“Fauna” is Haken’s best work since Affinity, perhaps even since The Mountain. Evoking the animal kingdom as thematic ruminations on the human condition, the band has crafted an engaging series of musically-rich tableaux, with content often both puzzling and precipitating, but always entirely compelling. “Fauna” is a fantastic record that bridges many of the band’s eras whilst forging ahead along their unique evolutionary trajectory.
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A love letter to the classic innovative rock of the early/mid 1970s, “Golden Age of Music” pays tribute to acts like Sweet, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Bowie, T. Rex, Budgie, Rainbow, Queen, and Black Sabbath. Arjen Lucassen and Supersonic Revolution deliver big, loud, larger-than-life epic hard rock that engagingly evokes the highlights of the band’s 1970s rock influences, without giving in to the temptation of directly recreating them.
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In honor of the 40th (!) anniversary of Iron Maiden’s classic 1983 album Piece of Mind — a landmark New Wave of British Heavy Metal record (and that of heavy metal in general) — I’m reprinting a review I wrote at Hokeyblog about ten-and-a-half years ago. This album meant the world to me at age 12. Forty years later? Hasn’t missed a freakin’ piece.
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“Brass” is an infectious and often surprising transmogrification of blues, funk, and prog elements into a satisfying whole. Brass Camel delivers a wondrous slab of sonic wizardry, channeling fireballs of rock’s epic past but weaving them into an eccentric yet intoxicating new vision.
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If you’re aligned with a convergence of 1972-ish Sabbath and Floyd, 90s indie rock/grunge, and whatever else The Sleeping Legion tossed into this bubbling sonic cauldron of creepy concordance, “The Last Transmission” delivers an epic psychedelic doom metal ride of cosmic terror and sci-fi derring-do.
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