Com Truise: "Iteration"

The king of dream synth lets his latest album fall to a slow-burning state

When I first heard Galactic Melt, I was sold. It was unlike anything I'd heard, taking the aesthetic of 80s nerd culture and forging it into something more modern and accessible. Daft Punk and likeminded artists seem like obvious contemporaries to draw comparisons to, but Com Truise did something completely different with the same source material by making it decisively less danceable and poppy, in a way staying a little more true to the retro style.

Satyricon Rant

The artwork in question

Boo hoo, people don't like our new album cover

Satyricon recently posted a sort of passive aggressive rant on their Facebook, where Satyr and Frost are visiting the official Edvard Munch Museum. In their own words they are "proud and happy to hear how pleased the Munch Museum was with the way we have used his art on our cover," and that they (the Munch Museum) were "a little bit surprised to hear about the banal reactions of a sorry and weak minority," referring of course to the relatively large amount of people who think the cover looks lame as hell.

Argus: "From Fields of Fire"

The difficult fourth one? No chance, this is the confident next album!

Debuts are hard, the follow-up is tough and the third one perhaps even more so. So what do you do when you already have three exceptional albums in the bagage? If you do like Argus from Pennsylvania, USA, you keep on going with unabated ardor.

Collection Addiction #1

Collection Addiction #1
Collection Addiction is a new segment of TONEwood in which I will journal my own finds and purchases in music. Feel free to comment on my terrible taste and/or post photos of your own recent purchases and finds!

Seer: "Vol. III & IV: Cult of the Void"

Half great, half boring, all hard to determine

Seer is one of those bands that for all intents and purposes combines countless stylings together to form something unique. And true to this, Volumes III and IV are works that manage to sound completely new and incredibly well-known at the same time through just eight songs.

Slamophiliac: "Slam Rehab"

Underwritten solo-slam for beginners

In a year where several newcomers and oldies have already released absolutely insane albums, Slamophiliac faces a tough situation. Darryn Palmer, slamophiliac extraordinaire and lover of the loathesome, is one of those types of musicians who may have bitten off more than he can chew. He has dozens of similar bands going simultaneously, most of them in the brutal death metal spectrum. The fact that Slam Rehab sounds like a hackneyed surgery could very possibly be due to his busy release schedule - Slam Rehab is already his second album in 2017 with Slamophiliac.

Panikk: "Discarded Existence"

Hits and misses from Slovenia

The worst thing a band can suffer from is being part of the dime a dozen crowd. At least if you're absolutely terrible you'll still stand out. Nothing is more taunting and antagonistic than a band that is just boring. During my first run through Discarded Existence, the second album from Slovenia's Panikk, this was my immediate concern with these thrashers.