The Black Marbles - Moving Mountains

Artist: The Black Marbles
Album: Moving Mountains
Year: 2018
Rating: 77/100

Over the last few years, there has been a wave of hugely talented female fronted rock bands, including, among others, Blues Pills, Spiders and Purson, all of whom have released excellent material. The Black Marbles, a quartet from Gothenburg, Sweden, are a band looking to follow in those very footsteps.

From the off, the sound the Black Marbles are going for is more of an out and out classic rock sound, akin to that of Free, Humble Pie and the Faces, but without really sounding too much like any of them in particular. While opening track "Little Sun" is enjoyable despite being a little on the formulaic side, there are still gems to be found on Moving Mountains, with "Stain My Eyes", the almost folky sounding "Fallen" and the epic "Nite of the Tiger" catching the attention the most, with vocalist Marica Svensson's tuneful holler a particular highlight.

The Black Marbles are not doing anything particularly new or original. But they do what they do pretty well, and by all accounts, they shouldn't find it hard to garner support or an audience. I expect to see them on the bill for Ramblin' Man Fair in the not too distant future. 

Track listing

1. Little Sun
2. Starlight
3. Stain My Eyes
4. Fallen
5. Best Believe It
6. Nite of the Tiger
7. Young Boy

Hear and There's Top 10 albums of 2017

2017 may not have been quite the sparkling musical vintage that 2016 was, but there were still plenty of excellent albums to grab the attention of everyone. Here are the top 10 albums from Here & There:

10. Pallbearer - Heartless

The Arkansas doom metallers followed up Foundations of Burden with their most consistently excellent effort yet.

9. Lionize - Nuclear Soul

The Maryland quartet give us another soulful, hard rocking album that provided a strong follow up to Jetpack Soundtrack, led superbly by Chris Brooks as always.

8. All Them Witches - Sleeping Through the War

The Nashville psychedelic rockers went from strength to strength in 2017, and Sleeping Through the War summed this up perfectly with its blend of heavy blues and psychedelic rock.

7. Samsara Blues Experiment - One With the Universe

The Berlin kings of the blues jam brought us another album heavy on riffs, atmosphere, and great songs.

6. The National - Sleep Well Beast

Matt Berninger and his distinctive baritone leads the National's 7th album superbly as always, while both pairs of brothers create their usual warm and wonderful melancholic sound that is synonymous with the band.

5. Unsane - Sterilize

A beautifully ugly cacophony, and a return to form for the noisy NYC power trio.

4. Slowdive - Slowdive

Picking up pretty much where Souvlaki left off in the mid 90s, the shoegazers returned with a gem of an album, all gloriously expansive synths and lush guitars. A welcome return.

3. Elder - Reflections of a Floating World

Were it not for the fact that Enslaved and Converge both had excellent new albums waiting for release this year, this would otherwise have won my album of the year title. While not quite a continuation of Lore, Reflections of a Floating World takes its predecessors blueprint and builds on it in a palatable way that makes them ready for a wider audience.

2. Enslaved - E

Another slight re-plot of their musical trajectory, with gambles that largely pay off, from Bergen, Norway's favourite musical sons. The use of a saxophone for the first time ever on an Enslaved album in particular was beautifully done.

1. Converge - The Dusk in Us

Converge continue to rewrite the rulebook of hardcore, pushing the envelope and the boundaries as often as they did on Jane Doe and with the same level of quality of music as a result. Hands down my album of the year.

Honourable mentions:

Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
Colour Haze - In Her Garden
Iron Reagan - Crossover Ministry
Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
The Menzingers - After the Party

Biggest let down:

Code Orange - Forever. Perfectly good musically, but the clean vocals were horrendous.

Best gig of the year:

A tie between Insomnium at Mama Roux's and All Them Witches at the Institute.

Colour Haze - In Her Garden

Artist: Colour Haze
Album: In Her Garden
Year: 2017
Rating: 81/100

Colour Haze have, in their 23 years of existence, swiftly become the masters of their craft. The Bavarian stoner rock trio are simply content with doing as they please, and with a back catalogue as extensive and as fluid as theirs, that's very much to be expected. In Her Garden is their 12th studio release, arriving after several European tour dates, including a showing at Desertfest in Antwerp.

Within the album itself, we get the usual Colour Haze fare; drawn out, hypnotic jams that only have a few sparse vocal melodies; or even better, none at all. It's not quite as drawn out, expansive or trippy as their fellow Germans Samsara Blues Experiment, but then they don't need to be. Colour Haze's musicianship has always been exceptional, and it's no different on In Her Garden. The listener is treated to the odd passage of Hammond B3 organ, acoustic guitar and even a bit of brass and some strings.

While some of the more drawn out moments of In Her Garden occasionally end up crossing over into the territory of being a bit boring (the evil twin of hypnotic), there's still plenty here to sustain the interest of the listener. It's not quite in the territory of their more consistent records, but there's still enough to like about this one for it to be a worthwhile listen, and a good introduction to Colour Haze.

Track listing

1. Into Her Garden
2. Black Lilly
3. Magnolia
4. Arbores
5. Sdg
6. Lavatera
7. Islands
8. Sdg II
9. Labyrinthe
10. Lotus
11. Sdg III
12. Skydancer
13. Skydance

Power Trip - Nightmare Logic

Artist: Power Trip
Album: Nightmare Logic
Year: 2017
Rating: 83/100

Texan thrash metallers Power Trip come across as one of those bands that seem to slip quietly under everybody's radar despite countless gigs in support of higher profile artists. Their second full length album, Nightmare Logic, again released on Southern Lord (the go to label these days), enables the Dallas quintet to step out of the shadows of their peers.

While there is an abundance of palm-muted guitars, screamed vocals from Riley Gale and plenty of double kick drums to be found on Nightmare Logic, it's all done in a way that's difficult not to enjoy. Despite there being only 8 tracks, all of which clock in at between 3 and 5 minutes (Iron Reagan they ain't), there's nothing convoluted or overdone here, and tracks such as "Firing Squad", "Waiting Around to Die" and "If Not Us Then Who" are absolute rippers. If you like the riffs of Exodus with the energy of the Cro-Mags, this is right up your street.

If there is a criticism to be found of Nightmare Logic, it's that Power Trip's sound doesn't seem quite as expansive as its production indicates. The whole thing feels like it was recorded in a banqueting hall. Other than that, though, Power Trip are a band more people need to be talking about, and the promise of a spring tour of the UK in support of Trivium will hopefully get them the audience they deserve. An enjoyable little beast.

Track listing

1. Soul Sacrifice
2. Executioner's Tax (Swing of the Axe)
3. Firing Squad
4. Nightmare Logic
5. Waiting Around to Die
6. Ruination
7. If Not Us Then Who
8. Crucifixation

Converge - The Dusk in Us

Artist: Converge
Album: The Dusk in Us
Year: 2017
Rating: 97/100

Unless you're a hermit or you've been living under a rock for the past twenty years, it's impossible to disregard the contribution that Converge have made to extreme music. Jane Doe, their 2001 opus, was widely considered a minor classic by fans of metal and hardcore alike, and since then, the Bostonians have been going from strength to strength. The Dusk in Us is their ninth studio album, and Converge show no signs of slowing down with it.

Opening track "A Single Tear" sets the tone for what is about to follow perfectly. This is Converge at their unshakeable best; Jacob Bannon's throat-ripping screams, Kurt Ballou's bludgeoning, aggressive guitar riffs, and Nate Newton and Ben Koller's taut, frantic rhythm section. But this is Converge, and we all know that in their case, the whole is very much greater than the sum of their parts. Jacob Bannon's clean vocal passages, when they appear, not only offer a new weapon in his vocal arsenal, he does it with a new found confidence that we didn't hear on previous Converge efforts. Elsewhere, it's business as usual for Converge, with tracks such as "Under Duress" and "Trigger" offering themselves as counterparts to their nearest relations from Jane Doe, "Homewrecker" and "The Broken Vow".

I'm rarely lost for words when it comes to the quality of Converge's music; I've been a fan since the outstanding Jane Doe. Having said that though, The Dusk in Us is a more than worthy contender for Converge's best album, and it feels like a labour of love for each member of the band. Get this round your ears, without hesitation.

Track listing

1. A Single Tear
2. Eye of the Quarrel
3. Under Duress
4. Arkhipov Calm
5. I Can Tell You About Pain
6. The Dusk in Us
7. Wildlife
8. Murk & Marrow
9. Trigger
10. Broken by Light
11. Cannibals
12. Thousands of Miles Between Us
13. Reptilian

Unsane - Sterilize

Artist: Unsane
Album: Sterilize
Year: 2017
Rating: 92/100

Unsane are back. Yes indeed, Unsane are back. With five years in between previous effort, Wreck, and this, their eighth studio album, Sterilize, I decided to take a look at it and see how it stacked up.

On first listen, all of the hallmarks that make up the traditional Unsane sound are all there; a delightfully ugly cacophony of blues, noise and hardcore punk that has been their signature sound since their arrival on the scene in the late 1980s. This time, however, the songwriting (which suffered slightly on their 2005 effort Blood Run as well as on predecessor Wreck) is now back to its visceral, ferocious best. Tracks such as "Factory", "No Reprieve" and "We're Fucked" rattle along in a wonderfully nasty sounding way, with both bass player Dave Curran and guitarist Chris Spencer trading off vocal lines; neither particularly melodious, both sounding like rabid dogs as their impassioned screams grab the listener by the eardrums.

All in all, Sterilize is a strong album, possibly the strongest effort from Unsane since their excellent Occupational Hazard. The trio are as musically tight as they ever were, and their ideas are still fresh and enjoyable. If that works for you, give this album a serious look.

Track Listing

1. Factory
2. The Grind
3. Aberration
4. No Reprieve
5. Lung
6. Inclusion
7. Distance
8. A Slow Reaction
9. We're Fucked
10. Avail

Enslaved - E

Artist: Enslaved
Album: E
Year: 2017
Rating: 96/100

It goes without saying that Enslaved are one of the most interesting bands in metal to listen to today. Since they put out Below the Lights back in 2003 they have remained a band that has always seen fit to push the envelope and boundaries of what works in extreme metal, and a sound that is constantly evolving. E is their fourteenth studio album (yes, really). So how does it stack up?

Short answer: it's simply brilliant. Though I personally enjoyed In Times, the feeling is that E is a much more complete album than its predecessor, a feeling that hits the listener from the epic near 11 minute long opener "Storm Son", and you can't help but feel that Enslaved have been taking musical cues from the likes of Neurosis and Cult of Luna, instead of attempting to fill the void left by Opeth following their departure from the prog/death metal realm. Elsewhere, "Hiindsiight" is a fabulous sprawling beast with a saxophone part that enhances the textures of the album's sound, "Axis of the Worlds" is a more traditional black metal style sonic assault and "Feathers of Eolh" is a slow burner of a song that builds and climaxes with a superb off-kilter riff that underpins it.

It's not often that I'm lost for words when describing the sheer quality of Enslaved's recorded output. Having said that, though, E is a sprawling mammoth of an album that matches their best efforts, and it's easily on the same level as Isa and Below the Lights in terms of quality. If you're looking for an album from a band who love to push the envelope, Enslaved are that band.

Track listing

1. Storm Son
2. The River's Mouth
3. Sacred Horse
4. Axis of the Worlds
5. Feathers of Eolh
6. Hiindsiight
7. Djupet
8. What Else is There