CLANDESTINE – THE INVALID

Female fronted melodic rock with a serious emphasis on kick you in the face baddatude. Clandestine formed in 2006 and won the title Best Female Fronted Band from  LA Magazine. Mixed by well known producer Sylvia Massey (Tool, System Of A Down), this band’s album has wickedly infectious melodies and music that crosses many lines in the sand of rock purists – alternative, electronic and metal. An extremely impressive 10 song, 45 minute slab of hard edged rock that never fails to deliver on all levels. The band is fronted by singer June Park who wields a very impressive, almost otherworldly and fierce voice. Enigmatic and engaging she is without a doubt, a star on the rise.

Clandestine is a truly unique band, combining progressive rock with female fronted metal, a touch of electronic music that enhances the futuristic timbre, and some smooth huge pop melodies. The Invalid is a must for fans of bands as diverse as Evanescence, Dream Theater, Fair To Midland, Rush, Lacuna Coil, Tool and Between The Buried & Me. What more can you ask for?

DR. ACULA – SLANDER

Dr. Acula’s schizophrenic style of extreme music is sure to unhinge even the most stable minds. Drawing influences from grindcore, hardcore, metal, and hip-hop, they continue to create their own spastic concoction of ‘Party Grind’ on their latest album, Slander.

Slander is a barrage of raw guitar riffs, snappy blast beats, and pitiless breakdowns, topped with off-the-wall lyrics sure to provoke partying. Dr. Acula has weeded out all of the bullshit and is all hands in to make a name for themselves in 2011. Expect to see Dr. Acula on tour all year long.

EMMURE – SPEAKER OF THE DEAD

Emmure have spent their entire career working to prove a point – that they are the real deal and a force to be reckoned with in today’s metal scene. With their latest release, Speaker of the Dead, they are out to solidify that point and take their music to yet another new level.

Armed with even more dark and menacing lyrics than before, and some of their heaviest music to date, Emmure plans to start off 2011 with a bang. With over 150 shows in 2010 alone, including two sets at The Bamboozle and full stint on Warped Tour, Emmure will bring their take-no-prisoners attitude up another notch in 2011 and prove once again that nothing can stop them.

THE FAMINE – ARCHITECTS OF GUILT

The Architects of Guilt is not a sing-a-long or a feel good record; it’s the death rattle and dying breath. The Famine is not here to win popularity contests, they’re here to  simply create metal, red in tooth and claw. The music has become faster, more technical, even abrasive and discomforting, trading shear aggression and energy for the lifeless sweeps and mechanized beats that have come to dominate and dilute the genre. The lyrics forego empty threats and skip the subtleties, calling out the deceit and duplicity of our leaders, and the decay next door masked by a flaking white picket fence and a familiar chemical scent. The band traces the fractures in stone pillars and cracks along the marble walls, sets their tools down after eleven tracks and walks away as if saying, ‘Don’t come to us when the temple falls.’

HAYES CARLL – KMAG YOYO  (& other American Stories)

This is NOT a hard rock or heavy metal album but it is great musical storytelling. For a change of pace you might want to give this a chance in between the new Motorhead and Crowbar albums. It may just revive your soul.

LEMMY – LEMMY: 49% MOTHERF**KER, 51% SON OF A BITCH(DVD)

Lemmy, the result of three years of trailing the man with a camera through concert halls and his preferred grungy L.A. environs, meanders in a very different way from his band’s two-minute songs. The first few scenes alone offer a beautifully odd portrait of a 65-year-old rock god, frying potatoes in his smallish rent-stabilized apartment, ambling down to Amoeba Records to buy a Beatles box set, and dominating a trivia game’s high-score list at the Rainbow Bar and Grill. A quietly witty film, much like the dude himself.

MINDFLOW – WITH BARE HANDS

Mindflow is a Brazilian melodic metal band fusing current active rock with metal showcasing their individual musicianship and mastery of their instruments with a seasoning of progressive tendencies throughout their extremely well produced, hooky compositions. Simplified translation… ‘Great music with a melodic yet heavy edge that cannot be easily described.’ Mindflow can be a blistering hardcore band whose music comes at you like a force, yet hits you like a soft ray of sunshine caressing your face. For the past 6 years, the band has systematically set their career path through endless touring throughout their home territories in South America, releasing three self-produced powerful albums. Utilizing the grass roots street team mentality to promote themselves and their music, they’re now finally capturing the attention of the international music industry.

MOGWAI – HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE, BUT YOU WILL

Mogwai was birthed in the halcyon days of the mid-’90s and helped Glasgow become one of the real bright spots in the musical universe again. Not everyone gets Mogwai, but that’s what makes them great. Theirs is a majestic, powerful sound where barely a word is spoken yet it is the antithesis of background music. Album and song titles bemuse, confuse and delight in equal measure and live, they are utterly unstoppable. Recorded at Chem 19 studios with producer Paul Savage (who recorded Young Team), Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is the band’s seventh album.

REV THEORY – JUSTICE

SEAN KENT – WAITING FOR THE RAPTURE

Once again, not hard rock or metal but one listen to “Walmart City” and you’ll understand why this JUST HAD TO BE on my list this week.

Sean Kent finds humor in subjects mainstream comics wouldn’t dare to touch. Masterfully he takes aim at the heart of bloated, complacent, overly consuming 21st Century America, eviscerating Walmart, hippies, recycling, the media and Fundamentalist Christians all in the same breath. More influenced by writers like Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) and Bukowski than by his comedian peers, Kent goes deeper, takes more chances and searches harder for meaning than anyone else out there. This isn’t for the feint of heart but it is definitely for the thinkers, the outcasts, the rebels and the dissatisfied.

THE WARRIORS – SEE HOW YOU ARE

The Warriors are back with a passion to fill the void of genuinely heartfelt music lacking nowadays. Their brand of hardcore is equally influenced by Rage Against The Machine and crossover thrash as it is youth crew and metallic hardcore. With their fourth full length album, See How You Are, The Warriors are equipped to once again endlessly tour the globe and deliver their honest and insightful message.

See How You Are continues The Warriors’ disregard for how hardcore songs ‘should’ be written and builds on their rock-edged take on hardcore with bigger breakdowns, better riffs and more overt emotion. They help to define hardcore with their attitude and approach to music while simultaneously reaching far beyond the boundaries of the genre.

See How You Are is the most sincere, brutal, groove induced, and all around best sounding record The Warriors have ever accomplished.

Published by rbtaleman

Heavy metal (fiend/friend?) Writer, frustrat(or), frustrat(ee), decorated U.S. Navy veteran, Husband(twice), father(three times), grandfather(of seven), FM radio veteran, Concertgoer, music collector, muscle car aficianado. Grown up since five. Child since 45. View all posts by rbtaleman