Scamp The Music Fan

"If you want peace, prepare for war". Translated into Latin, that phrase becomes the title of Seether's newest album, "Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum". It's a seemingly fitting title, both in terms of the current status of the world and in the themes that Seether has been known for since the start of their career. This South African band has been a mainstay at rock radio ever since the early to mid 2000's, which is quite an anomaly for a band in their home country. They're also among the list of bands that usually gets put into the same bucket as bands like Theory Of A Deadman or Nickelback, which is not that fair because despite having post-grunge elements, the band has at least attempted to put effort in their music than most of their contemporaries, especially when referencing albums like "Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray" and "Karma And Effect". The band's latest studio album is what Seether fans expect as far as the lyr...

For this throwback album review, we're only going back three years in time to take a look at "Clairvoyant", the fourth and the most recent album from the progressive metal band The Contortionist as of this review being posted. One descriptor that fits this band as well as many others in the genre that they're in is that they refuse to pigeonhole themselves into one category. As a band, they've been going since 2007 with various sound changes over the years. Initially starting out as a deathcore band, The Contortionist started to nudge their way towards experimental heavy music with their first two albums before fully embracing it with 2014's "Language". This also saw the departure of original vocalist Jonathan Carpenter, with Michael Lessard from Last Chance To Reason filling in for him as the band's new permanent vocalist. That change made all the difference, and while "Exoplanet" and "Intrinsic" are good albums, it was reall...

UK's Good Tiger have been forging their own identity in the progressive metal and rock landscape since their debut album in 2015, entitled "A Head Full Of Moonlight". After five years of being an overlooked favorite in their field, the time has come for their third studio release "Raised In A Doomsday Cult", which is being released independently after they departed from Metal Blade. For those who don't know about Good Tiger, the supergroup is comprised of members of various progressive metal/djent acts. Two members of The Safety Fire are involved with this project, and vocalist Elliot Coleman fronted Sky Eats Airplane and most notably had a brief stint with Tesseract during Daniel Tompkin's initial departure. All of this led to the Good Tiger project, which, due to the previous history of the members, is lumped in with those bands. That's not completely fair, because this is one of those bands that has a sound that's all their own. There is metal...

Environmentalism is the key catalyst that drives some bands, and metalcore is not an exception to that. The members of In Hearts Wake have kept this tradition going for their entire career and it has become part of their identity at this point. Five albums into their career, and the Aussie act is now back with 2020's "Kaliyuga". Truth be told, I haven't been completely on board with this band's material, but I have noted that this band has a lot of potential to deliver. The quintet's first few studio albums featured a straight forward and consistent metalcore sound throughout, a tactic that brought an occasional good or even great moment, but for the most part, the band hasn't completely wowed me, even with their collaborations with fellow band Northlane. "Kaliyuga", the band's new album, is the chance for the band to win me over. Before the album was release, the band spoke of the album's concept, with the title being derived from the na...