SOUND BITES

  The Stanfields explored their roots on their third album  For King and Country  in 2013. Ably performed but lacking the raucous Maritime energy of their first two records, I found myself not going back to it very often. Now, that record feels kind of like a stopgap release, as fourth record  Modem Operandi  charges from the gate;  White Juan  is a quick, furious blast of punk-inspired mayhem that acts as a jarring intro to the album. The majority of  Modem Operandi  splits the difference between the traditional east coast leanings that came into full fruition on  For King and Country  and the Dropkicks-inspired pure rock fury that endeared them to fans from day one. There's a fair amount of new ground to the band to cover as well; they recently swapped out two members, so changes were expected. Granted, they still sound like The Stanfields, so no need to worry. Perhaps the greatest departure is  The Marystown Expedition , an ...

His stature as a vocalist is undisputed; Chris Cornell, for anyone who's paid even a passing glance to rock music over the last quarter century, is one of the genre's defining singers, just like other distinctive voices like Eddie Vedder and Maynard James Keenan. Whether belting out rage hymns with Soundgarden, digging for radio gold with Audioslave or presenting one of his intimate solo acoustic performances, you never confuse Cornell with someone else. For whatever reason, Cornell's solo records have had to endure harsher criticisms than those of his bands over the years. The first, Euphoria Mourning (I altered the spelling on it because he's done so himself on the newly reissued version of the album), dropped in 1998 (after the original split of Soundgarden) to initial excitement but eventually lived on only in the memories of card carrying fans. This was followed post-Audioslave with Carry On in 2007, which received mixed results. By far his most scrutinized so...

Can I be honest in my feelings about Slayer for a moment without inviting blind rage from people who regard them as an infallible institution, immune from criticism and tirelessly defended by a legion of fans who would rather shout down the naysayers than admit that what they're defending might not be as worthy of their defense anymore? Probably not, but if we approach this band from a rational standpoint, they've kind of been coasting for the better part of the last 25 years. That might be hard for fans to take, but by the same token I seriously doubt a high percentage of fans who are asked to name their favourite Slayer album will name one that came out after Seasons in the Abyss . That trilogy of Rick Rubin-produced records (starting with 1986's indisputable landmark metal masterpiece Reign in Blood ) was a clear period of domination commercially and artistically, and the six albums that have followed have experienced varying degrees of failure in comparison. With ...

  As brash, playful and thrilling as their debut single  Cheap Beer  was, I personally found FIDLAR's first record to be a bit of a chore to get through; once the shtick started wearing thin and the songs kept exploring the same territory ad nauseum, the album became less humourous and more annoying. Naturally, with a couple of years to grow as a band and hone their chops, their second record is a vast improvement; this much is apparent from lead track (and first single)  40 Oz. On Repeat , which refines their young and reckless sound and uncovers one of the year's most infectious songs while maintaining much of the brashness that made some of the previous record so endearing. There's more muscle on display too, perhaps most notably on  Punks . A cynic would degrade it for tinkering with the same bluesy hard rock style that other current bands like Royal Blood have conquered the world with, but damn if  Punks  isn't one of the most fun and furious take...

For their fourth record overall (and second for a major label), Foals expand on the panoramic ambitions of previous release Holy Fire with a set of tunes tailor made for entertaining the larger and larger crowds they've been pulling in. You can practically see the light show that builds in intensity alongside the gnashing title track, while Snake Oil brings a rock n' roll payoff akin to Kasabian's more edgy material. Closing track A Knife in the Ocean , meanwhile, finds them at their most majestic and bombastic. The bulk of the album plays more into the group's traditional gifts of thick rhythms and bright melodies, as evidenced by current single Mountain At My Gates . That's not to say it's as infectious or poppy (read: divisive) as a track like My Number , just as there isn't anything on What Went Down that's as clearly designed as single material; Night Swimmers comes closest, but stays far enough off the beaten path to diffuse any serious p...

Since their slow rise to prominence about five years back, people seemed to be wondering when The Black Keys' luck would run out. Their career may be far from over, but last year's disappointing Turn Blue certainly seemed to slow their momentum. A bold reconstruction of their core sound that failed to achieve the heights it aspired to, that album was too drastic a sidestep for many fans of their bombastic blues rock to handle. So much of Turn Blue 's experiments were overblown, diminishing the heart of the songs and rendering the record more a notch for producer Danger Mouse's bedpost than a Black Keys album proper. That The Arcs' debut record (once pegged as Dan Auerbach's second solo record, though it turned out having a much more collaborative lean than 2009's Keep It Hid ) goes even further out speaks to a mutual desire between Auerbach and Danger Mouse to push boundaries rather than the forced experimentation I perceived Turn Blue to be. Even with...

  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...