Honestly, I hold Fireside too near and dear to be objective about their material–certainly not after only a few weeks to take it all in. I’m pretty sure this is a very good Fireside album. But that could just be the adrenaline talking. They certainly did not shit the bed, and that’s more than enough to make Bin Juice an AOTY contender for me. Maybe you should give it a listen and let me know if I’m off my rocker?
I just don't get the ambivalence/outright disdain people had for this album. Sure, it's no Sons of Northern Darkness, but it is a dirty blast of arctic grimness and pretty much the only black metal album that held my interest in 2022.
My favorite death metal band is back with yet another collection of rippers. It doesn’t quite rival the one-two punch of Blood Mantra and Anticult, but the band is most certainly not resting on their laurels. The riffs on this album are insane, as per usual.
Since the big Sepultura split back in the day, I’ve been firmly on team Kisser/Green/Paulo Jr. But lately, Soulfly has been bringing more of their thrash influences to bear, and Totem pushes the thrash-death even more front and center. The album does stumble a bit in the second half, but not enough to wipe away the goodwill built up by Totem’s excellent first half. If you’ve not checked out Soulfly in a while, it’s time to revisit.
John Reis (RFTC, Hot Snakes) and Rob Crow of Pinback team up for a project that sounds exactly like what you'd expect from these two. There are no real barn strikers on the album, which may be why it flew under so many radars. But there's not a bad song on it, and I never got tired of listening to it.
The best thrash album I heard this year, and I heard quite a few good ones. With absolutely ripping lead guitar work and a new vocalist who brings major late-80’s/early-90’s Warrel Dane energy to the mix, Dis Morta is a blast from start to finish.
Did I enjoy this album? I'm honestly not sure. But I did listen to it a lot. As with all post-ObZen Meshuggah, it's a bit much to take in, and I'm well past ready to hear the band try something outside this bizarre gordian knot of a comfort zone they’ve been tied up in the past 15 years. But I do think this is a cut above their most recent efforts, and fascinating as always.
Ghost's output since Opus Eponymous has been hit and miss, but with IMPERA Tobias Forge's songwriting chops finally match his ambitions. Sometimes an album gets just the amount of attention it deserves.
The Nick Holmes era of Bloodbath continues to impress. Truly ripping death metal, and the guitar tones on this album are unreal. Disgusting filth has never sounded so perfectly produced.
It's been a great year for fans of 90's style dark alternative rock. I never would have expected this kind of depth from Puciato, but he integrates a variety of sounds from Grunge to New Wave with this collection of truly excellent tunes. Check out 'Lowered' and 'Never Wanted That'
This is one from our mid-year review that I expected to fall by the wayside. Groove metal just isn’t my thing. Instead, I found myself revisiting it throughout the year and always coming away impressed. As I said before, “There’s simply not a bad song on the album, and there are a fair number of straight-up bangers that are near-impossible to get out of your head.”
From my mid-year review: “Still riding high on the fumes of a downright explosive Chaotic Lethal release show, I can verify that the band is as ferocious and pissed off live as they’ve ever been. Also, ‘Smoke Chaser’ might just win the Firesideometer Banger of the Year Award.” Sadly, that ferocity was short-lived, as the band broke up just a few months later. Major bummer, but at least they went out in a blaze of hate-fueled glory.
I almost bailed early on this album, as the first track didn't do anything for me at all (and still doesn't). But then the title track kicked in, and wow! This album has a handful of face-melting mid-90's alt-rock riffs that hit HARD, but it's deeper cuts like 'Decompress' and 'Born to Love You' that solidify Torpedo as the best work of Feeder's career and one of the best hard rock albums of the past 10 years.
Superfans might beg to differ, but this is the best Cave In's ever sounded to me—crushingly heavy, but still brimming with dark melodies and enough spacey, shimmery dynamics to captivate for its entire run time.
I said in our mid-year review that Synchro Anarchy would be a strong contender for AOTY, and for me, nothing else came close. While it doesn’t quite unseat The Wake as the definitive post-Piggy Voivod statement, it comes pretty darn close. The second half of the album, in particular, is chock-full of songs that rival anything from the band’s heyday. Watching Voivod’s rebirth with Dan Mongrain has been one of the great pleasures of the past decade.
