By: Philip Sayblack

​This coming Friday, hard rock act Butcher Babies will release its latest album, Nightbloom to the masses.  Set for release Oct. 2 via Judge & Jury Records, the 10-song record (the band’s fifth) is an intriguing presentation.  That is because between its musical and lyrical presentations it is sure to appeal to a wide yet targeted audience all at the same time.  The record’s production puts the finishing touch to its presentation.  When it is considered alongside the noted overall content, the whole leaves Nightbloom a presentation that is worth hearing at least once.

Nightbloom, the forthcoming latest full-length studio recording from Butcher Babies, is an intriguing new offering from the band.  The heart of its appeal is its musical content.  From beginning to end of the 35-minute record, the album’s musical arrangements are sure to keep listeners engaged and entertained.  Right from the outset, ‘Lost in Your Touch’ offers listeners a powerful aggro-rock sound that blends influence of Evanescence with Kittie for a composition whose softer and more aggressive moments collectively make for quite the presentation.  The heaviness continues solidly from there in ‘Sincerity,’ which one could argue presents something of an industrial sound alongside the more melodic hard rock approach.  As the album reaches its midpoint, ‘Are You Waiting Up’ the band switches things up noticeably with a song that blends power metal leanings with that noted aggro-rock style approach for yet another distinct work that is sure to interest listeners in its own right.

The album’s second half continues much in the same fashion as its first half, with more of that solid blend of melodic hard rock and harder edged content, the whole making for a musical presentation that again is sure to appeal widely among audiences.  While the overall musical body of Nightbloom will appeal widely among listeners, its lyrical picture is going to limit its appeal to a very targeted audience.  That is because for the most part the songs featured throughout the album focus primarily on the way too familiar topic of romance and relationships.  Perhaps the one real break from that norm comes in the form of ‘Songbird.’  The album’s eighth entry, this song presents a theme of empowerment; Of overcoming a toxic person.  This as it clearly states at one point, “I hate how you think you can talk to me/As if you can walk all over me/But you can’t talk to me.”  This is a single line but speaks volumes.  It adds, “Songbird/I’m flying away/’Cause I don’t wanna play with you.”  This compliments that previous line well, exhibiting a person who has gained a certain personal emotional strength.

Speaking of emotional strength, that topic is “seconded” so to speak in the album’s finale, ‘Black Dove,’ which finds front woman Heidi Shepherd singing at one point, “Taught to kneel/But I learned to bite/Turned every scar/into sharp insight/I’ve danced on glass/I’ve kissed the blade/You pray for peace/I was never that safe/I’m a black dove/Say it with your chest/Call me wrong/Call me poison/Drunk on guilt/I’m a black dove.”  This is a person taking pride in who and what one has become.  It is a message that is certain to resonate with those noted audiences just as much as the far more prominent tales of personal romantic and emotional struggle throughout the album.  Keeping that in mind, again this overall lyrical picture will find the majority of its appeal among a very specific audience base.  That, together with Nightbloom’s musical presentation is proof of why this record is such a unique presentation.

Putting the final touch to this record is its production.  As noted, the arrangements featured throughout this album does well in blending its more melodic hard rock leanings with heavier sounds and styles.  Those behind the boards are to be commended for bringing the best out of both sides in each song.  For that matter, said individual(s) is/are to be commended for balancing the vocal and instrumental performances in each song.  The two sides compliment each other well throughout.  The result is a general effect that makes Nightbloom worth hearing just as much as the album’s overall content.  Putting all of this in mind, the whole of Nightbloom proves to be a record that, being so intriguing in that mix of content and production, proves worth hearing at least once.
Nightbloom is scheduled for release Oct. 2 through Judge & Jury Records.  More information on the album is available along with all of Butcher Babies’ latest news at:
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Website: https://butcherbabies.com
Facebook: Butcher Babies

By: Vincent Renn

​Mr Asylum throws you on guard to remind you they are not like the other bands out there in the metal genre. Sirens fade and the title track What You Made Me kick straight in to high gear. As the song and title imply, they are what you made them! The album progresses through a dark journey of creation, destruction, pain, suffering, and rebirth into everything your nightmares have ever woken you shivering to. Mr Asylum is 1/3 Alice Cooper, 1/3 Wednesday 13, and 1/3 F’ You, we make our own brand. With Mr Medusa melting you with their lyrics and solid string section, Whiskey On The Shelf dominates the drum skins. Hell is to pay! The back half of the album reminds you, they aren’t the only ones at this twisted Sideshow!! Not since Alice Coopers original masterpiece Welcome To My Nightmare has a group of true artists taken you down the road of insanity. Out of Muncie, Indiana I give Mr Asylum’s album What You Made Me 4/5. I also highly recommend you see them locally now before their touring and big growth inevitably happens soon!

By: Philip Sayblack

For every band out there, every album is that group’s best.  It is an all too familiar line that audiences have gotten from bands across the board for ages.  Sadly, it is a line that holds true less often than one would like to think.  Luckily there are some exceptions to that rule out there and Nonpoint’s forthcoming latest album, The Last Word, is the latest to prove itself that exception to the rule.  Scheduled for release Sept. 18 via the band’s own label, 361 Degrees Records, the 10-song record (also its shortest to date at only 28 minutes), it really is the band’s best full-length studio recording to date.  That is due in no small part to its featured musical arrangements.  The lyrical themes that accompany that musical material adds to that appeal in its own way, as does the collective sequencing and production of the album.  Each item noted is important in its own way to the whole of The Last Word.  All things considered, they make The Last Word a presentation that will leave audiences hoping it will not be the last album from this veteran band.


The Last Word, the forthcoming latest album from Nonpoint, is the band’s strongest record to date.  Its success comes in no small part through its featured musical body.  At points, the arrangements offer a solid blend of familiarity and growth.  At others, the arrangements offer something wholly new and unique.  That whole makes the record’s musical body a solid foundation for The Last Word.  Right from the album’s outset, listeners get that blend of familiarity and growth in ‘Failing the Conversation.’  Guitarists Jaysin Zeilstra and Rasheed Thomas lead the way here, throwing back to the sound and style that really helped Nonpoint break out in 2000 with its debut album, Statement, while building on that to make a work that is wholly its own.  Drummer/founding member Robb Rivera and bassist Adam Woloszyn add their own touch alongside fellow founding member and vocalist Elias Soriano.  The collective performances make this song a solid first impression from this latest outing.


‘Is It,’ ‘The Last Word,’ and ‘Shoreline’ also exhibit that blend of familiar and new, the result being full engagement and entertainment in each work, too.  Meanwhile, a song, such as ‘Dial Tones’ easily lends itself to comparison to works from Discrepancies while also clearly adding a touch of Limp Bizkit.  The duality therein makes this arrangement another easy choice for this record.


As the record reaches its final two entries, ‘Fine Print’ and ‘Settled,’ the band shows more growth than ever, going in a more melodic hard rock direction than ever before.  Again, some hints of the works that the band has crafted in its existing albums are there but more than ever, audiences hear so much growth and change in these final two songs.  The prior conjures thoughts of songs from the likes of Saul and others of its ilk while the latter goes in a full aggro-rock direction that is entirely infectious.  They collectively put a solid period to the album, closing it out just as strongly as it opened.  When these two songs are considered alongside the rest of The Last Word’s arrangements, that entirety makes this album the band’s most focused and honestly best album
to date.


No doubt the musical arrangements featured throughout The Last Word do more than enough to make the album worth hearing.  They are just one of the positives to note herein.  The lyrical themes that accompany the album’s musical material makes for its own appeal.  Case in point is the theme featured in the album’s lead single, ‘Is It.’  Soriano has been cited as stating the song’s lyrical theme centers on a familiar matter.  He explained that the theme herein is one of a person’s inner struggling, wondering if what one has done was enough or too much.  In other words, was trying to help really a good thing in the end or was it more detriment.  Everyone has reached that moment at one point or another at least once in life if not more times.  The message is well-illustrated as Soriano sings in the song’s chorus, “Am I to blame/Am I to blame for/Is this just another reason/For me to be/Justified/to be so outta control?/Didn’t wanna have to break it to you/Didn’t wanna have to be the one to tell you/Didn’t wanna make a problem/Anybody?/I mean anybody/Help me with an explanation.”  Here is that inner turmoil that so many have faced in various situations delivered so clearly.  Keeping that in mind, this theme is familiar and accessibly delivered, clearly making it an example of the important of the album’s lyrical themes.


‘Red Yeti,’ the album’s second single, is another important example of the place of The Last Word’s lyrical themes.  In the case of this song, it comes across as being a call for listeners to let go of the past and just move on.  This is inferred in the song’s lead verse and chorus, which find Soriano rapping, “I replayed the clip a thousand times/I watched you sink up to your eyes/Tried to kill the noise/but the echo stayed/Try to do the math/You can watch me laugh/I scared the kids/And ghosted through/I let one off/And cleared the room/Speaking in codes/Now you got me red/Phone was making noise/’Cause the line is dead/Snow won’t cover these tracks/What’s gone is gone/And it won’t come back/Life that you’re hanging by a thread/Shed every bad feeling that’s running through your head/Red Yeti.”  Those lines in the lead verse are complimented by Sky Sweetnam adding her own touch, essentially saying to people who had done wrong in the past, she is moving on past them.  This as she adds at one point, “I left the cage/Said f*** the zoo.”  That zoo is the “wild” of the negative people and factors of the past.  The rest of the song follows in similar fashion.  To that end, the message here is one of familiarity that is certain to connect with audiences in its own way thanks to its own accessibility, too. 


‘Fine Print,’ the album’s penultimate entry, is yet one more way in which the album’s lyrical content proves so important.  Full discretion, having no lyrics to directly reference, not all of the lyrics could be fully deciphered.  Soriano opens by singing, “Make sure you read all the fine print/Sure you make up your mind with…Sure you get what you came for/What you’re willing to trade for/Everything that you paid for/Is enough to fool you twice/’Cause they’ve got promises, promises/I know something is wrong with this/I don’t know what will become of this…”  Lyrics really are needed for much of this, but even with that being the case, the chorus sees a refrain at least twice, seeming to hint at a message of not letting oneself be fooled by anyone or anything in life.  If that is in fact that case, then it is another message that is sure to resonate with listeners in its own right, further showing the importance of the album’s lyrical themes.  When this seeming message is considered along with the others examined here and that group with the rest of the album’s lyrical content, that entirety makes for just as much reason for audiences to take in The Last Word as the album’s musical arrangements.


Putting the final touch to the whole of The Last Word is its collective sequencing and production.  From beginning to end of its nearly 30-minute run time, the album’s sequencing changes things up just enough to keep things interesting.  This applies to the album’s musical and lyrical content alike.  The album opens and closes with a pair of pummeling works that hold their own alongside the rest of the record’s musical arrangements.  From there, the album keeps the energy on high as each arrangement changes the vibe and style from one to the next.  In regard to the lyrical themes, they change just as much, adding another layer of enjoyment. 


The record’s production ensures through so much heaviness and energy that no one band member’s performance overpowers the work of his fellow musicians.  The result therein is a fully positive aesthetic impact.  Between the positive production and the sequencing, that whole offers The Last Word a fully positive general effect that, when coupled with the album’s overall content, completes the presentation.  The positive of all involved leaves The Last Word easily one of this year’s top new hard rock and metal albums and hopefully not the last of Nonpoint’s albums anytime soon.
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The Last Word is scheduled for release Sept. 18 through Nonpoint’s own label, 361 Degrees Records.  More information on the album is available along with all of Nonpoint’s latest news at:
Website: https://nonpoint.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nonpointofficial
Twitter: Nonpoint (@nonpoint) on X

By: Breanna Workman

Twenty years after their debut Motionless In White launched their seventh studio album, cunningly titled Decades following the release of Scoring the End in 2022. Ahead of the album’s release, Motionless gave fans a taste of what was to come with a series of standout singles. Beginning with my personal favorite, “Afraid of the Dark”—notably, the band’s first-ever No. 1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Songs chart—followed by “Playing God” featuring Corey Taylor, and “R.I.P.” featuring Skylar Grey.

It came as no surprise that the band continued their momentum, with each single reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. But the chart-topping momentum didn’t stop there. Just weeks after the album’s release, “Fight Like Hell” joined the ranks, becoming the fourth song from Decades to reach the No. 1 spot The early success of these tracks set the stage for the album’s impressive chart run. Decades peaked at No. 15 on the all-genre Billboard 200, marking the band’s
seventh consecutive album to make the chart. While the numbers tell the story of Decades’ commercial success, they merely scratch the surface of what makes this such a standout album for the band.

Decades is supercharged with a mix of heavy instrumentation and synth-pop influences while still preserving the band’s core identity. This combination allows the album to showcase the growth of Motionless In White while maintaining the dark, theatrical sound that has defined the band throughout their career. The result is an album that feels both familiar and fresh. Both “log_in//crash_out” and the title track, “Decades,” kick off the album with formidable weight, leaving riff-hungry fans hyped and ready for more. The intensity then takes a step back with “R.I.P.” featuring Skylar Grey while simultaneously maintaining the atmosphere offered by the album.

The most compelling track for me— and many other listeners— was track eleven of thirteen titled “Afraid of the Dark.” Segments of the song made rounds on social media for a moment highlighting the lyrical depth found throughout the album. When speaking on the single, Chris Motionless explains the track is about seizing your destiny and shaping your own future without fear or hesitation.

With four No. 1 hits and another Top 200 album under their belt, Decades proved to be more than a celebration of the band’s two-decade career—it was another milestone in Motionless In White’s continued rise through the hard rock scene. More than anything, it serves as a reminder that the band is more than capable of standing tall, continuing to evolve, and overcoming whatever challenges are thrown their way.