Mostly Comfortable
All of this week’s bands are seem pretty comfortable in their own skin. We found, however, a couple need to shed their skin and grow, one is growing just fine, another is in a possible confused puberty stage, while yet another may be regressing in a way that is making us uncomfortable. To further this forced theme of comfort, make sure you listen to Nick’s live review for some, um, interesting moments at Trap Them’s last show.
Reviews:
Toothgrinder – Phantom Amore (Spinefarm)
Axis – Shift (Good Fight)
Cloak – To Venomous Depths (Season of Mist)
Glasslands – Pariah
First Impression:
Machine Head – “Beyond the Pale” from Catharsis out January 26, 2018 through Nuclear Blast
Live Review:
Slow Death, Call of the Void, Trap Them (final show) on November 12, 2017 at Sonia in Cambridge, MA
Update: After recording this episode, we saw the Metal Sucks post sharing the new Machine Head track, and though they were generally more positive about the song, they also offered these words of hope, “That said, we’ve been lucky enough to hear Catharsis in full, and “Beyond the Pale” is one of its more straight-forward tracks… you’re in for a treat!”
Toothgrinder – Phantom Amour
Axis – Shift
Cloak – To Venomous Depths
Glasslands – Pariah
The Sideshow Podcast 
Live review: Allegaeon and Ne Obliviscaris playing what I dub “The Patreon tour” at Le Poisson Rouge in the heart of Greenwich Village. There was an additional opening band that I don’t remember the name of and didn’t pay much attention to because I was too busy checking out this venue that I’d never been to before. It’s normally a jazz and contemporary classical music club, but it reminded me a lot of The Studio at Webster Hall in the size, the relatively low ceiling, the fact that you go down a few stairs to get to it, and the bar on the side. Allegaeon came on and got right to business. I loved that they played all 3 songs of the Proponent for Sentience suit, including part 3 which Speed from Soilwork sings the clean vocals on but in concert all vocals are handled by Riley from Allegaeon. One further note about seeing Allegaeon live: people rarely mosh when Allegaeon is playing. This was my fifth time seeing them live and only twice has there ever been a pit break out during their performance (one time being this show) and both times it was just a little bit towards the end. Then Ne Obliviscaris came on next and were great. They played 4 songs off of their new album Urn and they all came across great and fit right in with the older stuff. And their playing was flawless. I don’t think any of the six band members messed up a single note during their entire headlining set.