todays music video is-------------------

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Mariana Semkina - Everything Burns

The Kate Bush-nodding singer with Russian chamber-prog act Iamthemorning releases her solo debut in the new year, from which this beautifully haunting single is taken. Mariana says of the song: “Everything Burns focuses on the demons that you take with you no matter how far you try to go; the fact is you just can't run away from them. No matter how hard you try to change everything around you, they will stay with you unless you realise that the most important change, the one that is by far the hardest to achieve - the one that happens inside of you.”

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Saltlake - Bitter Pill

A meaty new tune from Sussex trio Saltlake, which soars as well as crunches. If Muse and Bullet For My Valentine went to an alt.rock night and had a baby, it might have turned out something like this. Vocalist/guitarist Henry Gottelier says: "Bitter Pill is a metaphor for the struggles of everyday life-being lost in a society that you just don't seem to fit into, and the anxiety that comes with that-being the person that someone relies on, but never having it returned."

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Ocean Alley - Tombstone

These Aussie freakniks’ music has been described as “cruisey psych, rock and reggae fusion”. You can hear elements of all that in this trippy, more-ish number. In some ways it echoes the oddball pop stylings of their West Coast compatriots (Tame Impala, Pond…), but with a more organic sense of 70s/80s warmth.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Brian Fallon - You Have Stolen My Heart

One with which to chill/peace out/find your mellow happy place now. You can check out more from the Gaslight Anthem man on 2020 album Local Honey (and on tour in the US and UK/EU March-May), but for now we'll whet your appetite with this oh-so-pretty acoustically led number.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

3Teeth - Metawar (2019)

3Teeth emerged in 2013 from metal’s underbelly, leaving behind a streak of glinting mimetic alloy and a whiff of leather. Since then they’ve morphed, like a PVC-clad T-1000, into high-concept cyber warriors with a flair for hyper-sexualised drama. In 2014, their self-titled debut grabbed the attention of Tool guitarist Adam Jones, who invited the band to open for the alt-rock pioneers on their 2016 US tour. Then their follow-up, <shutdown.exe>, put them in front of equally huge crowds, this time supporting Rammstein.

On third album Metawar, it seemed that 3Teeth had picked up a trick or two from Lindemann and co, delivering a record that upped the ante on their previous material with a bigger, sleazier and darker sound. Enigmatic frontman Alexis Mincolla had always instilled deeper meaning to the band’s mechanical thunder and described Metawar as “a sonic attack on the wide scale perception management systems that currently grip our worlds.” Accordingly, opener Hyperstition noted ‘As the cost of living continues to go up, the value of life goes down’ and there was discontent abounds in the buzzsaw synths of Affluenza and reptilian swagger of Sell Your Face 2.0, which took swipes at corruption and greed.

To help them turn up the power and darkness of their corrosive sound, the band enlisted the services of producer Sean Beavan, a man who knows exactly how to exploit the symbiotic relationship between man and machine having worked on some of industrial’s most treasured albums by Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.

At times the throbbing influence of Ministry, and especially Manson, loomed large over the filthy pulse of President X and in Mincolla’s sneering vocals, but Metawar produced several standout tracks, particularly Exxxit and American Landfill – two corroded, molten anthems that lunged and snapped like a steel-jawed velociraptor. With Metawar, 3Teeth continued their razor-straight upward trajectory.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Black Sabbath - 13 (2013)

Okay, let's get it out of the way first: no, 13 isn’t as good as Black Sabbath's first six albums – what is? – but it’s a million times better than most of what followed, and way more than you could ever expect from a three men of pensionable age who proved all they had to prove 40 years ago.

Sabbath's 19th studio album started as it should: with an almighty riff. End Of The Beginning was Black Sabbath redux: an eight-minute wallop to the gut that ladled foreboding atmospherics onto tectonic grind, before stepping up its pace around a third of the way through. ‘Reanimation of the sequence rewinds the future to the past,’ howled Ozzy, and while the sentiment may have been pure Doctor Who-circa-1976 hokum, the delivery was gloriously clear-headed: the dead-eyed zombie who multi-tracked his way through his last few solo albums was nowhere to be heard.

They played it cunningly. Amid all the blind idolatry that has grown around the band, it’s easy to forget that every album recorded by the original quartet had its own personality: Black Sabbath was wide-eyed and bluesy; Paranoid swung from pole to emotional pole; Master Of Reality was a rush of blood to the head and Vol. 4 was the dense, druggy comedown; Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was wired and experimental; Sabotage was just mental. Even Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die were different. Not good. Just different.

Here’s the thing: 13 didn't sound like any one of those albums. It sounded, at various points during its 70-minute length, like all of them: a riff here, a melody line there, the odd ‘Alright now!’ thrown in for good measure. And boy, did it work.

Gripes? Well, this wasn’t wholly Black Sabbath, as Ozzy himself admitted. Bill Ward was the Banquo at the 13 feast, a shadowy spectre lurking in the background as a partial reminder of the business concerns that clouded Sabbath's latter days days. Did the album miss him? Definitely. It lacked the wild edge he brought to matters, the sense that it could all fly off the rails at any point.

But what’s done is done. As time has told, 13 will remain Sabbath's final album. And it was the perfect way to close the circle.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Jinjer - King Of Everything (2016)

After uploading their video for rabid single Sit Stay Roll Over, one week and 100,000 YouTube views later, Jinjer were snapped up by Napalm Records. Everything was heading in the right direction for this Ukrainian metalcore crew, and rightly so.

Their third album was an accomplished collection of brutality, intelligence and technical proficiency, splicing ferocious Lamb Of God-style grooves with math-metal and djent twists.

At the heart of it all were vocalist Tatiana Shmailyuk and guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov, whose vocal and riff gymnastics were embroiled in a violent game of cat and mouse.

Tatiana is a ridiculously talented vocalist and her bludgeoning growls were as equally impressive as her rich clean vocals that carried the urgent choruses of Words Of Wisdom and Just Another towards strapping apexes.

The centrepiece of the album, though, was the vast expanse of I Speak Astronomy, which was akin to traversing an inhospitable and polyrhythmic universe of gritty, vivid worlds.

King Of Everything was an unrelenting album that kept you guessing. Oh, and it rocked pretty hard, too.

 

[Tech 425 3,942]

Ok now Neo I want her Music Please - I can't find it

[NeophobiA 1,503]

6 hours ago, Tech 425 said:

Ok now Neo I want her Music Please - I can't find it

Which one Tech.?. Jinjer or Mariana.?. I'm a huge fan of Jinjer, Mariana Semkina  I've only recently discovered...

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Baroness - Purple (2015)

There’s enough trauma in the world right now that even the tiniest crack of light is something to cling to.

For Baroness, that crack of light came in the shape of their fourth album, Purple. In August 2012, a horrific bus crash almost wiped the US band out, leaving singer/guitarist John Baizley hospitalised and in danger of losing his arm. Purple was the product of both personal trauma and Baizley’s long and painful physical rehabilitation.

Purple simultaneously built on what Baroness's previous albums had achieved and reined in their sometimes overwhelming sprawl. Shock Me came clad in heavy metal drag – fuzzy guitar, tumbling drums – but its deceptively simple yet electrifyingly huge chorus indicated keener minds at work.

Lyrically, Purple erred on the side of the battered. ‘She cuts through my ribcage and pushes the pills deep into my eyes,’ sang Baizley on the undulating, spiritually dislocated seven-minute centrepiece Chlorine And Wine. His arid holler possessed the same limited effectiveness as that of Jaz Coleman. It wouldn't have won him the 2015 series of The Voice, but it carried all the urgency and desperation you’d expect from a man who once woke up with a 20-ton bus on top of him.

You don’t have to be a shrink to work out that Purple was a work of pure catharsis, and a sometimes tortured one at that. But whether they meant to or not, Baroness had made an album that brimmed with hope. That was one a hell of an achievement.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

The Hu - The Gereg (2019)

At the very end of Shireg Shireg, the lilting, rather lovely song that closed the debut album by Mongolian sensations The HU, the music gently faded to expose a rhythm that backboned almost the entire album: the sound of trotting hooves. It was like being shown how a great piece of magic works, with the big reveal enhancing the cleverness of the trick rather than spoiling it. For The Gereg was a remarkably clever album.

It had been attempted before, this kind of thing, combining the throat singing and folk melodies of Central Asia with Western rock music, but never so subtly, nor as smartly. Unlike the great Tuvan rock band Yat Kha, or – more recently – Tengger Cavalry, The HU resisted the temptation to ramp up the volume in the pursuit of global appeal, instead finding an audience through a series of spectacular videos that amplified the band’s visual appeal rather than aligned their sound with any number of take-yer-pick stadium fillers. 

Without shifting the sonics too far from their roots, The HU created an album that felt epochal. From the viral smashes – Yuve Yuve Yu, Wolf Totem and The Great Chinggis Khan – through the epic sweep of The Song Of Women and the foreboding chug of The Same, it was music of intense drama and widescreen beauty. It was music that somehow painted a vivid portrait of the land from which it had sprung. 

And for music that didn’t shy away from covering subjects unusual in heavy metal – The Legend Of Mother Swan reflected on the power of a mother’s love for her offspring – it was music that somehow felt both familiar and comforting. It was as if we’d all grown up throat singing, with the jaw harp and the horse head violin and the three-stringed lute. Such was its power.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Korn - The Nothing (2019)

Korn have made a career from exposing the chaos and darkness inside their collective psyche, but, even by their combustible standards, the year leading up to The Nothing had been unbelievably traumatic with the passing of Jonathan Davis’ wife, Deven, the August prior.

Although it might sound trite to say it, Davis can be proud of the way he channelled that trauma to create a power-house of an album.

From 90-second opener The End Begins, we were left in no doubt that this album would be a traumatic experience, the intro consisting almost exclusively of haunting bagpipes and Jonathan screaming through inconsolable tears.

As the next few tracks proved, Davis had hugely developed as a vocalist, with both Cold and You’ll Never Find Me showcasing the brutal, death metal growl he had been perfecting alongside his trademark croon. At the end of the latter track we heard him breaking down in the studio, and the howls of pain felt undeniably real.

The Nothing was as powerful as this band had felt in a very long time. ‘For every good thing I do there is a price to pay’ he sang on closer Surrender To Failure, and only those with a heart of stone would have struggled to empathise with him.

Korn have been on a run of form over the last decade, but no one could have predicted that they would recapture that unique feeling of genuine darkness.

Unfortunately it took something deeply and tragically sad for that to happen, but Davis can take a crumb of solace that his catharsis here will have almost certainly inspired many more people to fight their own demons once again.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Machine Head - Unto The Locust (2011)

Few bands resonate so fully with their audience as Machine Head, and perhaps only Iron Maiden and Slayer can rely upon their fans for such unflinching dedication.

The crucial difference is that these Bay Area maestros are of a newer generation who enjoy none of the misty-eyed, sometimes forgiving nostalgia of their predecessors. And considering 2007’s The Blackening was lauded as Metal Hammer’s album of the that decade, the pressure to outdo themselves on album number seven was most assuredly immense.

Well, it may not have hit the top spot, but its healthy placing in the top 50 this decade gives all the more reason to applaud Unto The Locust – a breathtaking metal masterwork that screamed their supremacy as songwriters from the rooftops.

Kicking off with the three-part thrashing cannon blast of I Am Hell, it was clear that this was an album of light and shade, or as it were – howitzer fire and napalm. Be Still And Know was a breathtaking exhibition of Robb Flynn and Phil Demmel’s towering abilities with a six-string, all supercharged by Flynn’s gravel-throated ferocity. So intense you could almost imagine the glee in the studio when it was being tracked.

But it was probably The Darkness Within that saw Machine Head at their most courageous. Beginning with Flynn’s Springsteen-conjuring mid-tempo balladry, it gave dimension to all the fast-riffing bravado before the epic slab of Pearls Before The Swine and the haunting Who We Are wrapped up these scorching proceedings.

It was a mindblowing testament to a brand of heavy metal that refused to chase its tail but sprinted boldly into uncharted territory.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Sabaton - The Great War (2019)

While society is distracted by the current political disarray that’s slowly eroding our personal sense of freedom, it’s easy to forget that a century ago the world had just witnessed one of the bloodiest wars in history that saw millions needlessly sacrificed and dynasties wiped out.

The Great War, even now, remains a harrowing record of slaughter, carnage and destruction that would have the most hardened Cannibal Corpse fan reaching for a cup of tea and a sit-down, and it took a band with unrivalled historical knowledge to tell its story beyond the gore. If you don’t know it by now, that band was Sabaton.

Depending on where you sit, these Swedish power metallers are either an obsessive novelty band who get dorks dancing to songs about D-Day or the greatest history teacher you never had.

Such was the grandiose and erudite quality of their output as we ventured into their ninth album, the question wasn’t whether they could make a credible concept record about one of history’s greatest tales, but if they could give us something new and exciting to latch onto. The answer was yes.

The Great War was, as usual, a rip-roaring, riff-addled march towards victory, coaxing influences from folk and power metal that sounded remarkably upbeat for an account of bloodthirsty mass destruction.

The Attack Of The Dead Men, for all its grim storytelling, remains the most joyful song you will ever hear about chemical weapons, thanks to Sabaton’s knack for lacing their power metal stride with disco-style grooves, while The Red Baron explored other throwback territories with 70s-inspired hard rock.

With The Great War, recorded exactly 100 years after the events it honours, Sabaton once more fortified their status as world-class power metallers, not only pushing their sound to new heights but solidifying their adeptness to tell stories and capture imaginations.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Opeth - Pale Communion (2014)

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first: lots of people argued when this record came out that it didn't really count as a metal record. It was, they said, a lovingly crafted hard rock album that harked back to times long gone. True, it was arguably more prog rock than death metal, but Pale Communion continued the journey begun on 2001’s Blackwater Park. And hey, we're not here to split hairs. Opeth will always be part of our world to us.

And in terms of songwriting, Pale Communion stood head and shoulders above its predecessors.

Musically, the tempo only really raised steam on the driving Cusp Of Eternity, with its twisting solo from Fredrik Åkesson, although the excellent, epic Moon Above, Sun Below and Voice Of Treason flexed serious muscle. But mostly, Pale Communion was about a stridently excellent vocal showing from leader Mikael Åkerfeldt, proving once again what a great singer he was, and the masterful implementation of Joakim Svalberg’s keyboards into the band’s sound. These two factors led the way throughout the album’s voyage.

Faith In Others closed proceedings in a relatively low-key manner, perhaps a move to show that the journey was to carry on twisting and winding away from the band’s earliest sound. Maybe not music to everyone’s ears, but taking the musical path they have over the past quarter of a century or so, Opeth had arrived at a time when they were making profoundly excellent, beautiful music. Once, all albums were made this way. Opeth had never forgotten that.

So yes, the new prog age of Opeth had cometh – and with 2016's Sorceress and 2019's In Cauda Venenum it only grew. Mourn their death metal farewell – but more importantly, relish the result of an intelligent, engaging act taking a new stand. Captivating stuff.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Deftones - Diamond Eyes (2010)

Diamond Eyes marked 15 years since Deftones’ 1995 debut, Adrenaline. In that time, the band had outgrown their reputation as the ‘thinking man’s nu metal band’ to be known more simply as one of the best and most respected metal bands of the 90s, as popular with Metallica fans as with Tool fans.

While 1997’s Around The Fur and 2000’s White Pony took their popularity to new heights, 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist was tepidly received. Two years after that, bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a tragic accident and left in a semi-conscious state. The decision to shelve the work in progress (Eros), recruit former Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega and start work on a new album was doubtless no easy decision.

It just so happened that what could have been a confused, disjointed and depressing record became their most gripping. The generally directionless meanderings of Saturday Night Wrist swere gone, leaving a collection of songs that were urgent and direct – each one a lean, mean, emotional and sonic explosion.

Deftones, not least due to the versatility of Chino Moreno’s vocals, have always managed to emit a glorious ambiguity. You’ve Seen The Butcher, with its mass of increasingly frenetic percussion and Alice In Chains groove, Sextape and album highlight Beauty School were typical examples of such extremes here, the latter a writhing attack of sumptuous guitar tones, whirring bass and skippy beats.

On the other end of the spectrum, CMND/CNTRL was a heavy anthem with stacks of bounce, accompanied by a luscious chorus of driving chords and intricate vocal play through pounding beats.

Chino has always been evasive about what his songs mean. There were doubtless references to their fallen brother, and while specifics may have been obscured it was clear that the songs were brimming with meaning and alive with emotion.

Deftones had not only created a fitting tribute but a career-defining album.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Devin Townsend - Empath (2019)

Devin Townsend made Empath because he needed to.

The Devin Townsend Project dissolved in 2018, but he’d teased Empath since the start of 2017, promising the epitome of everything he’d done before, from the violence of his former industrial/death/whatever outfit Strapping Young Lad to DTP’s “lower mid-tier prog metal” and everything betwixt.

That in mind, first song Castaway reintroduced Devin with ocean waves, steel drums, choirs and the sound of seagulls. Obviously. Genesis strayed into more familiar territory, Devin’s bombastic proclamation of ‘If you’re saying in your mind, you’re better off dead’, signalling six minutes of absolute nonsense. Less song than overture, it rattled through Empath’s touchstones: Meshuggah-esque heaviness, space-age fret-tapping, funky flights of fancy, clean interludes, electronic trickery, wall-of-sound production, hulking orchestration and, most importantly, hooks.

Empath proved that yes, Devin had levelled up. It was everything but more. A holistic beast, packed with lyrical leitmotifs that demanded commitment. Because throughout his career, Devin always appealed to our basic human truths. Whether that be on previous classics Ocean Machine and Terria, SYL, his dark ambient tangents or DTP’s evolution, it all came back to love, loss, failure, hope.

His fetish for Pro Tools and excessive multi-tracking didn’t change that, because Empath was Devin Townsend’s most comprehensive, overblown and emotionally accomplished work to date. In fact, it was his masterpiece.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare (2010)

Avenged Sevenfold’s courage couldn't be emphasised enough when they released Nightmare in 2010. It’s not a stretch to say that the band’s decision to soldier on through the adversity that befell them with the tragic passing of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan and to grab the bull by the horns and record and release a new album verged on the heroic.

The first half of Nightmare saw the band reigniting the complex blood’n’ thunder feel of 2005 album City Of Evil. Welcome To The Family showcased A7X’s love for SoCal punk rock with a Metallica-sized stomp, Buried Alive was part ballad and part arena-ready metal anthem and the title track was a tour de force of quality riffs and unshakeable vocal lines.

The second half of the album, including the near-11-minute closer, Save Me, was, understandably, a sombre affair. There was no way around it. The last three tracks were gruelling due to their intensity and melancholic feel, but the therapeutic effect this had on the band was something that came to be celebrated in the future.

The lyrics throughout Nightmare were so soul-bearingly raw that at points it straight up made you uncomfortable. ‘This can’t be real, I’ve lost my power to feel’ M Shadows grieved on the soulful tones of Victim, while So Far Away saw Shadows wondering, ‘How do I live without the ones I love?’

It was when the emotion and lyrics collided like an uppercut to the throat that things really kicked up a notch. The piano breakdown in Danger Line genuinely sounded like Shadows could burst into tears at any second as he sang, ‘I never meant to leave this world alone/ I thought that we’d grow old’.

That A7X continued as a band was reason enough to applaud them in 2010. That they managed to create a body of work that still kicked as much ass as they always had through those conditions, should've seen them rightfully recognised as one of the best bands of their generation. Nightmare was the ultimate tribute to a fallen friend.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Iron Maiden - The Book Of Souls (2015)

in the 2010s it seemed like the world all but turned its back on the album. But Britain’s biggest metal band proudly pushed against the grain, reminding us of a time when The Album was an immersive spiritual experience explored in darkness through headphones.

That’s not to say it was some ponderous prog odyssey; it was still suffused with the fire and thrust of musicians who learnt their craft in sweaty 70s boozers, but it repeatedly demanded and rewarded your full attention, different songs and segments blossoming with every spin.

Bruce Dickinson, writing alone in Iron Maiden for the first time since No Prayer For The Dying, topped and tailed the album with its most thrillingly outré moments. Elemental curtain-raiser If Eternity Should Fail opened The Book Of Souls with a space-age blues vocal and mystical synth fanfare, culminating with demonic pronouncements over a dark acoustic coda, while elegiac 18-minute closer Empire Of The Clouds took us aboard the 1930 R101 disaster, piano and violin augmenting the song’s poignant leitmotif, arrangements lurching and surging in sympathetic evocation of the doomed airship.

Throughout and between these magnificent Dickinsonian bookends, the band proved themselves to be on the form of their reunited lives. Nicko attacked his kit with customary barefoot joie de vivre, imbuing even the smallest tom-roll with his personality. Steve Harris' bass sound was warmer and more integrated, with some of the most sensitive, creative playing of his career. Despite the dirty looseness of the strummed bass intro/outro of his sole solo credit The Red And The Black, the song was distinguished by its jubilant procession of infectious guitar lines.

A couple of songs perhaps conformed too readily to Maiden’s post-reunion archetype, but this was as bold as music could get. In the five years since its release, we've happily assimilated this treasure chest of densely wrought heavy metal gold.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Gojira - Magma (2016)

More than any other band to emerge in the 21st century, Gojira pursued a course of fervent individuality, turning revered tropes into something extraordinary. When Magma dropped, it was is another robust riposte to the notion that modern metal was running out of steam.

Where L’Enfant Sauvage was rugged, vicious and taut, constrained by urbanity and yearning for escape, Magma was Gojira untethered and running wild. The band sounded exhilarated by the concept of limitless space and the freedom to roam. The lyrics reflected that refreshed, enhanced perspective, too: Joe Duplantier’s cry of ‘When you change yourself... you change the world’ could have seemed overly earnest delivered by anyone else, but the Frenchmen’s sincerity had long been a major selling point. Magma once again exuded heartfelt rage and a sense of genuine, if cautious, hope.

It wouldn’t have been a Gojira album without massive riffs, however, and here they were, as strident and bludgeoning as ever. This time, though, there was clear blue sky bursting through chinks in the band’s previously impenetrable armoury and a sense of imperious calm beneath the intensity and noise.

This was not wildly accessible music by any means, but it was hard to imagine any fan of heavy music hearing the lurching Only Pain or the prolonged squall of the title track without being forced to remark, “What the fuck is this?” Well, it was Gojira. One of the greatest metal bands on the planet who, on this evidence, had only just begun to blow our minds.

 

[Tech 425 3,942]

On 12/24/2019 at 4:54 PM, NeophobiA said:

Which one Tech.?. Jinjer or Mariana.?. I'm a huge fan of Jinjer, Mariana Semkina  I've only recently discovered...

Jinjer my Great Friend (I'm a Rock music lover)  I like how Jinjer sings like a sweet girl then boom Hard Rock like Eversense

[NeophobiA 1,503]

14 minutes ago, Tech 425 said:

Jinjer my Great Friend (I'm a Rock music lover)  I like how Jinjer sings like a sweet girl then boom Hard Rock like Eversense

I know exactly what you mean, I'll try to put My hands on a few albums for You...

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Twin Temple

This gothic Californian couple invented a new genre: Satanic doo-wop. Husband and wife team Zachary and Alexandra James created music that was part Amy Winehouse and part Satanic ritual, and released a NSFW video for the song Sex Magick.

The vibe was encapsulated by their debut album, helpfully titled Twin Temple Bring Your Their Signature Sound… Satanic Doo-Wop!. “We’re avid collectors of old, forgotten rock and occult records, so this is the record we were always hunting for – that really rare, deep soul doo-wop cut that makes you think, ‘What the hell, they worship the Devil, that’s amazing!” says Alexandra.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

Lacuna Coil

Italian metallers Lacuna Coil's dramatic ninth album, Black Anima, was named for their native tongue's word for ‘soul’ and the darkest colour they could think of. It was made following a difficult time for singer Cristina Scabbia, as she lost both parents and came out of a longterm relationship with Slipknot’s Jim Root.

“This is a healing record,” she says. “Through Black Anima, I learned to walk in the darkness and manage the darkness that appears in my life. I feel bulletproof.” It also featured new axeman Diego Cavallotti and drummer Richard Meiz, marking a new era for the band.

 

[NeophobiA 1,503]

The Wildhearts

No-one expected a comeback album from the British rockers, which made Renaissance Men all the sweeter. Featuring the classic, mid-90s line-up of Ginger, guitarist and co-founder CJ, drummer Ritch Battersby and bassist Danny McCormack, it was their first record in 10 years and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with their landmark 90s classics, Earths Vs The Wildhearts and P.H.U.Q..

Danny had last played with the band in 2005, spending the interim period battling a heroin addiction that culminated in him having his leg amputated following a brain aneurysm in 2015. “The four of us, making this noise, that’s what this record is all about,” says Ginger.