Southern California punks Unwritten Law are back with their new full length, first original material in over a decade. I always liked this band and how they mixed pop punk sensibility with punk rock riffs and great lyrics topped with awesome vocals and melodies. This album is no different. These songs are not so fast and maybe not your skate punk mayhem, but this is pop punk par excellence for 21st century. If I must compare this album to some bands it would be a mixture of Billy Talent and AFI with some darker atmosphere in some songs. Vocals are still fantastic, melodies too and many choruses leave you humming along and singing along to all woooas and oooohs, also bringing smile to your face after a long day. Besides pop punk and punk rock riffs, guitars on some occasion delve into post punk riffs like in parts of Magnetic. My personal favorite is Ghosted, having such fine chorus that I listened over and over again. The album is divided into four chapters like being a concept album with Luna intermezzos. Two of the songs I must also mention are LIghthead and Murder Days, probably the most punk rock songs straightforward and up tempo with kind of darker atmosphere. In all, great comeback, good album.
German thrash metal legends Kreator are back with their brand new full length opus. This time, there is an intro plus 10 songs on the tap, bringing relentless mixture of old school Kreator Euro thrash style with more modern metal approach as witnessed on band´s last couple of full lengths. That means fast and aggressive songs to go along with crowds at gigs well, Mille Petrozza´s trademark shouted/singing/barking vocals, blistering solos and catchy hooks and melodies in the song structures. After spaghetti western intro Sergio Corbucc is dead haha, the title song kicks in with a vengeance, mixing melodic bridge, brutal verses and riffs and screaming chorus. Beside all out thrash attack, Kreator also deliver slower marching, dark rolling song in shape of Crush The Tyrants, which you can almost physically feel how tough it is. One of my personal favorites is for sure Strongest Of The Strong, mid tempo anthem with such powerful main melody riff and brutal chorus. This middle part of the album is for me the best with autobiographical awesome Become Immortal, just made for pumping fist in the air and screaming along at gigs, also epic Conquer And Destroy melted my face off. But, the real gem is Midnight Sun featuring guest performance by Sofia Portanet, being a song so different yet similar to what Kreator did before. This is a superb and energetic thrash metal album by these genre legends.
I first learned about and started to listen and love dungeon synth through my friend Kktz(Tenebrositas, Talog) who sent me couple of releases and this was an ideal meditative and music for my darkened heart besides black metal. In time, I explored the scene and found out some really magnificent entities and releases. Skhemty hails from France and its theme is musical exploration of ancient Egypt, its mystic and mystery. But Skhemty also manages to create atmosphere of medieval Byzant and Middle East in its musical direction and this album is a keeper. There are eleven songs on this opus and what immediately comes to mind, songs are not too long or repetitive to become boring, quite the contrary. This is a epic and emotional dark journey filled with almost cinematic enthusiasm and a bit of melancholy and sadness. Great album for all you dungeon synth/dark ambient fiends out there. My personal favorites are Golden Age, Mirage over the Dunes and Ancient Ruins in the Desert.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 