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Album review: Ocean Grove – ODDWORLD
Melbourne party-starters Ocean Grove get weird in both good ways and bad on album number four…
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The 25 Best Albums Of 2019 (So Far)
The 25 albums that have rocked our stereo in the first half of 2019
- Words:
- Nick Ruskell, James Hickie, David McLaughlin, James Mackinnon, Jake Richardson, Paul Travers, Olly Thomas, Paul Brannigan, Luke Morton, Emily Carter, Mischa Pearlman, Ian Winwood
It's been quite the year for rock music so far. Slipknot returned with new masks and a brand new member, Mark Hoppus and Alex Gaskarth formed a new band together and the Jonas Brothers (of all people) are dropping hints about a My Chemical Romance reunion. Oh, and some of the biggest bands in our world released new music! From Bring Me The Horizon and Venom Prison to Rammstein and Petrol Girls, 2019 has given us new and exciting music from across the wide spectrum that is rock'n'roll.
Below we have scoured the reviews section of Kerrang! magazine and picked out the 25 best albums of 2019 (so far). Whether you're into pop-punk or death metal, there's something here for you to get stuck into.
FEVER 333 – STRENGTH IN NUMB333RS
“Where this album truly succeeds is in its enormous heart, and its desire for inclusivity, community and simply for people to be better to one another…”
Bring Me The Horizon – amo
“BMTH’s innate ability to stay one step ahead like they do here means that the future remains firmly theirs…”
FIDLAR – Almost Free
“Here, Fidlar have cobbled together the perfect antidote to endtimes ennui…”
Ithaca – The Language Of Injury
“A crash-course in self-doubt and alienation, delivered in 10 savage bursts of controlled metallic hardcore…”
SWMRS – Berkeley's On Fire
“As an album, Berkeley’s On Fire is killer. As a statement, doubly so…”
While She Sleeps – SO WHAT?
“It’s While She Sleeps as you’ve never quite heard them before, and the most exciting this band have been since your first encounter with them…”
Venom Prison – Samsara
“Venom Prison have humanised this music by holding up a mirror to a cruel world and viewing people as more than simply walking dummies full of guts, but sentient beings worthy of life, rather than a grisly, gory death…”
Angel Du$t – Pretty Buff
“There’s no grandiose statement, big ideas, or pretence involved – just 13 super-accessible, honest and artfully crafted songs…”
Scarlxrd – Infinity
“This is attention-grabbing music, marrying insistent trap beats with a vocal delivery that obnoxiously shreds the distinction between rapping and screaming his arse off…”
American Football – American Football
“American Football have changed, but what remains unchanged is their ability to gently tug the heartstrings…”
La Dispute – Panorama
“Put simply, Panorama is another outstanding release from a truly special band…”
PUP – Morbid Stuff
“In facing down the worst things that life can throw at you with a big smile, a clutch of simple words and hummable songs, Morbid Stuff is very much a record for tremendously troubled and troubling times…”
Sunn O))) – Life Metal
“It actually feels like you’re stood in front of a massive wall of amps, absorbing and worshipping the riffs as they drag through the air like a shire horse pulling Stonehenge along behind it…”
Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes – End Of Suffering
“A decade since Grey Britain, Frank Carter’s still here, bloodied but unbowed, still seeking liberation, but asking questions rather than demanding answers…”
The Damned Things – High Crimes
“High Crimes sounds like its creators had a ball making it, and that sense of unconstrained fun and creativity bleeds through it brilliantly…”
Fury – Failed Entertainment
“There’s more to this Californian mob than getting really angry to a knuckle-headed soundtrack…”
Employed To Serve – Eternal Forward Motion
“Employed To Serve are issuing a war cry – not feebly waving their middle fingers, but swinging fists…”
Rammstein – 'Untitled'
“It speaks not only to their integrity but also to the mastery of their art that, from its forehead-slappingly simple cover to its most OTT moments that will scorch the skies live, this is a record made with care, craft, and nothing allowed in that isn’t just-so…”
Frank Iero And The Future Violents – Barriers
“Deliberately disordered and yet so evidently crafted with total precision, Barriers doesn’t so much live up to its title as it does completely go against and destroy everything that very word symbolises…”
YONAKA – Don't Wait ’Til Tomorrow
“An absolutely fantastic debut from a band bursting with potential…”
Full Of Hell – Weeping Choir
“There’s no vague sense of in-it-togetherness, no nudge-wink humour behind the extremity, no desire to be your friend; just a record that kicks and screams at you…”
Petrol Girls – Cut & Stitch
“A challenging record that puts you outside your comfort zone, but that’s the point – to make you sit up and pay attention…”
Amyl And The Sniffers – Amyl And The Sniffers
“11 songs recorded by a band who if they were any more feral, they would be put down…”
Baroness – Gold And Grey
“There’s a focus and singularity of attention that is truly dazzling. It doesn’t deny what has come before, but it doesn’t stand on the shoulders of previous work, either. It is, on its own two legs, an absolute masterpiece.”
Perry Farrell – Kind Heaven
“There are no bum notes and no let-up at all in the overriding sense that its creator, decades after entering the game, has for a second stopped looking for new ways to express his own creativity…”
