Manson (1973) [limited Edition] [re Up]

Beth Hart received a considerable boost from her collaboration with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, but her 2013 album, Bang Bang Boom Boom, finds the blues-rock belter returning to her comfort zone, working with producer Kevin Shirley and running through a selection of songs that are originals; songs that emphasize Hart's range and power. In some ways, this is the purest record Hart has yet recorded; there is a real sense of what she can sing and how she lays back, waiting for the moment when her wailing would create the strongest disruption. That means Bang Bang Boom Boom feels familiar without being complacent: there is no surprise in style but rather in attack, how Hart waits for the precise moment to unleash her fury. Sometimes, it seems that Hart would be well-served by stretching herself just a bit, but Bang Bang Boom Boom isn't an album that's meant to surprise…

Energetic, massive, focussed – that’s how Mob Rules appear on their new album. The success of their previous album “Tales from Beyond” was the impetus being used by the six rockers to bundle their energies and produce this new and very straightforward album…

Haken have proven over three previous albums and two EPs that musically, they can do pretty much anything they set their minds to. That said, the question was one of where to go after 2014's compelling and adventurous release, The Mountain. With new bassist Conner Green replacing Thomas MacLean, the band rethought its approach to songwriting. Previously, they'd composed around themes and ideas by keyboardist/guitarist Richard Henshall, but these nine cuts were written by all six members.
Affinity contains a themed schematic that deliberately falls short of a full concept: the ubiquitous presence of computers and their evolving relationship with human life…

A concept album telling the tale of a patient in an asylum being subjected to all kinds of psychological and physical experiments, `Vector' mixes the heavy instrumental show-boating runs with frantic rock and thoughtful ballad passages that the band always deliver, even if they strip back virtually all of the Seventies/Eighties influences from their past few discs this time around, and they throw in a touch of jazz and electronica along with a big variety of rich vocal arrangements.

Many words come to mind when you hear the name Cannibal Corpse, but one truly defines the soon-to-be thirty-year death metal veterans: Unstoppable. Returning with their 14th full-length, the monstrous Red Before Black, serves to not only reiterate this but to once more raise the stakes, making it very clear who sets the standard when it comes to always compelling music that is equally brutal and complex.

When Opeth released Heritage in 2011, they had completed the transformation from their death metal origins through progressive death metal in the early 2000s, to full-on prog rock that celebrated their love of Camel, Jethro Tull, ELP, and more. 2014's excellent Pale Communion furthered those notions as frontman and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt's own vision began to emerge. Sorceress is the third installment in this phase of the band's career, and while considerably different and more exploratory than its precursors, it also references Opeth's earlier efforts like Ghost Reveries and Blackwater Park, but goes further than either in its diversity.
Uncharacteristically, Åkerfeldt wrote the album quickly. He enlisted Tom Dalgety as co-producer (who also engineered and mixed) and Opeth recorded it in twelve days at Rockfield Studios in Wales…

After the mildly disappointing Alternative 4, Anathema strikes back with Judgement. Upon first listen, the music and message seem a bit mellow for these doomy metal moguls. Second listen is like a magical rediscovery of a lost art form, the art of creating simple, depressing hard rock that is so emotionally expressive that it bends one's own constitution. Quiet and introspective on songs like "One Last Goodbye" and "Anyone, Anywhere," Anathema has the ability to spew forth raw, volcanic pain on cuts like "Judgement" and "Pitiless" - the last of which contains the most heart-wrenching solo the Cavanagh brothers have ever penned. Drummer John Douglas also surprises, making an amazing contribution to the album, by writing two of the most memorable songs, "Don't Look Too Far" and "Wings of God." The first is a gorgeous Porcupine Tree-like tune with somewhat upbeat female vocals and melodies…

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's most successful and well-realized album (after their first), and their most ambitious as a group, as well as their loudest, Brain Salad Surgery was also the most steeped in electronic sounds of any of their records. The main focus, thanks to the three-part "Karn Evil 9," is sci-fi rock, approached with a volume and vengeance that stretched the art rock audience's tolerance to its outer limit, but also managed to appeal to the metal audience in ways that little of Trilogy did…