Tori at her most flexible and multi-faceted. The sheer length of the album could be a turn off to people who don’t have the time or perseverance to harvest it.
The rich hooks and ringing guitars are still here, but now so are dance beats that bring out a whole new color, and recall OMD, The Cure, and Morrissey.
Beginning life as a poisonous black metal cabal, moving through luminous, magical industrial metal, through too much techno, and now, back to a heavy medium.
Reference points I might use: He compares Bush and Cheney to the Dukes of Hazzard in their ability to escape impossible predicaments with improbable ease.
Sung and recorded better than a Sentenced album, but every time the verse starts, you’re bored. Stodgy, oppressive songs which, in the end, aren’t that heavy.
Accessible, fast-paced, arcade-style hitting, pitching, and fielding. Brawls. An entertaining create-a-rookie mode, and an addictive homerun/destruction derby.
The best of their past, combined with new, forward-looking tricks to become something flawless. Fresh, nostalgic, beefy, futuristic, classic, and catchy.
Chugging, tense rock with a non-denominational punk ethic curling under hardened boogie cum cock rock guitars/rhythms from a gritty-eyed libertarian position.
Björk claimed it to be: Fun, a throwback to ’80s house/techno, and catchy. Volta really is the opposite of all those things. Björk’s worst record so far.
If Ramones were the Beach Boys of punk, The Queers are the Jan & Dean. The softer, younger brother of surf punk. They’ve got shobby-doo-wops, for God’s sake.
The complete series on one disc. There aren’t many more satisfying 2D action games than the Metal Slug series. A non-stop blast-a-thon with a sense of humor.
Emotion worn on the hearts of their white, frilly sleeves, Sonata Arctica sometimes get too close to maudlin. On the more orchestral side of the catalogue.
You hear about Dave the Christian, but he’s also an intense American, addictive, and he’s angry (again), and a student of rotten politics, conspiracies, and the flow of the money. A lethal combination.
Many camps took Bad Brains’ lead, from Fishbone to watered-down 311 and Sublime. But few have produced a work as edifying and emotionally whole as this.
Before Björk, Goldfrapp, or Imogen Heap, Tracy Thorn was utilizing her soft yet no-nonsense angel croons to add life to electronica ballads and dance anthems.
Rival Skulls trade off between Misfits demonizing “Vampyrism Theory” and AFI hardcore “Luciferian Path” with a humorless but pretty damn cool delivery.