Leon TK
Employed To Serve Eternal Forward Motion
Read Leon's review of Eternal Forward Motion here.
The UK’s youth live in stressful and surreal times, struggling to make ends meet while their country votes a party of xenophobic politicians into the European Parliament and Donald Trump gives the Queen a fist-bump outside Buckingham Palace. Employed To Serve have spent the last couple of years taking notes, penning timely lyrics, and forging heroic riffs in the fire of pure indignance and outrage – and Eternal Forward Motion has managed to make an impressively deep dent in the British heavy music scene since it dropped in early May. Prime banger “Harsh Truth” remains one of the best songs Employed To Serve have ever set loose, but every cut contributes to this album’s unstoppable momentum.
Heart Of A Coward The Disconnect
Read Leon's review of The Disconnect and read his interview with Kaan Tasan.
After Heart Of A Coward were forced to replace vocalist Jamie Graham, and chose Kaan Tasan of No Consequence as his successor, the traditional new-frontman backlash was inevitable. However, HOAC have weathered the storm and come out victorious with a series of winning singles and a skin-flaying, unapologetically cathartic album that’s become impossible for metalcore fans to ignore. Thanks to songs like the initially contentious “Collapse”, the immediately accepted “Ritual”, and metrically intimidating closer “Isolation”, Heart Of A Coward have proven themselves worthy once more – and even forced former haters to eat their words.
Periphery Periphery IV: HAIL STAN
Read Leon's review of Periphery IV: HAIL STAN here.
Cryptic album titles and 17-minute openers are guaranteed to appeal to progressive metal fans, and Periphery certainly know their audience. That subtitle may have fallen flat, but Periphery IV itself is as brutally savage and sprawling as any beard-stroking headbanger could hope for. The ambitious “Reptile” and mind-annihilating “Blood Eagle” set up a 64-minute voyage into Periphery’s collective consciousness, a still-peerless place where riffs become terrifyingly tight and doubts are conclusively evaporated.
Rammstein Rammstein
After waiting a decade between official studio releases, Rammstein came back with one controversy-courting music video (“Deutschland”), one surprisingly poppy curveball (“Radio”), and an untitled long-player that immediately topped album charts in no fewer than 14 countries. Although Rammstein’s musical output remains predominantly formulaic, and the band arguably hit their highest creative peak between 2001 and 2004 with Mutter and Reise Reise, they’re still in globe-straddling shape today – and Rammstein is punctuated with opportunities for Till Lindemann and his compatriots to break out their face-mounted flamethrowers, burn through a sizeable stockpile of pyrotechnics, and publicly bully keyboardist Flake Lorenz. Rammstein have always played to their strengths, and they’re continuing to do so while achieving greater commercial success than ever before.
While She Sleeps So What?
Read Leon's review of So What? here.
Having conquered the DIY mountain with 2017’s You Are We, While She Sleeps overcame a long list of personal problems in order to construct and release this fascinatingly experimental record. So What? dropped via the major-affiliated Spinefarm Records, and is packed with razor-edged guitar parts, thrilling lead lines, and politically charged lyrics. While She Sleeps are taking over the world right now; look out for tour and festival dates near you, and dig into an album that deserves as many repeated spins as possible.
