When it’s a slow week for major releases, we tend to branch out and try new bands, some of which come from the small labels who send us promo. Like with all experiments, you don’t really know how it’s going to turn out until it’s over. Sometimes we find some truly awesome gems! And sometimes…well, we find steaming piles dog poo. So how did this week’s experiments turn out? Get listening and you’ll find out.
Reviews: Chevelle – La Gargola (Epic); Khroma – Collapse (Inverse); Neptune – Prelude to Nothing (Earthquake Terror Noise); Pyrrhon – Mother of Virtues (Relapse); So Hideous – Last Poem/First Light (Prosthetic)
Chevelle – La Gargola
Pyrrhon – The Mother Of Virtues
Neptune – Prelude To Nothing
Khroma – Collapse
So Hideous – Last Poem / First Light
The Sideshow Podcast 
I agree that 2014 has been a lackluster year for releases so far. I can’t say that there has even been one album that will make my top 10 list so far this year. But there still seems to be lots of anticipated releases from well-known bands, so there’s plenty of hope still for 2014.
Another thing I’ve noticed that I wanted to point out is that you seem to feel that your goal is to pick 4 good albums to review each week. I think there’s no need to apologize for picking a bad album to review. I can understand that you don’t want to waste your time and money on albums that are bad, and that you want to focus on the good metal music, but that goal might just be too lofty. There simply are not 200 good albums released in a year. And even if there were, they aren’t spread out evenly throughout the year. It’s just not possible to find 4 good albums released each week. And that’s ok. No one expects Siskel & Ebert to only review the good movies.
I agree that Trivium isn’t metalcore. But I will say that “core” seems to have become just a generic suffix for any new metal subgenre, not necessarily one that has to have breakdowns.
I won’t ask you to go back and listen to older Alcest, but I will ask you this: why would you review So Hideous but not Alcest and Deafheaven? I do know why you didn’t review the new Alcest album: because it’s not your thing. So why review So Hideous? Alcest and Deafheaven get the most critical acclaim of any post-black metal/shoegaze, but you passed on them and instead chose to review So Hideous. If you knew you don’t like what is considered the best bands of that subgenre, what makes you think you’ll like some new no-name band in that subgenre? I’m not saying you should have reviewed Alcest and Deafheaven, but knowing that you don’t like those two bands you probably should have skipped So Hideous.
You know what? That is very true. It is also different now when we can play the music. Back when we did that bargain bin review episode, we got some feedback that pretty much was “never do that again.” Reviewing bad music can be fun, but when the the show-listener can’t hear the music, it’s not quite the same. It was also unfortunate that, from our end…and maybe yours…we managed to take up most of an episode with those.
The simple answer: we didn’t have to pay for So Hideous. Long version: we did not have to pay for So Hideous…and we didn’t sample it first to know we shouldn’t have bothered. That being said, I do want to sample the newest Alcest. I am not gonna buy it, but A) knowing what I would be getting into this time, B) after reading about it in Decibel (which gave a deeper look and told me there is not Metal to be found) and C) hearing the parts i liked in So Hideous, I feel like it could give it more of a fair shake via a stream. Also, with Deafhaven, we reviewed their first album and none of us liked it, so even though everybody and their mother were losing their shit over Sunbather, we weren’t gonna fall for it.