Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

40 Below Summer emerged in 1998 from the local circuit of the New Jersey underground. They released an indie album entitled Sideshow Freaks which soon found its way to the hands of No Name Management, (Slipknot, Fear Factory), and a management deal soon followed. After coast to ...

When I was young, if I knew taking a trip through the dark was gonna be this exciting I never would've spent all those nights sleeping with the light on! This is where the Black Metal style truly crosses into another dimension. While employing plenty ...

The war ravaged battalions of the Death crusade strike hard with yet another round… and another, and another of aggressive metallic firepower on their latest "Honour, Valour, Pride" release, the follow up to 99's "The Mercenary," and sixth overall. Similar in scope to stepping on a ...

Since no one I know has ever seriously listened to any of the CDs by this band, the expectations from these Karo syrup-bathing warthogs are usually as low as Flattus Maximus' codpiece. However, Gwar have moved from their usual, pulverizing thrash to the chunky simplicty ...

Peter Tagtgren may be metal’s most intriguing madman. While visiting Florida with another band in the late ‘80s, he became transfixed by the intensity and savagery of that state’s burgeoning death metal scene. On his returned to Tagtgren’s native Sweden, he immediately assembled the blasphemous Hypocrisy ...

For most doomers, the nuances of Brazilian death metal are like the contrasts in seeing a movie at a drive-in or in the comfort of your big screen/DVD/surround-sound living room. Same flick, just a change of scenery. Same punishment, different decapitation. While most of Florida's ...

The Distillers’ patchy debut album is followed up with a demanding and dangerous presence for their sophomore release. Fronted by Australian Brody Armstrong (wife to Rancid's Tim), the band’s initial angry kid/naïve streak gives way to the second disc's blazin' straifs -- dead-centered hardcore with ...

Tilt is a Punk band from the East Bay area scene… okay no surprise there, for there are several. And they're fronted by a female singer, which, for all that's been done or being done, isn't such a common occurrence. They've gotta pretty unique sound inasmuch as ...