Category: Album Reviews

In the hazy crossroads of ’70s heavy blues and modern stoner grit, Germany’s Paralyzed bellow back with Rumble&Roar, their third full-length and Ripple Music debut. Released on May 9, 2025, this nine-track beast clocks in at just over 41 minutes, but it hits like a freight train derailed in a dust storm. Formed in Bamberg in 2019, the quartet—Michael Binder on vocals and lead guitar, Caterina Böhner on organ and rhythm guitar, Philipp Engelbrecht on bass, and Florian Thiele on drums—channels the ghosts of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and The Doors into something raw, infectious, and unapologetically alive.

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In the churning underbelly of Los Angeles’ DIY scene, Agriculture—Dan Meyer (guitar/vocals), Leah B. Levinson (bass/vocals), Richard Chowenhill (guitar), and Kern Haug (drums)—deliver their sophomore salvo, The Spiritual Sound, on October 3, 2025, via The Flenser.

This isn’t black metal’s usual frostbitten nihilism; it’s a fervent, queer-inflected blackgaze ritual that fuses dissonant riffs, shoegaze haze, and post-hardcore propulsion into a demand for presence. Drawing from Zen Buddhism, queer/AIDS literature, and the raw poetry of daily survival—gas station epiphanies, tour-van confessions—the album arcs from Side A’s sky-rending catharsis to Side B’s devotional simmer, a unified grammar of spirit in the profane.

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Daisy the Great‘s The Rubber Teeth Talk, released on June 27, 2025, via S-Curve Records, marks a bold evolution for the NYC-based duo of Mina Walker and Kelley Dugan. Produced by Catherine Marks (known for her work with boygenius and St. Vincent), this 11-track album transforms post-tour introspection into a kaleidoscopic journey through the subconscious. Drawing from distorted dream logic, it blends indie pop’s whimsy with raw emotional excavation, creating a space where grief, desire, and absurdity coexist. Backed by bandmates Bernardo Ochoa and Matti Dunietz, the record feels like a theatrical diary entry—playful yet piercing, theatrical yet intimate.

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In the fluorescent haze of 2025’s rock scene, where algorithms devour authenticity faster than a mosh pit clears space, Chevelle‘s tenth studio album, Bright as Blasphemy, arrives like a Molotov cocktail hurled into a strip-mall confessional. Released August 15 via the indie haven of Alchemy Recordings, this nine-track salvo—self-produced by brothers Pete (vocals/guitar) and Sam Loeffler—marks their first effort since 2021’s N.I.R.A.T.I.A.S. and their post-Epic liberation. Clocking in at a taut 35 minutes, it’s a blistering reminder that these Chicago suburbs survivors don’t chase trends; they incinerate them. At 30 years in, Chevelle channels the same spiritual unease that fueled Wonder What’s Next, but now laced with digital-age venom—think Tool‘s labyrinthine introspection colliding with Breaking Benjamin‘s radio-ready hooks, all marinated in existential dread.

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In the gritty underbelly of modern rock, where nostalgia often masquerades as innovation, Boulder trio The Velveteers carve out a savage niche with their sophomore album, A Million Knives.

Released on Valentine’s Day 2025 via Easy Eye Sound, this 12-track beast clocks in at a taut 43 minutes, channeling the raw fury of ’70s glam-punk and garage revivalism into something fiercer than their 2021 debut, Nightmare Daydream. Frontwoman Demi Demitro, flanked by guitar duties and dual drummers that thunder like an approaching storm, delivers a record born from road-weary vulnerability—one that stabs at personal injustice and emotional rawness with unapologetic precision.

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