The Best New Rock Album Releases This Week

Korn - The Serenity Of Suffering

“Suffering is a throwback to Korn’s earlier, heavier records. While their crossover, 1998’s Got The Life, could have filled the floor at any dance club, the re-inclusion of guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch to the band has seen Korn embracing their dense roots and they’re all the better for it.” Read the full review here.

King Crimson - Radical Action To Unseat The Hold Of Monkey Mind

“The key to this live artefact from their critically lauded career-spanning tour that started in 2014 and is still running lies in Robert Fripp’s simple description: “King Crimson… re-imagined”. The seven-piece line-up, featuring three drummers plus Mel Collins (sax, flute) Tony Levin (bass) and Jakko Jakszyk (guitar, vocals), who all have doctorates in Crimsonology, bring the band’s catalogue back to life, producing fresh twists while remaining loyal to the original.” Read the full review here.

Status Quo - Aquostic II: That’s A Fact!

“The Aquostic album saw them performing their back catalogue with a minimal line-up featuring accordions and backing vocals, and it worked brilliantly, highlighting Quo’s rootsier side (and Rossi’s odd knack of writing folky boogie songs). Now they return with a very literal and almost chronological follow-up.” Read the full review here.

The Pretenders - Alone

“An appealingly defiant streak of anti romance runs through Alone, especially the title track, a sloppy garage-blues shuffle with a sardonic lyric about the joys of being single. ‘I’m at my best, I’m where I belong, alone,’ Hynde shrugs in a wry, half-spoken drawl that Lou Reed would recognise. Love takes another cold shower in Never Be Together, a twangy big-band arrangement in which Hynde’s woozy voice oozes eroticised languor, even when knocking back an unsuitable suitor. Sassy, classy and counter intuitive.” Read the full review here.

Syd Arthur - Apricity

“Whether they like it or not, Syd Arthur will never quite be able to escape the legacy of their forebears on the Canterbury Scene. Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield & The North and their ilk have ensured that a certain corner of Kent acts as shorthand for a very English kind of fusion, a malleable interface where prog, jazz, psychedelia and the avant-garde are free to frolic.” Read the full review here.

Steve Hillage - Searching For The Spark

“Hillage’s journey from heavy blues band Uriel, aged 18, and Canterbury scenesters Khan, through his work as a solo musician, up to System 7, is comprehensively charted on this limited-edition (2,500 copies) behemoth. There are glaring omissions – notably, his tenure with Gong, collaborations with Kevin Ayers and Mike Oldfield, and production for everyone from Simple Minds to The Charlatans – but there’s enough to cement his status as a rock Zelig.” Read the full review here.

Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill: 20th Anniversary Edition

“Extreme metal outlaws Pantera were already starting to self-destruct when they made their fourth major label album. Fighting a heroin habit, singer Phil Anselmo began picking fights and pissing off his bandmates with inflammatory public outbursts. But despite being recorded under strained conditions at separate studios, The Great Southern Trendkill proved to be one of the Texas band’s most stylistically ambitious and musically rich works, borrowing some of grunge’s attitude while laying the groundwork for rap-metal.” Read the full review here.

Moby: Why I love Pantera's album The Great Southern Trendkill

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