SOUND BITES

Finding themselves among the most revered modern metal bands following their arrival just over a decade ago, The Sword had started taking tentative steps away from their thick and furious sound by the time their spacey third album Warp Riders was released in 2010. Then, after a fourth album sought to marry their early bombast with a more assured and modern slickness, the Austin group decided to dive headfirst into classic rock nostalgia with fifth album High Country in 2015. Many fans recoiled at the shift into lighter territory and, although the attempt was noble, the album as a whole proved to come up short on memorable tunes. Fast forward three more years, and Used Future more or less picks up where High Country left off, albeit with more of a flair for the dramatic. To wit, the instrumental passages are more expansive and more plentiful; whereas High Country featured 11 songs and 4 instrumentals, Used Future has just 7 songs and 6 instrumentals (including three of the alb...

Only a decade ago one of the flagbearers of the new wave of stoner metal, The Sword went through a bunch of changes before ending up in their classic rock phase with last year's High Country ; so, I guess it only makes sense that they'd give those songs the acoustic treatment, which is why Low Country exists. The thing is, there were only a handful of memorable tracks on High Country , and giving the filler tracks the old wood-n'-strings treatment doesn't exactly do them any favours here. With nothing improved upon and everything painted with the same beige brush, Low Country isn't likely to appeal to many. Personally, if they insisted on doing an acoustic record, I'd have preferred a career spanning collection, because I'm more interested to hear what they could do with older material like Freya, Maiden, Mother & Crone or Tres Brujas . As it stands, Low Country is simply a dulled down companion piece to their most dulled down record. September 23,...

Surprising turns from established heavy bands. New heights for critical darlings. Up and coming artists making strong first impressions. The back half of summer saw all of this and more, as even the dog days saw some worthwhile releases that begged our attention. The fourth collection of Song of the Year nominees are:

  As one of the leaders of a new wave of Sabbath-inspired "stoner metal" bands about ten years ago, The Sword quickly positioned themselves as one of the most intriguing bands of the bunch. As their career progressed, they started playing around with their sound, going so far as to make their third record a sci-fi concept album. With their previous record, 2012's  Apocryphon , they regressed a bit, resulting in an uneven record that felt by times like a last ditch effort to find proper inspiration within the genre they were pigeonholed into. With the benefit of distance (three years to be exact), The Sword approaches fifth album  High Country  from the vantage point of a band separated from their past, making the record they want to rather than the one they feel they need to. As a result, while similarities to their previous work do exist,  High Country  ends up taking their sound toward lighter territory. Think less Black Sabbath and more Thin Lizzy and yo...

THE SWORD Apocryphon From: Apocryphon Released: October 23 You can always depend on The Sword for tasty riffs and lyrics that sound like they were lifted from the flavour text of a Magic The Gathering card. On Apocryphon , they come back to earth (previous album Warp Riders was full on sci-fi rock) with such force that there's a new crater somewhere in Texas. It's expected that most bands have worked out any growing pains and have found a comfortable place by their fourth album, and The Sword prove no exception, sometimes to a fault; some of Apocryphon 's songs don't hit with as much urgency as past gems or, in some cases, strike as a little too close to past gems. But the album closing title track's synth intro jars any sleepyheads back to life, then shakes the shit out of them for five minutes to make sure they stay awake through one of the year's most badass grooves.

Yesterday, I made mention of the fact that next week's releases mark one hell of a smorgasbord for folks who like their music on the heavy side. Well, the Trail of Dead and Stone Sour albums both mark probably the respective bands' fiercest efforts, but they're Ace of Base compared to today's offering.

THE RACONTEURS Consolers of the Lonely "Consolers of the Lonely" is pretty much an extension of last year's White Stripes triumph "Icky Thump"; also recorded in Nashville, all very loose sounding and fun. It's also notice served that what was kind of cool in the White Stripes' intimate setting absolutely shreds with the backing of a full band. Lyrically, there may not be any tracks as poetic as, say, 'You Don't Know What Love Is'. But, when the monster riffs of 'Five on the Five' and 'Attention' smack you in the skull, there simply isn't much need for fancy wordplay. There's also much more stretching out to be heard, as a veritable smorgasbord of instruments get their due (including fiddles, banjos, horns, etc.). Throw in a good old fashioned murder ballad (album closer 'Carolina Drama'), a swampy country stomper ('Old Enough'), an obscure seventies rock cover ('Rich Kid Blues') and the fr...