A crafty update of California pop, shot through with the insights and ravings of a sometimes-lonely desert mystic.... Still, the disciplined songs of Trouble occasionally scream "Warning! Career Rehabilitation in Progress." [May/June 2001, p.105]

Murdered Love is best when all the anthemic stuff comes equipped with the sort of infectious grooves that the band's SoCal stomping ground is known for.

Sacred attaches sleazy biker blues, perilous fuzz rock and libidinous punk to swaggerin’ doom as age and experience channel youthful days, questionable decisions and collapsed veins while avoiding tragedy to kick ass like 1978 never went away.

The Wilson sisters comes out swinging old-school style with a full-throttle title track that sets the tone for the bulk of their 14th studio album.

Nestled among these dozen tracks, though, is also some of the band's handsomest, most expansive music yet. [Mar/Apr 2011, p.88]

The record is exactly as advertised, despite three new members entering the lineup. Wrong has rarely sounded so right.

The Migration seems to wander a bit more than 2011’s focused and phenomenal The Collective, losing some steam by the last few tracks.

The repetition of downtuned breakdowns will probably tire even deathcore superfans by album’s end. Solid–but this Witch could use a few new tricks.

It swings and swaggers like no Megadeth album in recent memory. [Nov/Dec 2011, p.87]

Nearly perfectly formed, a confident showing of pristine, heartfelt songs that stand up alone and gain greater strength in the context of the full album, which ebbs and flows in a great purge of emotions. [#3, p.120]

The result ain't fresh, but it's definitely fun.

As eccentric as these tracks are, most of them wind up in a familiar place, with clean vocals ascending to growly, thundery choruses.

Whether it’s the Nine Inch Nails-meets John Coltrane scree of “The Last Stand,” the avant-jazz experimentation of “House of Warship” or the trippy classic rock hooks and ominous ambient drones of “House of Control,” IBS makes Marilyn Manson sound as rebellious as Ed Sheeran.

Tracks like “Thorns” and “Dancing in Madness” continue the band’s patented crossbreed of smoky chugs and far-out sonic filigrees, furthering the emotional edge of their sound. For others, the band’s tendency towards soaring prettiness instead of sludge punishment might make Heartless a little light-handed, lacking the full steamroller crush of classic stoner rock outfits.

TDWP's "sufferings" are modern-metal fans' "glory."

The result is the least Insomnium-sounding record of its discography.

Guitarists Zack Hansen and Tony Pizzuti not only provide massive crunch and harmonized leads but further fatten the sound with backing vocals and programming, an arsenal that can swell the sonics to near-symphonic grandeur.

Aficionados will love picking out the differences between these early takes and the final album mixes.

Make no mistake, this album is not invoking bluegrass meadows and rolling hills. Instead, the stage is set to the cacophonous sound of Kentucky’s coalmines and devastating tornadoes for one helluva tale.

Drive A does quite a lot, thanks to guitar and bass lines are as tuneful as they are propulsive.

Josh Homme and fellow Queens Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita, and Michael Shuman have gotten back on beam for the band’s first album in six years, apparently rediscovering the joys of creating robotic, riff-oriented hard-rock songs.

The Offspring's hit-making machinery is as efficiently well-oiled as ever. [#3, p.106]

If success means overpowering the senses with creepy, captivating dissonance, KEN Mode are clutching a real triumph.

As ever, frontman niVek ohGr manages to make his vocals just as laceratingly intense as the saturated distortion of the electronics, while the lyrics are as angry as they are eloquent.

Not the most fashionable influences, obviously, yet Digital Resistance feels more like real rebellion than a lot of modern metal.

Raucous and honest, this album rocks with their trademark down-home stoner swagger.

While the group's increasingly mid-paced heaviness reduces the number of showy frills and demonstrates a matured sense of melodic chops, it does make songs sound slightly repetitive by the album's end. Nevertheless, Khaos Legions will please longtime fans and probably find a few new ones for Arch Enemy

[The album] is their best in years, hitting upon just the right combination of melody, thrash, and hooks.