Notable Recent Rock / Metal Releases, start of Nov 2016

After a little bit of a fallow period, maybe, the last week or two has seen some excellent releases (and some purchases on my part).

Top of the list is Testament - Brotherhood of the Snake : They've been thrashing since the early days of Metallica, Megadeth et al. But I've never paid them much attention, which is my loss. I'm off to see them tonight (Nov 5) along with Amon Amarth and excited about that. If they play this entire album I won't be disappointed, every track has merit. If I can't buy a tee-shirt I will be disappointed, because the artwork is as epic as the music. An easy 5 out of 5 and purchased. [later update: I did get the tee shirt, the sound sucked a bit, which is a shame and often the way with second on the bill. But an excellent show otherwise, a great night.]
★★★★★

I've been looking forward to Graham Bonnet - The Book too. Rainbow's Down to Earth is one of my all-time favourite albums. For me, his voice is up there with Dio's as one of the great voices of Rock. The new songs are quality songs and at (unbelievably) age 68 his voice sounds almost as great as ever. There's a bonus disc containing covers of songs from his history (including three from the Rainbow album). It's become a bit of a trend for artists to re-record classic songs, I'm not sure that it always works, but the ones in question here sound pretty faithful generally. New guitarist Conrad Pesinato doesn't try to do Ritchie Blackmore but does entirely his own thing. The result is some worthwhile new versions of these songs.
★★★★★

Avenged Sevenfold - The Stage : The marketing campaign for this album involved some conspicuous secrecy, I'm not sure that worked because the album hasn't been as well-received as the last one. But I like it, lots of hooks and very listenable. Notable is the final and 15-minute track, Exists, which features a Carl Sagan-type speech from Neil deGrasse Tyson.
★★★★☆


As usual, all music I've listened to goes into my New Rock and Metal releases playlist. Note that I now archive this off to leave only the last couple of weeks-worth in there. For the older ones, see my 2016 rock  / metal releases playlist. Just sort that one by date to see the most recent at the top.