptured and palatable variety. This is Melodic Black. Essentially what Goats of doom are doing but with recognisable tunes.
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Even more Black Metal. But this time with twists, turns and added weirdness. This is avant-garde black. Basically, what Goats of Doom are doing if they were doing it whilst on Acid.
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Stoner Rockers go all prog. Not as clever as it thinks it is.
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Oh my god! Jon Bon Jovi wants to be Springsteen. I thought he had got that out of his system decades ago and was happy with being Jon Bon Jovi (which is a pretty cool thing to be on its own merit). But no, this is his Springsteen album. It so desperately wants to be a Springsteen album. It has socially aware lyrics, it has rousing tales of families ground down by the system, it has tales of forgotten America, hell he even sings like Springsteen. But it must be so galling to make this inferior facsimile of Springsteen record, only for the boss to then turn up with “Letter to You” not a month later and go “that’s not a Springsteen record, this is a Springsteen record!
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Another year, another unremarkable Trivium album.
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It’s Metalcore. It goes shouty and spiky, then melodic and smooth and then shouty and spiky. Then it stops.
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Northumbrian Black Metal that is more interested in English folklore than it is in Satan. It's alright.
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Ok this is a weird one. It's essentially a National album with a millionaire pop star warbling over the top. I rather enjoyed it if I am honest, but I do not think I ever need to hear it again. If I want a National album, I'll go off and listen to High Violet.
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Big booming Death Metal. Actual not bad at all, just failed to capture my imagination enough to crack the magic hundred.
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Atmospheric Death Metal. Erie and moody.
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The (pirate) kings of Pirate Metal. No one does jaunty riffs and inappropriate lyrics like they do. It’s ok.
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Heavy, groovy, primal metal. Another record where, I reckon that further listens would have seen it creep up the list.
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Mercury prize nominated post-punk. It is quirky enough to stand up in a world where modern indie is so sanitised but still didn’t follow engage me.
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Another year and another DevilDriver album. Sounds, to be honest, like the last one.
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Doom metal meets Trad metal. It sounds like the bastard child of Iron Maiden and Sleep.
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Yet more Black Metal (and yet again from Scandinavia). This is in its symphonic and cinematic form. It’s stirring and bombastic. Yet again it’s OK.
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With a name like that could this lot be anything else than stoner metal. It’s slow and its sludgy but has very little that makes it stand out from other purveyors of this type of music.
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21st album by the evergreen legends that are Deep Purple. There are some very good songs on here, which show that Ian Gillian et al. are still, fifty-one years in, a force to be reckoned with. However there are also a number of absolute duffs that feel dialled in and thrown together in fifteen minutes. This means that it ends up in limbo.
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Metalcore. It’s shouty, it’s got melodic bits, it’s (guess what) alright.
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