Asylum Road closed their 2025 with a very uncompromising single, ‘Mask of Oblivion’. The track’s mix of metalcore and hardcore with a pinch of death metal darkness left nothing to chance in terms of overall heaviness.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
KEELEY – Girl On The Edge Of The World
Since the release of their first full length release ‘Floating Above Everything Else’ in 2023, Keeley Moss and her eponymously named band have felt like a massively important part of the indie underground. That record’s heavy nods to a shoegaze and dreampop past ensured listeners who spent the 1990s as wide-eyed twenty somethings found an immediate connection with the KEELEY sound, while the lyrical content – heavily influenced by the narrative surrounding the murder of young traveller Inga Maria Hauser – gave some great tunes a cerebral edge. 2024’s ‘Beautiful Mysterious’ repeated the formula, but certainly didn’t sound like a band treading water. If anything, the album sounded a little more confident; richer, even, and it was clear there was certainly more of a story to be told regarding the Hauser case.
OREYEON – The Grotesque Within
On their 2019 LP, ‘Ode To Oblivion’, Oreyeon delivered a set of songs driven by absolutely crushing riffs. Blending the stoner/fuzz of classic Kyuss into a doomier musical landscape, the record’s best songs were unrelentingly heavy, and yet a world of vocal filters and other tricks sometimes gave their sound a deep psych edge which kept things interesting. Over the next few years, Oreyeon would become an important fixture within the Italian doom and sludge scenes. By the time they recorded ‘Equations For The Useless’ in 2022, a much bigger recording budget gave them a slightly clearer sound, but without making their material especially more accessible. If anything, it cemented the band’s reputation as one of Europe’s finest underground metal bands.
MICHAEL DES BARRES – Kiss Or Kill Me / I Was Saved In ’64
In 2023, just at the point where the world was getting back on its feet having spent a few years knocked out by a global pandemic, the legendary Michael des Barres teamed up with pop/rock pianist Kris “Fingers” Rodgers and recorded a couple of excellent singles. Although, on paper, a union between the relatively young, relatively unknown musician and the veteran vocalist seemed like a slightly odd one, the contrast of styles and coming together of two generations actually worked. Both ‘Bounce Back Baby’ and ‘Soul Shake’ were brilliantly upbeat affairs that genuinely brought out the very best in both musical parties.
MALA VISTA – Snub Nose .38 EP
On their 2024 release ‘Fun Time’, Mala Vista tore through nine tracks of relatively no nonsense, guitar driven material that carried the spirit of ’77 and the sounds of CBGB’s into the twenty first century. Although always more melodic than their fellow countrymen Lower Class Brats and The Casualties when approaching punk, at the release’s best, Mala Vista still conveyed a rough and ready sound. Maybe more importantly, it showed they could whip up some great arrangements: ‘Juana Le Cubana’ took a detour from punk into garage rock and power pop that sounded like an unreleased Real Kids number, and a couple of other tracks shared punk ‘n’ roll lead guitar breaks, proving further that classic sounds never really goes out of style.