Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

An enduring trend in the progressive/power metal genre has been the all-star effort, where one musician writes up an album’s worth of material and invites all his friends to perform on it. Some of these albums have been duds, but usually it’s a win-win situation for the fans – people ...

Let us first examine of what the “Deluxe Edition” of The Meanest of Times by Dropkick Murphys consists. You got your original CD of The Meanest of Times, with five bonus tracks --- Jailbreak (yep, the Thin Lizzy classic); Thick Skin of Defiance, Forever 2007, Breakdown (NOT ...

Pharaoh has put out a good Heavy Metal album with their third studio effort, Be Gone.   It's good, but unfortunately, after several listens, it is difficult to find anything overly impressive about the songwriting.  The music is played with stellar precision, with frequent guitar solos, and squeals (two personal favorites).  ...

If you are in New Orleans and ask a group of thirty-somethings about The Pests, you will invariably be greeted with a couple of guys who start chanting “I hate my girlfriend!/and I hate my girlfriend’s friends!” Yes indeed. The Pests, recently and blessedly reformed, are a ...