By Greg Maki With “The Stadium Tour” finally underway, Mötley Crüe is officially back in action, playing its first shows since “The Final Tour”—supposedly sealed with a legal contract—wrapped on Dec. 31, 2015. Though known for spectacle and its band members’ outrageous lifestyles—immortalized in “The Dirt,” the book and movie—more than anything else, the Crüe... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki Looking to build off the success of 2019’s “Disguise”—particularly the singles “Brand New Numb” and “Another Life”—Motionless in White has returned with arguably its most complete album to date in “Scoring the End of the World.” Like its most immediate predecessor, the record leans heavily into the hard rock aspect of the... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki With warm weather here and the official start of summer just around the corner, there isn’t a batch of tunes more suitable for this season of good times than “Feel This,” the fourth full-length from Pennsylvania rockers Crobot. In a just world, “Better Times” would be the song of summer 2022, a... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki And now for something completely different … Hear the name Mark Tremonti and you’ll think of Alter Bridge, Creed and his eponymous solo band. Most of all, you’ll probably think of guitars—huge, muscular riffs and shredding solos. I’m reasonably sure that you won’t think of Ol’ Blue Eyes. Mark started talking up... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki After the COVID-19 pandemic wiped away touring—the lifeblood of any legitimate rock band—for more than a year, “Back from the Dead” feels like a restatement of purpose for Halestorm. It sees the band tossing aside its dalliances with pop and country music and finding its way back to its hard-rocking roots. While... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki From classic metal cover act to legitimate metal band of its own to rock radio stalwart, Fozzy has had one of the most unlikely paths to success imaginable. After the 2017 album and single “Judas” propelled the band to new heights, Chris Jericho, Rich Ward and company seem concerned mostly with sustaining... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki No band defined my late-’90s musical tastes more than Stabbing Westward. Something about Christopher Hall’s emotive vocals and the heavy guitars layered on top of dark, electronic rhythms spoke to me. “Wither Blister Burn & Peel” (1996), featuring the hits “What Do I Have to Do?” and “Shame,” made me a fan,... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki While I appreciate its completely uncompromising nature, I’ve never been able to fully embrace death metal. Imagine my surprise then at how much I’ve been enjoying “Corpsegrinder,” the debut solo LP by George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, the voice of Cannibal Corpse, one of the most revered bands in the subgenre’s history. Perhaps that’s... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge has said “Impera,” the band’s fifth full-length, is about the rise and fall of empires, yet even more than that it plays like a celebration of Ghost itself, reveling in all of the over-the-top, bombastic tendencies that have propelled the occult act to the top of the hard... Continue Reading →
By Greg Maki You just can’t keep a good slasher down. Or even one that appeared in a classic, genre-defining film nearly half a century ago and, in the decades since, has turned up in a bunch of underwhelming sequels, prequels and remakes. Old Leatherface—emphasis on “old”—is back in the ninth installment of the “Texas... Continue Reading →
