Fever Daydream may not be for everyone but there’s something about album’s inherent vulnerability that continues to resonate long after it ends.

While the record packs the occasional wallop, it loses steam in quieter moments ("Saving Grace") that sacrifice depth and density for pop hooks, due in part to predictable song structures.

At times, the album can be a little much; after the 17th grinding breakdown decked in plucking harp strings, things can blur together--but the things that make Takasago Army stand out are worth any flaws it possesses as an album (the weird jungle insert of "Root Regeneration" makes you feel like you're at a spa with the devil).

est in its execution and ambitious in its scope, The Thousandfold Epicentre is an otherworldly journey to spaces both familiar and alien.

Frontman Scott Lucas tackles the polarized political scene in crunchy riff-rock jams full of Windy City references; in "Blue Line," a ride on public transit inspires thoughts on how "it's getting hard to realize a sense of self in other eyes." Heaviness (in both senses) abounds.

Although none of its 13 tracks hit as hard as the early '80s, "mash"-pit ragers that made them famous, they still sound vital on the Rasta-praising punk pummeler "Popcorn" and the 88-second frenzy "Yes I."

This restless Texas prog-metal outfit, best known as the former protégés of Serj Tankian (and the best Tool-aping act since Chevelle), have yet to make an epic game-changer of an album, but Arrows & Anchors, their fourth, comes close.

A welcome return.

Where the first half of Jasta is, well, Jasta, the album's latter tunes find the vocalist bringing in guests--with somewhat mixed results. [Jul/Aug 2011, p.87]

For the most part the album successfully rides the line between innovation and self-indulgence. In other words, if given a chance Desolation Sounds will challenge listeners as much as inspire circle pits.

45 minutes of jagged, uneven music that includes sparks of urgent genius, and perhaps five or six seconds that border on legitimate transcendence. [Nov/Dec 2001, p.117]

Polaris is, at last, the platonic ideal of a TesseracT album, the one where they get everything just right.

At once dense and cacophonous, bleak and thunderous, Rwake's latest aspires toward the sonic-cosmic apex personified by Neurosis--and comes mighty close.

Think of Five Serpent's Teeth as a taste of the past recaptured.

Eve ultimately transcends dog-bait stereotypes with an evolving sense of style that finds her waxing rough and cool one minute and warmly grooving along to reggae the next... [May/June 2001, p.108]

Frontman Mikael Akerfeldt's material is sunnier than usual, but still has room for synapse-stimulating musicianship.

Rather than play into expectations and write 12 15-minute songs about H.P. Lovecraft or the Dead Sea Scrolls, Atlanta's finest created a more-than-decent metal record.

Perhaps sensing the imminent death of the album format, Zombie has thrown all caution to the wind.It's an approach he should have taken long ago. [Mar/Apr 2010, p.90]

[Drowning Pool have] managed to produce consistently killer albums with an unmistakable sound. This continues with album No. 5.... The weakest songs here are the singles.

One of the Melvins’ most diverse and melodic, flirting with New Wave, glam metal, and psychobilly between epic guitar jams and gleefully twisted epics such as the closing “House of Gasoline.”

While the album has its share of radio-friendly anthems like "A Lifeless Ordinary," the real standouts on the band's fourth full-length are the grittier, unexpected moments such as the sinisterly syncopated "Hysteria" or post-hard-core masterpiece "Disappear." [Mar/Apr 2010, p.90]

Songs like “Heaven, Hell and Purgatory” will beat you down only to lift you up again, it’s a sonic ride worth taking.

Rainbow is definitely Sanchez's show: His dreamy vocals give all the fantasy crap real human warmth. [May/Jun 2010, p.966]

Of course the technical musicianship of the EP is top notch, but the form is what’s most striking.

Undulating under shimmering waves of feedback is either a gorgeously fragile heavy metal record or the ballsiest Smashing Pumpkins ballads ever.

Luckily, MLIW are excellent students and practitioners of the style [melodic post-hardcore that lurked on the outer edges of emo].

Warp Riders staunchly maintains the stoner doom, chugging trash, and ruminating psychedelia that marked the four-piece's 2006 debut, Age Of Winters. Yet the boogie-rock feel of "Tres Brujas" and "Lawless Lands" diversifies their songs, recalling pre-Eliminator ZZ Top. [Jul/Aug 2010, p.88]

You can't too wrong when an albums starts with cowbell and kick-drum--and truth be told, you can't go too wrong with a Buckcherry album, period. [Jul/Aug 2010, p.88]