Scale The Summit, The Migration
Frankly, reviewing The Migration, the new album from Houston-based instro-metal shredders Scale The Summit, has prove to be a little trickier than I’d thought, primarily because the album’s not so much a collection…
Animals as Leaders, Weightless
Animals as Leaders has really created something here that is hard to write about. The first thing that you need to know, perhaps, is that these songs are instrumental. Great, you think, this will be very easy to write about, since you don’t have a vocalist to love or hate…
Junius, Reports From the Threshold of Death
With Reports From the Threshold of Death, Junius prove themselves to be quite a strange, intriguing beast of a band. Right from the pseudo-Gregorian chanting at the start of “Betray The Grave,” which rapidly shifts over into thundering guitars and distant, echoey vocals…
Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Scale The Summit + Quiet Company + Buxton + Art Institute + The Shadow + Liberty Fest + More
Running up into the weekend, y’all, and I don’t have any extra-special show-related news to impart, so let’s just cut to the chase for once. Here’s what all’s going on tonight, Friday, January 27th, that I happen to think will be cool…
Written on January 27, 2012 | Posted in Posts
Scale The Summit
Most of the time, when I hear about a Houston band that’s got some promise or already sounds pretty cool, it starts small. I’ll hear a song or two online somewhere, or see their set at a festival or something…
Scale The Summit, The Collective
Listening to Scale The Summit’s latest full-length, The Collective, is less like hearing a band play, honestly, and more like watching some insanely-skilled team of weavers create a tapestry out of laser beams or quantum strings or something…
Antagonist, World In Decline
There are so many bands in the wild world of metal, it’s hard for bands to do something that hasn’t ever been done before. Sadly, many bands go unnoticed, even though they have tons of talent — sometimes more than the famous bands do…
Dew-Scented, Invocation
You can usually judge a metal band by its name. A good band name will allow you to easily identify them with their genre. The first time I saw the name “Dew-Scented,” I assumed that they would have a Gothic/romantic sound…
Holy Grail, Crisis In Utopia
When the Age of the Guitar Gods died, back in the mid-’90s, I wasn’t all that sad about it. I’ve always only been a mediocre guitarist myself, so I selfishly embraced the Cobain-/Mudhoney-ian ethos of just pounding the fuck out of your guitar…
Clinging To The Trees of a Forest Fire, Songs of Ill Hope and Desperation
If you have ever been to the palatial worldwide headquarters of Space City Rock, you know of the plethora of CDs that litter the mail room. With so many to choose from, it can be tough to decide on which ones to listen to. Being the metal guru that I am, any cover that has a dragon…
Skeletonwitch, Breathing The Fire
They’re coming out of the woodwork. Like any genre, when something gets remotely popular, they come crawling out of the dark like roaches. Even the relatively minute movement known as neo-thrash has experienced the same phenomenon…
Animals As Leaders, Animals As Leaders
Animals As Leaders is the solo project of seven- and eight-string guitarist Tosin Abasi, who has played with such bands as the now-defunct Washington, DC band Reflux and Born of Osiris; I was quite honestly very excited to be reviewing the guy’s debut album as Animals As Leaders…
Written on January 5, 2010 | Posted in Reviews
Grief of War, Worship
When you hear that a band is from Japan, you usually think of an indie-pop girl act getting way too much press. What you don’t expect is Grief of War and their full-on metal assault. While they may be another in a growing list of neo-thrash acts, don’t dismiss these guys…
Unholy, New Life Behind Closed Doors
When you name your band “Unholy,” you have something to live up to. People are going to expect the most demonic, violent, wretched, and evil sound ever. Or, at least, a really good metal band. This quintet from Syracuse, though, is sadly neither…
Kylesa, Static Tensions
Okay, so I do like Kylesa’s Static Tensions, but I have to ask: what the hell does it add to your sound, really, to have two drummers? Especially if they’re playing the same damn thing (or minute variations thereof)?…
Scale The Summit, Carving Desert Canyons
With Carving Desert Canyons, Scale The Summit does something few other instro-metal bands have been able to do, at least for me — they’ve taken the long-reviled guitar-shredder motif, stripped it of all the jaded, post-ironic hipsterness, set it on fire…
Written on March 4, 2009 | Posted in Reviews
