End Of Men shifts between atmospheric bleakness and choppy, repeating riffs that reverberate through your skull as it progresses at a glacial pace, as I said Haunted Memories is the longest song on the record and also in my opinion the best as it crawls between crushing monstrous riffs from Graham Zander and Chris McLaughlin are interwoven through the distortion into swathes of glacial dissonance that take things into post metal spaces wrapped around Ryan Skates' throbbing basslines. In the intervening years since their debut Green Druid have certainly stepped up their songwriting ability on this sophomore full length using a lot of space in Mike Honiotes drumming especially bringing depth to the roaring rage of songs like Desert Of Fury - Ocean Of Despair and A Throne Abandoned where McLaughlin shifts between clean and growled vocals with dexterity.
What's also very noticeable is that this record is better produced than their previous efforts, making the whole thing sound cavernous delving deep into introspection on Desert Of Fury - Ocean Of Despair and the haunting final track Threads. An enormous doom metal record from Green Druid that sees them reaching for the crown gauntlet set down by Sleep and Electric Wizard. 9/10
Phase Reverse: Phase IV- Genocide (ROAR! Rock Of Angels Records)
Phase IV: Genocide is the fourth album from Greek 'Pentatonic Heavy Metal' band, now that title could be a double edged sword as the pentatonic scale is one of the most simplistic to play favoured by most rock bands. However it is also the most varied and is very much based in the blues, so when when added to big, distorted guitars can lead to much head nodding. Phase Reverse have always been in the latter camp, across their previous three albums and the few times I've seen them live, Phase Reverse deal in groove, lashing of the stuff theri music made to get your head nodding and your hips shaking too occasionally but don't call it funk, it's loud raucous something a good friend of mine would call 'drinking music'.
It's been four long years since their previous album and in the interim they have shifted their line up a little as bassist Kostas Kotsikas switches to second guitar while on the four strings and additional vocals is the band's original bassist and singer Tas Ioannidis, making the band now a hefty five piece. Drummer Alex Alexiou, singer Takis Mark and guitarist John Chief Stergiou all return too, but has this expansion of the line up changed the sound here at all? Well the musical style is very similar if a little bigger than before as they shift between massive heavy riffs and more emotive phrasing for their most mature album to date.
With the opening guitar arpeggio The Return leading into the swaggering Southern Rock of Destruction On The Damned it's Phase Reverse but up to 11 that dual guitar sound working in their favour especially on the groove heavy tracks such as Know Thy Shit but also on the rampaging Country/Thrash of Delete where the belly of the beast is very broad but you also get some killer leads, or in this case some chicken picking. Phase IV: Genocide is a very political album, with tracks such as the antagonistic Copy 10-4, the Motorhead-like Eat What You're Served and the title track all having some political/ideological motivation delivered with passion and integrity. This fourth record just sounds bigger than any that have come before, a wider scope and as Martyr Of The Phase brings back the band's doomier early days rounding out an album that is Phase Reverse reborn as a tougher, slicker unit ready for whatever is to come in 2021 with a bag full of riffs! 9/10
Back in April Simon was the writer who took on As Infinitum's original version of Chapter I. He noted that it was a promising start and that the symphonic elements were neat, that it was dark and that Mellisa Bonny's vocals were very good. Now once again due to Covid a band have had to do something a little different. In this case Ad Infinitum have re-released their debut record as a freshly recorded fully acoustic version. So how does this dark symphonic concept record translate to a sparse acoustic soundscape? Well the guitar playing has been brought back to just a simple acoustic arrangements highlighting the very good vocals of Bonny, unfortunately without the symphonic trappings things are a little similar Maleficent bringing some growls to shake things up. The album basically sounds a lot like the one disc of The Gentle Storm record, but whereas that was deliberate to have the acoustic/electric split this one has come come necessity and while it's a novel idea, Ad Infinitum are definitely a symphonic band, still it's good enough for fans. 6/10
Dines X Heafy is a collaboration between Trivium frontman Matt Heafy and 'Content Creator' (YouTuber?) Jared Dines, it spawned from Heafy appearing on Dines' Shred Wars video series before Dines filled in for Heafy on Trivium's 2018 tour. On this EP Dines plays pretty much everything with Heafy contributing vocals and selected guitar solos. Essentially what we have here is Dines writing an homage to early Trivium but getting the singer of that band to sing on it, the playing and production is top notch showing Dines musical talent in droves however the songs are quite simplistic and as I've said almost veer into the tribute realms quite often. I mean for a self indulgent collab between two friends it's decent enough and fans of either Dines or Heafy will lap it up but for me, it never really evolves into anything more than just a curio. 6/10