Beats & Noisecapes

Dream Theater are making a statement with the new album. This is a new beginning. After Mike Portnoy's departure, this is their second album with guitarist John Petrucci as a producer and the band are keen to demonstrate they're moving forward. Overall the songs are more mid-tempo and melodic. No songs really stand out (though The Enemy Inside - see the video below - has some great riffs), in that sense the album is really cohesive and flows well. I should note the last song in the album though, a twenty minute plus song that is absolutely beautiful and stunning. The musicianship is top notch as you would expect from the band and it's great to see that new drummer Mangini has really settled well into the band. He sounds great. Petrucci's production is flawless, the sound is clean and it's really well mastered with every instrument clear in the mix. Overall, this is an incredibly solid album in an already outstanding discography.  Rating: Heavy Rotation

Placebo's seventh album will probably not make new fans and may disappoint some old fans but the album is refreshingly good, updating the band's sound, heading into a new direction, whilst remaining true to Placebo. The band has matured, it has softened but there's plenty to like here. Album opener Loud Like Love is classic Placebo and it's a brilliant and catchy song. Too Many Friends is a beautiful piece of pop-rock music. Other songs worth mentioning are A Million Little Pieces, Begin the End and album closing Bosco. But the best song in the album must be Hold on to Me. Stuck towards the middle of the album, it shows the more introspective and mellow sound of the band and it's a resounding success; beautiful and uplifting.  Overall, this is a solid effort from Placebo. Some songs offer more of the same and the feeling that you've heard this before but better creeps in. It must be said though that the album have no fillers. No song is a waste. I can'

Ministry are back again. The band seems to have more false endings than Peter Jackson's The Return of the King, but with an album like this, you will hear no complaint for me. From Beer to Eternity is quite simply the most varied album Jourgensen has put together under the Ministry name and it's superb. The opening track Hail to His Majesty (Peasants) paves the way for what's to come. This is a more experimental Ministry that's not afraid to mix lots of elements in one song. Overall the album has a dirty sound, with dark sleaze grooves, electronica, incursions into reggae/dub and the pounding guitars that have become their trademark.  It's hard to pick songs as the songs are very varied and this is an incredibly solid album. My personal favourites are, the Filth Pig era sounding Permawar, the angry brutal Fairly Unbalanced (a kick in the balls directed to Fox News) with The Horror as a dub-like  epilogue, the surprising Lesson Unlearned and the two epics at th

Trent Reznor decided to resurrect NIN and Hesitation Marks is the result. Some fans may not be pleased by the new direction but it stays true to the NIN sound and at the same time goes in a completely new direction for the band. The sound is decidedly electronic more than it has ever been since... well, since NIN's first album Pretty Hate Machine. The anger and abrasive heavy guitars are mostly gone here.  This is NIN at its most dressed down, lean and minimalist. Of course, there's still plenty of complexity in the songs and layers of sounds and beats, but in general this is a very lean and often pop oriented album. Having said that, all the NIN trademarks are still present and the atmosphere is still oppressive. This is a bold new direction for NIN and Hesitation Marks is an incredibly beautiful album, whether it's the incredibly addictive Copy of A, the dark and heavy beats of Came Back Haunted, the upbeat and poppy sounding Satellite, the album offers pl