The heshers who crave this Viking death-march death-metal will have it, and those who aren't inspired by what they stream on the internet won't. Even with a lesser work, Amon Amarth have done their job.

Malkmus remains up to his usual trickery, packing the proceedings with musical plot twists like false starts, abrupt fades, and fake codas. [#4, p.106]

As always, Fernow offers a challenge with his music. Those who accept it will be rewarded with an intensely vital listen.

They sound utterly repellant, and it suits them perfectly.

Folks like to hate on the BDM, labeling them part of the problem because they use neon colors on their T-shirts, but death-metal fans who want something different and exciting need look no further.

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.

The result: a crushing musical experience easily among the year's best extreme-metal records.

At Night We Live represents an older, slightly sleazier, but still poetically earnest far. [May/Jun 2010, p.98]

The band’s primary objective is to lift listeners off their feet and keep them floating, with only occasional handholds for stability.

As always, the Kurt Ballou production gives the album the depth and punch that it deserves, making this the band’s most dangerous declaration to date.

Russian Circles deliver seven glorious cuts of cinematic elegance and regal thunder. Not to mention what might be its best album yet.

For all of Recitiation's slow burners, ferocious cuts like "Pieces Of The Moon..." and Worm Heels..." go hard from start to finish, revisiting the band's hardcore roots. [Nov/Dec 2010, p.98]

Somehow, though, every song eventually leads to Myles Kennedy keening dramatically over guitar sturm und drang, and while that nicely showcase the band’s songwriting and instrumental skills, after a while it becomes predictable and monotonous.

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

Fire From the Sky is suitably heavy, grim but not ridiculous, and its best songs will remind listeners of Metallica.

Shone saws off a series of heaving, mechanized drones with names like “The Barge,” “Cauterize” and “Teething,” each a dizzying, pulsating and pounding exposition of man’s ultimate sonic collusion with machine.

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

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.

By turns melodic and thunderous, White Silence churns with 8-minute power dirges and soars with Beatles-esque hooks, making for an exhilarating musical rollercoaster that demands repeat spins.

Whether Snakes For The Divine is the band's best album yet is open to debate, but it's certainly their biggest, burliest, and most devastating. [Mar/Apr 2010, p.90]

Unsurprisingly, it sounds exactly like Teri Gender Bender fronting The Melvins--a fascinating concept in theory that turns out to be deliriously satisfying in practice.

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

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

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.

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]

By-the-numbers breakdowns, tired metalcore riffing, and cliched lyrics are still very much part of the group's formula. It's too bad since the band has plenty of energy and ambition. [Nov/Dec 2010, p.94]

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

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.