Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 10th, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: September 10, 2021 –
Aborted: ManiaCult
Genre: Death Metal Label: Century Media Records
Andrew W.K.: God Is Partying
Genre: Hard Rock Label: Napalm
Amyl and the Sniffers: Comfort To Me
Genre: Retro-Rock Label: Goner Records
Chrome Waves: The Rain Will Cleanse
Genre: Shoegaze/Post Black Metal Label: Transcending Records
Colleen Green: Cool
Genre: Indie Pop Label: Warner Music
Common: A Beautiful Revolution Pt. 2
Genre: Hip Hop/Rap Label: Loma Vista
Dawn Fades: Ode
Genre: Post Hardcore Label: Metal Assault Records
Delta Sleep: Spring Island
Genre: Indie Rock/Math Label: Sofa Boy Records
Diana Ross: Thank You
Genre: Soul/R&B Label: Decca
Hail Spirit Noir: Mannequins
Genre: Synthwave/ Sci-fi Pop Label: Agonia Records
Heartless Bastards: A Beautiful Life
Genre: Rock Label: Sweet Unknown Records
Inferi: Vile Genesis
Genre: Technical Death Metal Label: The Artisan Era
Jazz Cartier: Fleur Print
Genre: Rap Label: Petal Garden/PIVTL Projects
Kacey Musgraves: Star-Crossed
Genre: Country/Pop Label: MCA Nashville/ Interscope Records
Welcome to the KILL or KEEP milestone instalment, Vol.5. What a moment this is. We have gone from powers of 2 to powers of 5. We have transcended the snottiness of bashing mediocre bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails and reached such heights that we can make up whatever bollocks we so please and potentially tackle a legitimately “good” artist one day. What a giddy moment.
There was (probably) going to be a celebration of this belletristic triumph, but before it got organised, Sputnik MVP Staffer Dewinged (legeeend) spontaneously declared that he was going to listen to a Nightwish album with one hour’s notice, and a different kind of gravity asserted itself.
The album in question turned out to be Once, the 2004 opus among opuses viewed by many as the group’s symphonic peak – this being the most significant Nightwish album that JohnnyoftheWell (lol loser) had not heard, a glitzy pact was formed on the spot. Dewi got to take the next steps on his Epic journey with added style; Johnny got to go back in time and cover his tracks. What’s not to love?
Unfortunately, these motivations were both ultimately selfish, hardly reflective of KILL or KEEP‘s deeper imperative for critical justice and practical public advice. To remedy this and save the whole affair from corrupt SputStaff-exclusive sticky-pokey, we invited the unmodified unmastered vox pop microdeity LeddSledd into the fray (baaased). With not partisan attachments past, present or (likely) future, he…
Musk Ox are the real deal. Yet, only one month ago I had no prior knowledge of their existence. It was only through Sputnikmusic’s Album of the Month feature that I came to hear of this Canadian trio – their latest album Inheritance had won best album for July which encouraged me to check it out. In short, Inheritance is a truly spellbinding peregrination; a creation that feels perfectly attuned to nature. It’s an idiosyncratic ambient experience that has some of the most rewarding songwriting heard thus far in 2021. Palpable, lucid songwriting that carves impeccable detail into Inheritance’s tracks. Vivid soundscapes, gigantic crescendos, and a perfect harmony with beauty and melancholy. As such, it left a lasting impression on me. I approached the band’s guitarist, Nathanael, for an interview. The result is a two-part epic detailing a lot of what makes Musk Ox’s members the inimitable pioneers they are today – as we talk about the importance of production, what it’s like being in a band in Canada, Tool, their artwork and influences, and what the future holds for Musk Ox. It goes without saying that you should check out their latest triumph, but if nothing else, this is a good place to start and get to know the band.
For those who don’t know, could you give us a bit of background on the band and how it all came…
We live in a time where sequels and call-backs are done to death. Take your artistic medium of choice and witness the litany of hackneyed cash-grabs attempting to tug on your nostalgic heartstrings. On the boldly stated Colors II, Between the Buried and Me buck the trend and deliver on the promise of following up an all-time classic. As a standalone, this album is a gigantic, progressive gymnastics routine packed to the absolute gills with instrumental mastery and compositional/genre fuckery, the likes of which we’ve rarely seen. Taken as another rainbow block of molded clay to be affixed onto their 2007 construction, what we have here is a balls-to-the-white-walls two-part epic that reframes their entire sprawling discography. No matter where you lie along the prog metal appreciation spectrum – this deserves your ears, if only as a reference point for what’s possible. – Inoculaeted
There are few albums in recent memory that have been quite so divisive as Donda. Kanye West’s long-teased 10th LP has gone through many iterations and titles, and finally dropped yesterday as a 27-track, almost 2 hour behemoth. Length alone should never be a detractor to one’s critical reception of art – but in this case, the album simply fails to uphold the quality of its strongest moments for that entire duration. That’s really okay, because two hours of superb music is nearly impossible to pull off. In forming a critical analysis of Donda, however, one must take all moments into account – not just its finer cuts – and the results are middling. At its core though, Donda had the potential to be nearly perfect and go toe to toe with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as West’s best and most ambitious work. I’m sure this will be done a thousand different ways over the coming weeks, but below is my re-imagined and condensed version of Donda – an iteration that I almost certainly would have hailed as superb or a classic.
I left ‘Jail’ as the opener (we’re not counting ‘Donda Chant’ in this case) because I think it is the ideal adrenaline pumping scene-setter. I’ve heard some complaints already about ‘God Breathed’s early placement with that long outro, but I’m okay with it – it cements Donda as the imaginative and ambitious piece that it is. Most of this re-imagining was just me trimming…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 3rd, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: September 3, 2021 –
Apallic: Edge of Desolation
Genre: Death Metal Label: Kernkraftritter Records
Apophis: Excess
Genre: Death Metal Label: Nuclear Blast
Auri: II – Those We Don’t Speak Of
Genre: Folk / Celtic Label: Nuclear Blast
Bad Waitress: No Taste
Genre: Punk / Garage Rock Label: Royal Mountain Records
Beyond Grace: Our Kingdom Undone
Genre: Death Metal Label: Prosthetic Records
Bokassa: Molotov Rocktail
Genre: Stoner / Punk / Hardcore Label: Napalm Records
Carnifex: Graveside Confessions
Genre: Deathcore Label: Nuclear Blast
Damu The Fudgemunk: Conversation Peace
Genre: Hip Hop Label: Def Pressé
David Ferguson: Nashville No More
Genre: Country Label: Fat Possum records
Defacement: Defacement
Genre: Atmospheric Death Metal / Black metal Label: I, Voidhanger
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 27th, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: August 27, 2021 –
Big Red Machine: How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?
Genre: Alternative Label: 37D03D and Jagjaguwar
The Bronx: Bronx VI
Genre: Punk Rock Label: Cooking Vinyl
Chvrches: Screen Violence
Genre: Synth Pop Label: EMI
Danko Jones: Power Trio
Genre: Rock Label: Sonic Unyon Records
Ex Deo: The Thirteen Years of Nero
Genre: Symphonic Death Metal Label: Napalm Records
Feral Lord: Purity of Corruption
Genre: Dissonant Black Metal Label: Vargheist Records
Fluisteraars: Gegrepen Door De Geest Der Zielsontluiking
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal Label: Eisenwald
Halsey: If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
Genre: Indie Pop Label: Capitol Records
Headshrinker: Callous Indifference
Genre: Progressive Death Metal Label: Self Released
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 20th, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: August 20, 2021 –
Arcane Existence: Colossus
Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal Label: Independent
Between the Buried and Me: Colors II
Genre: Progressive Metal Label: Sumerian Records
Black Swamp Water: Awakening
Genre: Hard Rock / Heavy Metal Label: Mighty Music
Black Wound: To The Endless Depths
Genre: Death Metal / Doom Label: Dry Cough Records
Bnny: Everything
Genre: Dream Pop Label: Fire Talk
Bonehunter: Dark Blood Reincarnation System
Genre: Black Metal / Punk / Speed Metal Label: Hells Headbangers
Older is a dark album. Forget about all of those broody metalheads sporting warpaint and screaming about Satan over blast beats and tremolo-picked guitars, this album is genuinely dark, palpably agonising and it uses an array of styles in order to emit the nuances of Michael’s anguish and cognitive dissonance. At this point, for the uninitiated, you’re probably asking yourself how the hell George Michael, one of the biggest pop artists of the eighties and nineties, went from being a bubbly popstar sensation who sang about being on the dole and having steamy sex over archaic synthesiser, to crafting intensely emotive songs in an almost unrecognisable fashion? Welcome to post-mortem, the essay series that deep-dives into some of my most revered works. Whether you’re a fan of George Michael’s very modest volume of work or not, Older is nevertheless an intriguing monster bathed in sorrow, confusion and, surprisingly, optimism over what George was going through between the time of Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1 and his seminal masterpiece, Older. On a personal level, George Michael’s third album is one of my all-time favourite albums and as such, is easily Michael’s magnum opus (which isn’t to be trifled with when you consider every one of his works are, at the very least, excellent). However, what makes Older such an interesting case study is how it was birthed on, arguably, some of the darkest events of Michael’s entire life. These events would cement his direction in 1996; an album that would take…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 13th, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: August 13, 2021 –
Ænigmatum – Deconsecrate Genre: Death Metal Label: 20 Buck Spin
Bendigo Fletcher – Fits of Laughter Genre: Folk Rock / Psychedelic Label: Elektra
Celer – In Light of Blues Genre: Ambient / Warm Drone Label: Room40
Is anyone else surprised to see a classically-influenced instrumental album win this month’s AOTM? Granted, the month of July was no fall of ‘91 but this is Sputnik: ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’ has less votes on this site than Asking Alexandria’s 2017 self-titled release (yes, they do still make music.)
I don’t know what neofolk is. Ulver’s early work sounds like shit to me. What the fuck is a wooden grouse? Why am I listening to this neofolk album with literally a grayed out picture of a deserted railroad track on its cover, in the middle of July when it’s 110 degrees out? Why? Because it sounds metal as fuck.
Nathanael Larochette, in addition to having the most pretentious sounding name in all of neofolk history, serves as the group’s classical guitarist and co-composer, next to Raphael Weinroth-Browne. Larochette is also a member of the instrumental progressive metal band, The Night Watch, and boasts credits on Agalloch’s final album, while both Larochette and Weinroth-Browne have appeared on Woods of Ypres records. Musk Ox has appeared on compilations next to big-time nature metallers Empyrium, October Falls, and has shared the stage multiple times with the aforementioned, Agalloch.
So, in much lesser words, Nathanael Larochette is a metal guy who likes to make the metal musacz. And while much of this album sounds like the backdrop to a serene cabin in the middle of bumfuck Oregon, its dense and occasionally frenetic-sounding climaxes…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of August 6th, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: August 6, 2021 –
Abstract Mindstate: Dreams Still Inspire
Genre: Hip Hop Label: YZY SND
Andrea Von Kampen: That Spell
Genre: Indie Folk Label: Fantasy Records
As December Falls: Happier
Genre: Pop Punk Label: ADF Records
Blood Red Saints: Undisputed
Genre: Hard rock Label: Frontiers
Borracho: Pound of Flesh
Genre: Stoner / Doom Label: Bilocation Records
Canid: Saint Serpentine
Genre: Black metal / Doom Label: Self released
Cesspool of Corruption: Requiems of the Ignominious
One of my favorite album restructurings has to be the one I did years ago for Viva La Vida and Prospekt’s March, which I’m going to re-publish as part of this new series I’m doing. The LP (VLV) and the bonus follow-up collection (PM) are each superb in their own right, but in blending the best of them, you get a truly special – dare I say perfect – pop/rock record. Chances are if you’re not a huge Coldplay nerd I’ve already lost your attention, so I’ll cut through all the fanfare and just get right down to my playlist and the reasoning as to why I structured it the way I did.
The album begins with “Life in Technicolor II” – I chose this version because it is more fully fleshed out than its instrumental counterpart. The band stripped away the vocals from the original version “Life in Technicolor” in 2008 because it sounded too much like “an obvious single”, but I much prefer the full bodied track with Chris Martin’s stunningly beautiful melodic arc. “Viva La Vida” fits in nicely early as a symphonically-charged highlight – on the original LP, the breathtaking title track was hidden too far back in the listing. When it comes to Coldplay, I’m all about instant gratification, and that song hooks you in immediately. I had to be careful about maintaining the flow and delicate balance of Viva La Vida while blending these songs together, because there’s nothing wrong…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 30, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: July 30, 2021 –
Agrypnie: Metamorphosis
Genre: Black Metal
Label: Aop Records
Big Big Train: Common Ground
Genre: Progressive Rock
Label: English Electric Rec
Bleachers: Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night
Genre: Indie-Pop/Rock
Label: RCA
Billie Eilish: Happier Than Ever
Genre: Pop
Label: Darkroom/Interscope
Creeper: American Noir
Genre: Pop-Punk/Gothic
Label: Roadrunner UK
Dantalion: Time To Pass Away
Genre: Black/Death/Doom Metal
Label: Darkwoods
Dee Snider: Leave A Scar
Genre: Rock/Electronic/Heavy Metal
Label: Napalm Records
Diskord: Degenerations
Genre: Death/Progressive Metal
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Galvanizer: Prying Sight Of Imperception
Genre: Death Metal/Grind
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Gnosis: Omens From The Dead Realm
Genre: Death/Black Metal
Label: 2773878 Records DK
Grisly: Salting The Earth
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Xtreem Music
Groza: The Redemptive End
Genre: Black Metal
Label: AOP Records
Welcome back once again to KILL or KEEP, where we take a classic album that everyone knows but not everyone loves, and run it through a set of users with conflicting takes. They will consume the album for public entertainment and post their slander for all to see.
This time is a little different because our most ambitious plans got postponed for boring reasons andwe didn’t want to leave things hanging for too long. The solution? Do what the rest of the Sputnikmusic userbase does when it runs out of ideas and needs a ten-a-penny Masterpiece to chew over:
We are listening to Deftones. Specifically White Pony, but if there’s one thing we can tell you about White Pony right off the bat, it’s that it certainly is a Deftones record.
Deftones are a band that needs no introduction. What a relief. Today’s KILL or KEEP is brought to you by Pheromone and JohnnyoftheWell, but we felt a little self-conscious about trawling through one of the most lowest-common-denominator Sputnik classics as two of the most washed up Sputnik personalities, so we decided to add some spice by fishing out a new friend from our Discord web of horror. Please welcome Windowpain11 toSputnikmusic!
Rules
Each participant must KILL and KEEP a minimum of three songs. Because White Pony is a pretty tiny album by KILL or KEEP standards,…
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![The Redemptive End [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91Vy-KK0RiS._SS500_.jpg)
