Review of Gangsta Stripper Music 2 by BeatKing

Loving the rainbow! Gay pride all the way!

Sexually explicit inane lyrics. Check. Obnoxious 808 bass drums. Check. Autotuned and pitched down vocals. Check. Staccato flows that sound like someone's having an asthma attack. Check.

Review of 'Once More 'Round the Sun' by Mastodon

Album artwork of the year!!!

'Hey ho, hey ho, let's get up and rock n' roll!' sing a load of children on the eighth track, 'Aunt Lisa'. Seriously, is my hearing playing up? Did that just happen? That's the corniest thing I've heard since Beyonce and Jay-Z's duet 'Drunk in Love'. Pass me a sickbag!

Review of 'Ultraviolence' by Lana Del Ray

Excuse me whilst I slit my wrists...

Review of 'New Eyes' by Clean Bandit

‘So you think electronic music is boring. You think it’s stupid. You think it’s repetitive. Well … it is repetitive’. Whose idea was it to open the album up with this quote? If people didn’t think electronic music was stupid they will now.

Why are heavy metal music videos recently so obsessed with LARPing?

LARPing (Live Action Role-Playing) is an activity in which a bunch of nerdy adults dress up in fantasy/historical costumes and fight mock battles against one another. I didn’t know it was a thing until sludge metal band, Red Fang, introduced it to me in their 2010 music video for ‘Prehistoric Dog’. Watch it below:

For some inexplicable reason this niche activity seems to have become the focus of several other metal music videos recently, the latest being Mastodon’s ‘High Road’. Is this purely an accidental trend? Are metal bands conspiring together to promote LARPing? Will LARPing become a future component of all heavy metal music videos? 

Protest the Hero pit Trekkies against Jedi Junkies.

Mastodon's brand new single. This one's even got a storyline and jeez it's pretty emotional.

Arthurian LARPing in quite possibly the worst/most hilarious music video I've ever seen. That scream at 2:15 is my favourite part. Do watch this video. It's genuine comedy gold.

Oh, wait this isn't even metal. Looks like LARPing is crossing musical boundaries. Which genre next - trap rap?

Review of 'Esoteric Warfare' by Mayhem

This is pure black metal for black metal purists. Mayhem don’t expect everyone to get this as demonstrated by the album title. ‘Esoteric’ means ‘intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.’ I had to Google that. Black metal expands one’s vocabulary!

Review of 'Reality Testing' by Lone

Matt Cutler AKA Lone is a wizard and a godsend to electronic music. Using every production trick in the book, he specialises in creating the most warm, summery, feelgood instrumental landscapes audially conceivable.