There is no shortage of great music here in Austin, TX. Pretty much anytime I want, I can go downtown and find a great live show. Last week, I was lucky enough to end up at a great Irish pub called Fadó. The band that was playing that night was called Blaggards from Houston, TX, and my Irish blood warmed quickly to the thought of listening to a nice, mellow Celtic traditional band.

Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise.

New York City’s Suicide City have released their second album on August 4th. Following their self released 2005 EP Not My Year, the new album, titled Frenzy, is a dark and powerful mix of “punk rock, dirty rock ‘n roll with some big balls of metal and a touch of manic depression thrown in.”
From their MySpace page:
With only being together for a year and a half, Suicide City has toured with MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE, OTEP and most recently, TAKING BACK SUNDAY. The band has been voted best new band in numerous magazines and has garnered incredible reviews from KERRANG! (UK), …read more

I was given the opportunity last week to listen to Bigelf’s new CD Cheat the Gallows, and I absolutely love this band. While most of their songs wouldn’t be considered “metal”, one of their jams, titled “The Evils of Rock and Roll” is featured on Revolver Magazine’s free 21 song Metal Mayhem Compilation, which is the first song I heard by the group.

As part of the Progressive Nation Tour, Bigelf is currently touring with Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa and Scale the Summit. Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy says:
Los Angeles’ Bigelf are my personal favorite new band to come along in …read more

Stratovarius have just released a new album called Polaris. I’m going to keep this short and simple as usual. I’m not the biggest fan of power metal. Sometimes it comes over as a bit cheesy, but if there is one thing that power metal has it positive lyrics and usually great musicianship. Polaris is no different.
When I saw the video for Deep Unknown, the opening track from the album I really wanted to go grab a bottle of wine and some crackers. The album is actually pretty good. I wasn’t sure what to expect after hearing Deep Unknown, but …read more

Hatebreed is one of those bands I really like. However I realize that they are not technical by any aspect, but true hardcore never really was. I’m ok with that. While some people may talk trash about them because the riffs are always simple and repetitive, I enjoy it for what it is supposed to be; hard, heavy and abrasive music with nor frills. Just balls to the wall, fist pumping music.
With that said, I’ve been listening to the new Hatebreed covers album, For The Lions. Hatebreed, while not adding much of their own flavor to it makes the …read more

I did a really short and rather shoddy review of Malefice’s Dawn Of Reprisal. This isn’t so much a re-review but an update to my first one. This is what I wrote the first time:
Malefice: Dawn Of Reprisal. More metal from the UK. Heavy abrasive rhythms with an almost hardcore sound at times. Great vocal variety without going clean. Groove/Thrashy riffs and awesome melody with some mathcore type wankery thrown in there sometimes.  Dawn Of Reprisal was released on March 3rd, 2009.

That wasn’t that far off, but it should read:
Malefice: Dawn Of Reprisal. More metal from the UK. Heavy …read more

I gave Cauldron’s new album Chained To The Nite a good listen this weekend. It was enjoyable but there was just one thing that I didn’t like about the album.
Cauldron formed after the break up of Goat Horn. Jason Decay singing and playing bass, started Cauldron with Al Chambers on drums and Ian Killpatrick on lead guitar. Chambers was later replaced by Chris Rites. Caulron is currently on Earache Records and is based out of Toronto, Ontario. Now that you have the history, let’s talk really quick about the record.

Compared to some other metal sites, my reviews are quite lack-luster. I don’t do an extensive review most of the time and I don’t go in to intricate details of every riff in technical, music term details.
What I do is try to describe in the best way that I can how the music makes me feel and what it sounds like in a nut-shell. If I had some more schooled music knowledge I could probably break things down in to a more detailed review and bore the shit out of you, but I don’t so I can’t.
What you will get …read more

Having been around for ten years and released 4 previous albums, German death metallers, Lay Down Rotten make their presence more know with their Metal Blade debut with Gospel Of The Wretched.
I’d be lying if I sat here and said that most of death metal doesn’t sound very similar, because it obviously does. We all know that over the years there has become a cookie cutter type sound that most bands follow. That doesn’t necessarily make the music bad, it just makes the bands that define themselves by sounding slightly different than everyone else sound a lot better and …read more

I’m probably going to catch some shit for this review but to be totally honest, I really don’t care. Here is a quick, half-assed review of The Devil You Know.
I picked up the new Heaven And Hell album today and I almost fell asleep on the ride home while listening to it. I was waiting for that one track to jolt me, to kick me in the pants but it never came. I know Black Sabbath and Dio fans alike are probably jizzing all over this thing, but it just sounds very tired to me.