NEW MUSIC OUT TODAY: 6/03/2008

Executive Editor Brandon Geist’s quick takes on the new albums hitting record stores on this day of our lord, June 3, 2008:

B’S PICK: A Storm of Light - And We Wept the Black Ocean Within (Neurot)
So a member of Neurosis (albeit the dude responsible for their visuals, Josh Graham, also of Battle of Mice and formerly of Red Sparowes) makes an album that sounds a helluva lot like Neurosis and puts it out on the label run by Neurosis. Basically, if you love Neurosis, as I do (though not as much as Neurosis apparently love themselves), you’re probably gonna like this quite a bit.





Alesana - Where Myth Fades to Legend (Fearless)
Come on, kids, just stop it with this singing/screaming bullshit—especially if by “singing,” you mean whining like a preadolescent girl. What the hell happened to the good ol’ days when metal dudes actually sounded like dudes?

Disturbed - Indestructible (Warner Bros.)
There’s nothing as catchy as the wah-ah-ah-ah-ah! monkey-sound that opens “Down with the Sickness” on this, Disturbed’s latest album, but it’s still the perfect soundtrack for some backyard wrestling.

Opeth - Watershed (Roadrunner)
I was totally into Opeth’s Blackwater Park back when that record came out, but since then, I’ve really lost interest. It just kinda seems to me that these Swedish folk-death noodlers are pulling the same lame singing/screaming trick as all the much-maligned metalcore bands (see Alesana above), but just doing it for pretentious prog nerds instead of little kids in angular haircuts.


Vayden - Children of Our Mistakes (Silent Majority)
Not-very-alternative-at-all alt rock for fans of Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, and whatever other boring-ass bands are ruling rock radio nowadays.

Your Highness Electric - The Grand Hooded Phantom (Longhair Illuminati)
Bizarro stoner emo prog—kinda like if Coheed and Cambria had a hard-on for Clutch instead of Rush. Three and a half stars outta five in the current issue of Revolver, which sounds about a star over for me.