‘Searchlights’ is Dot Dash‘s fifth album in as many years. It’s hardly surprising the Washington-based garage rockers have been so prolific when you consider that this – their contribution to 2016 – was recorded in just two days. These fifteen songs musically hark back to the days of the UK’s burgeoning post-punk scene and the US’s college rock underground – and for fans of The Jam, The Vapors and middle period Replacements, this album should rattle a few memories and get the adrenaline pumping.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
EVIL REBORN – Throne Of Insanity
Formed in 2012, Venezuela’s Evil Reborn play a brilliantly constructed form of melodic death metal crossed with the heaviest strands of groove metal. Their third release, ‘Throne of Insanity’ – their first for Russian extreme metal specialists Satanath Records – is a belter. It might not be particularly original, but in terms of what Evil Reborn do, you’ll be hard pressed to find it done any better. Across the album’s nine tracks, the riffs are enormous, the amount of bottom end crunch is equally as ferocious and frontman Victor Chaparro settles upon a vocal style which – much like Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe – retains just enough clarity among the growls not to be an instant turn off.
HIGHRIDER – Armageddon Rock EP
Sweden isn’t short of rock bands. Few, however, rock in the manner of Highrider, Their debut EP, ‘Armageddon Rock’ takes cues from various familiar sources, musically closer to In Flames at times than anything else, while vocally, things lean more towards hardcore. The resultant sounds won’t necessarily be to everyone’s tastes, but so often show a band very capable of taking a few key influences and doing more than just recycling them. On these four tracks, it’s fair enough to say that Highrider spit those influences out somewhat venomously and in their own distinct way.
KING COMPANY – One For The Road
Constructed of ex-members of Warmen, Thunderstone and Enfarce, King Company started out their musical journey as No Man’s Land. After a swift renaming they set about recording their debut album ‘One For The Road’ and were subsequently picked up for distribution by Frontiers Records, a label which, at the time of King Company’s first offering was home to Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Journey, Uriah Heep and other classic rockers. If nothing else, King Company found themselves in fine company.
KYLE ANNE – The Florida EP
Singer-songwriter Kyle Anne Duggan takes country and folk influences on her 2016 EP release and works them in a way that seems at odds with the broad and sunny nature of her native Florida. It shows that it’s possible to feel country roots anywhere, you don’t have to have a link with Nashville or small back-woods towns that conjure up images of local stores and grocers. Perhaps it even shows the performer is at odds with the state; these songs exploring what she herself calls “a love hate relationship” with the place in which she grew up. The five songs on ‘The Florida EP’ have an old soul and yet still feel somewhat contemporary.