Pink Military - "Do Animals Believe in God?" : Great early 80's post punk/new wave from Liverpool after Big in Japan called it quits. They didn't do much beyond a few Peel Sessions recordings and this LP unfortunately. Sonically, it's not too unlike Siouxsie and the Banshees with a bit of their own twist. They didn't do much after this either but change their name to Pink Industry and get accused of ripping off the Cocteau Twins a lot. Worth a listen if you're into this kind of thing.
Triumvir Foul - "Spiritual Bloodshed" : Without question, my favorite death metal release of 2017. Perfect mix of Ross Bay Cult insanity with early American death metal thrown through the most dense and suffocating production. This is their return to form - pure darkened death metal.
Convict - "Barred Life" : I've said it before, and I'll say it again - second only to the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest has the best hardcore/punk in the United States. Mean as hell hardcore in the vein of Poison Idea, Sheer Terror and the Inmates. Wish this band put out more material.
Black Sabbath - "Born Again" : Let me preface this by saying anything released after Ozzy left the band is not Black Sabbath. That includes the mediocre Dio records a lot of you cool guys want to pretend are better than the Ozzy era. For an album that is essentially combining two of the original heavy metal masters, this album has no business being as shitty as it is. Aside from the breathtakingly fucked artwork they settled on, Ian's vocals sound like a budget version of Rob Halford's. Musically there's almost no trace of the doomy atmospheres they created on prior records, and if there was the production would've surely killed that too. I guess the one highlight on this album for me is "Zero the Hero" - this song is a certified ripper and if the whole album would've carried on in this vein I think the album would've grown on me. Instead, it still sucks and sounds even worse than I remembered.
- WOODS