Review: Ben Hosking
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With the seemingly never-ending list of 1980’s bands reuniting over the last 10 years or so, all trying to recapture some of their former glory; it’d be easy to dismiss Canadian thrash legends Annihilator as just another in the line. However, founder member Jeff Waters and company never actually left and have been producing quality metal the entire time; unlike many of their fallen brethren.
That said, this – their 13th studio album to date – easily qualifies as their finest effort in the last 20 years or so. A self-titled album, ‘Annihilator’ is brimming with speedy, precise riffage that |
effortlessly melds old-school thrash with more modern technical metal that will surely have you damaging neck muscles in the bedroom, car or public transport.
Continue reading Annihilator – “Annihilator” [CD Review]
This is a record review about The Black Keys. But you already knew that didn’t you? So while we’re giving you ‘helpful’ but unnecessary statements, “Brothers” is the sixth studio album from the Ohio-based blues-rock duo. 
With both headliner, and second support bands touring off the back of their latest releases, they’ve come; ready blow the house away with an arrangement of toxically destructive yet undeniably distinct songs. Maylene don’t’ look like your typical metal band, because they’re not. Neither are Dillinger. Both acts are well known for their pioneering ability to create and mould new genres of sounds, encompassing an array of metal, jazz, blues, rockabilly, punk and screamo. The collection of sounds we’re about to hear are unique only to the bands who’ve created them. Maylene are drilling to the core of traditional rock and metal and intently injecting an air of southern flair, quite familiar to their place of foundation; Burmingham, Alabama. While Dillinger, a much earlier conception, incorporate their own blend of metal (progressive, thrash, hardcore, punk) and jazz fusions to have become, the pioneers of what critics and fans alike now know as “math metal”. With such a partricular combination of artists, the show will surely be, as mind boggling and utterly intriguing as the bands themselves.
A video camera appears at the front doors of the Metro Theatre on Sydney’s George Street and the assembled throng erupt with screams and cheers. The footpath is a fast-flowing river of regular folk, looking on curiously as the rag-tag gathering of music fans chant “Dillinger Escape Plan rawk!”
Arriving at Sydney’s iconic Basement at around 8.30pm, one could have been forgiven for thinking that they were arriving early enough to catch a decent viewing point of the stage. Alas, walking into the dimly-lit venue an hour before the scheduled start time – past rows and rows of cattle-like drunken Friday night inner city executives at the bars next door – actually saw punters encounter an already half full concert space.