New Rock / Metal releases - start of Dec 2016

Is there life after a new Metallica release? Yes - there has been some excellent stuff out in the last month.

Light & Shade - The Essence of Everything : If you like epic / symphonic metal, you'll love this. If not, you won't. They do it very well, the orchestral arrangements are brilliant; the songwriting is too, with many hooks. Vocally there's plenty of variation, a mix of growled and powerful female head-voice.
★★★★☆

Beasto Blanco - Beasto Blanco : OTT theatrical stuff - female vocal contribution from Calico Cooper (daughter of) so it's unsurprising there's a noticeable Alice influence. Catchy feelgood stuff with balls.
★★★★☆

Sister - Stand Up, Forward March : Their bio says 'sleaze / punk influenced' the punk is definitely low in the mix. I can hear GnR in there, with a bit more growl. Energetic.
★★★★☆

Chronicles of Israfel - A Trillion Lights Tome II : As you'd guess from the title, this is progressive, conceptual stuff. Very good for when one's in the mood for something more complex but still very heavy.
★★★★☆

Dario Mollo's Crossbones - Rock the Cradle : Hard rock, and very good with it. Definitely a Rainbow / Purple feel to it
★★★☆☆

Hevidence - Nobody's Fault : more hard rock / melodic metal, again from an Italian guitarist.
★★★☆☆

Skalmold - Vogguvisur Yggdrasils : This is Viking stuff very much along the lines of Amon Amarth. The bonus track on this album is a pretty authentic cover of Alestorm's Drink which works so well. This might be upgraded to a 5 with a few more listens.
★★★☆☆

Agenged Sevenfold - Best of, 2005 - 2013 : I wouldn't normally mention a 'best of' but this is too good. If you don't know them, this is one for your Christmas list.


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 more recent ones in there. For the older ones, see my 2016 rock  / metal releases playlist. There's loads in that one now, just sort it by date to see the most recent at the top.