Category Archives: Reviews
Review: Anthrax – Worship Music
Worship Music, Anthrax’s tenth studio album, does not just come along with over sixty minutes of music, it will always be remembered for the happenings surrounding the band between 2007 and 2010.
When Anthrax announced their new vocalist — until then, a mostly unknown Dan Nelson — in late 2007, a lot of people were skeptical. Parallels could be drawn to the initial reactions John Bush received in 1992, who was also unknown to mainstream audiences despite his critical success with Armored Saint. Even though Bushthrax split their fanbase into two camps — those who still loved the band and those who wished for a comeback of Belladonna — the band finally released a critical acclaimed album in 2004. At the time hailed as a comeback to form, We’ve Come For You All marked Bush’s last album with Anthrax.
People who were skeptical of Dan Nelson were proven right when he was fired from the band, in 2009. Even though the band had finished recording Worship Music by then, they decided not to release it with Nelson’s vocals. After a short comeback stint of John Bush, Joey Belladonna returned to Anthrax in 2010. The band returned to the studio to rewrite and rerecord the album with him.
Worship Music is not just Anthrax’s first album with Joey Belladonna since 1990’s Persistence Of Time, it’s an album that was four years in the making and saw three different singers. All of them were considered to record vocals for it and two of them actually recorded vocals for it.
Even though every Anthrax fan still has it in mind, you have to put all of it aside and listen to the album with an open mind. I tried and you can read my thoughts after the jump.
Review: Rising Pain – War Of Souls
Arizona has brought quite a few great bands to us over the years. For example Nuclear Death, Atrophy and most recently Job For A Cowboy. Rising Pain is a relatively new act (formed in 2002) from Phoenix, AZ and I’m sure they would like to be named among the best metal bands from said state.
To be perfectly honest with you, I have heard of the band before but never got around to check them out. They’ve released two full-lenght records (Existence Is Futile in 2007 and The Essence Of Decay in 2009) so far and this year marks the release of their most recent work, the EP War Of Souls.
I’m going to review that very EP right after the jump, to find out if they are indeed one of Arizona’s finest.
Review: Thinning The Herd – Oceans Rise
You know what I like the most about writing for Dose of Metal? I get tons of music for free, and legally too. Most of the bands I’m covering for reviews, I didn’t even know of before. In some cases, as with The Cleansing, Die, Reckless Manslaughter, Nephrolith, Colonel Blast and more, I’m really happy to be in a place where those bands — or people who do promotion for those bands — want me to write about their music. Simply because I also really, really enjoy that music.
In some other cases — and I’m not going to name bands now — I’d rather not write about them. I like to make fun of a band here and there but I really don’t enjoy bashing unknown bands, even if they do deserve it. But sometimes I just can’t help myself, like it happened in the Spotlight (R.I.P.) collumn a bunch of times.
You might just now be wondering why the hell I’m rambling so much. Well, it’s simple. I’ve never heard anything by Thinning The Herd before, and I don’t know anything about these three dudes either. I’d like to listen to their album, Oceans Rise, with a fresh and clean mind. I honestly don’t know what I’m getting into with this band, but I would like to find out if they’re going to end up in a section with the bands mentioned in the first paragraph or with the bands not mentioned in the second paragraph. Make the jump to find out.
Review: Trivium – In Waves (Special Edition)
Released yesterday in the US (and on a different date in 4 of the other countries in the world), Trivium have returned to the scene after almost 7 years of bursting into the forefront of mainstream Metal, and having lost some of their momentum in recent years.
Regular readers of Dose of Metal will know that I haven’t always been that kind to the band, but being honest, I actually consider Ascendency a damn good album. Overrated? Maybe, but a bad album it is far from being. As the band grew in popularity, however, that is when the band began to lose themselves. The Crusade was nothing but a straight ‘Tallica and Megadeth rip off, being nothing but a wank stain of a record. Then came Shogun, a massive improvement with some claiming it to be a return to form.
So, it’s 2011, Trivium are back with another album. Despite my rantings, I actually gave lead single ‘In Waves’ a positive review last week. Now it’s time to find out the verdict on the album, so make the jump.
Review: Colonel Blast – For The Greater Good
Maybe you remember my review, from back in May, about the Split Roast album. A split album that contained five Death Metal bands from the UK. One of them were Colonel Blast.
I was highly impressed with the two songs of Colonel Blast back then, and hoped for the band to send me their debut album for review purposes. They didn’t, so I bought it. Usually if the band doesn’t care to send me promos for a review, I just don’t give a crap about them anymore. If they don’t want the promotion from our site, I won’t force it upon them. It’s their loss. But I found myself going back to listen to the Split Roast, just to listen to Colonel Blast, multiple times. So I decided to just buy the album and then write about it. And that’s where we are today.
If you have listened to the Split Roast yourself, keep in mind that Colonel Blast feature a different line-up on their debut album. Their original vocalist, Matt Bolton, left the band after the release of their first album to move to New York. Make the jump to read my review of Matt Bolton’s only recorded work with Colonel Blast: For The Greater Good.
