Hailing from Germany, today we have Neaera and their crushing Melodic Death Metal that will surely rattle your seat (and windows) once “Forging the Eclipse” starts playing on your stereo. The band’s sound is very brutal in nature and features most of the ‘traditional’ Melodic Death Metal elements but also has a nice modern edge to it, without getting too faggy for us.

After the first few listens we noticed that while “Forging the Eclipse” is a very solid album, it’s very linear in nature and gets repetitive after a few songs. The band’s songwriting abilities are not the best in the scene and even with twelve songs, the album lasts only 39 minutes. The riffing is very brutal and features some nice traditional Death Metal hooks in songs like “Sirens of Black”, but manages to keep an overall melodic tone.

Featuring Derek Kerswill (ex-Unearth, session for Shadows Falls) on drums, today we have Tangents debut album “One Little Light Year”, a very different release to what we are used to getting for promotional materials. Tangents is a duo that plays a very eclectic mix of Alternative Rock, with some Progressive / Post-rock influences and other more ‘mainstream’ elements that makes them very catchy and probably appealing for people that like bands like Coldplay, Muse, etc.

Before you start to think that you need to click on something else to read, just hold on a minute and keep reading since “One Little Light Year” is actually not that bad. If you like bands like Votum, Canadian Fen or even Anathema and similar Progressive Rock/Metal bands, you might find Tangents appealing since they have some catchy songs with interesting guitar passages and atmospheric sections that will grab your attention.

After being undecided about this release for a few weeks now, we have to say that after very careful consideration we can’t really decide if this is great or just something is too watered down in lush keyboard arrangements to hide the underlying mediocrity of the extremely repetitive song structures.

A part of us says that we should love “Rekreatur” since it has a very bombastic sound, crushing vocals and an overall very epic feeling to it. Another part of us says that the underlying guitar work is plain dull and it feels exactly the same after cycling through a few songs, that the whole music sound very overpowered by the growls and the massive keyboard arrangements. But in general, we have to agree that in terms of this being an album that will get you in a better mood, an epic battle mood that is, the band does an excellent job. The sound is massive and it’s something that we can see ourselves headbanging to in a live setting.

A few months after the release of “Heliocentric”, we get “Anthropocentric”, the more aggressive and crushing continuation (and conclusion) to the band’s critique on Christianity started with “Heliocentric”. While The Ocean still incorporates some of their traditional classical instruments in “Anthropocentric”, this release is by far much more aggressive and straight forward than their previous one.

With another 50 minutes of monumental Progressive Sludge/Metal, the band greatly enhances the listening experience of “Heliocentric”, we found ourselves playing both records back to back in order to get the full effect and conceptual message of this very well crafted releases. The band immediately starts with a very crushing track in “Anthropocentric”, often weaving back and forth between pounding riffs with harsh vocals and brilliant clean vocal harmonies and more melodic guitar lines.

The Rimmerfors brothers are back and so is their very elaborate and catchy brand of Swedish Folk music with some hints of Metal influences. Completing the band’s line-up we have three fifths of Pathos / Nostradameus bringing the Metal side of things with solid drumming, a nice bass guitar line, and keyboards.

Being the band’s sophomore release (and second in a two year period), “Eifur” is a very diverse album that will grab the attention of any Folk music fan due to it’s brilliant instrumentation and catchy melodies. Again all the lyrics are in Swedish so most of us will be deprived of actually knowing what the songs are about, but the music alone is enough to hook us into this release.

After reaching considerable popularity a few years ago with “Powertrip”, Monster Magnet tries to get back on the saddle with “Mastermind” after a few lackluster albums with SPV. “Mastermind” is a very catchy and overall solid release that will surely please fans of the band and will probably even do well in terms of sales since the band (somewhat) returns to their familiar sound of the past.

Now on Napalm Records, the band structures their songs with catchy riffs and powerful vocal lines. There is not much to the band’s music other than its catchy and well constructed. Each song is a hard rocking anthem that will keep you listening to this album over and over for days.