20 albums which filled up concert venues, personal play lists and music news. Or deserve to.
Not a top 20, in order of release.
Psychic Lemon, Turnstile, Ministry, Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails, vert:x, Tom Morello, Soulfly, Sick of It All, Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons, Cher, Jack White, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Greta Van Fleet, Dead Cross, The People The Poet, Mike Patton, A Perfect Circle, Daughters, IDLES
Psychic Lemon – Frequency Rhythm Distortion Delay
UK’s Psychic Lemon is a band where brains and imagination meet artistic precision and craftsmanship. This second release pursue the assenting path they’ve secured for themselves with the debut album and creates feverish anticipation of more Psychic Lemon experience.
Released: January 12, 2018 and on vinyl by Tonzonen Record
Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons – The Age Of Absurdity
With ‘The Age Of Absurdity’, Phil Campbell’s Motorhead, his three sons – Todd, Dane and Tyla and the vocalist Neil Starr may not sail inot uncharted territories but don’t lack originality either. A fresh and powerful debut album, build on Phil Campbells’ decades of experience and enormous respect for rock ‘n’ roll.
Released: January 26, 2018 on Nuclear Blast Records
Turnstile – Time & Space
Turnstile formed in 2010 in Baltimore and have conquered the hardcore punk music scene with dynamic live performances and uncompromising attitude. Their second release ‘Time & Space’ is full of songs which will make great material for their frenetic shows. It’s fast and furious, with explosive vocals, intense energy and raw power, pushing the boundaries of the genre.
Released: February 23, 2018 on Roadrunner Records
The People The Poet – A Short Obsession with Time
One of Phil Campbell sons, Tyla, plays also guitar in a band called The People The Poet (formerly known as Tiger Please). Their latest album is a collection of songs around the main theme of childhood and growing up, with story-telling and thought-provoking songs that switch between up-tempo tones to more melodical rock adventures.
Release date: February 23, 2018 on AntiFragile Music
Ministry – AmeriKKKant
In the year 2018 we find USA with a lousy president and Ministry with a great album. Coincidence or not (sic!), Amerikkkant is powerful, politically engaged album, reminiscent of Ministry’s masterpieces of the ‘90s to the extent where it can be recommended as introduction to Al Jourgensen’s genius.
Released: March 9, 2018 on Nuclear Blast
Stone Temple Pilots – Stone Temple Pilots
The second self-titled album of Stone Temple Pilots (I haven’t even know that such thing is possible), after they found themselves without Scott Weiland who died in 2013 following drug related issues and Chester Bennington who committed suicide last year. Together with their new vocal Jeff Gutt, they released an ‘back to basics’ album which does not reinvent the wheel, but it’s well-done and highly enjoyable. The vibe is excellent and keeps up the desire of seeing them live.
Released: March 16, 2018 on Rhino
Jack White – Boarding House Reach
The third studio album of Jack White it’s arty and it’s messy, but it’s rich and layered, taking the typical White sound and combining it with White’s worship for classic genres and for himself, experimenting with blues and rap, funkadelic and industrial, acid funk and freestyle piano, in an ambitious artistic approach.
Released on March 23, 2018 on Third Man Records
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Sex & Food
Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a psychedelic rock band based in New Zealand and active since 2010; Sex & Food is their fourth studio album. The title may be misleading as the themes approached are not at all prosaic; instead, Sex & Food focuses on the newly needs of our recent society and the state of the world today, tackling with a rather poetic approach, the alienation or the impact of the new technologies in modern lives .
Released: April 6, 2018 on Jagjaguwar
A Perfect Circle – Eat the Elephant
First album in 14 years for Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel’s supergroup, a successful comeback album even if it has a much more mellow sound than expected. Maynard described in interviews the accountability and the need for humans to reconnect and assume personal responsibility as main themes of the album.
Released: April 20, 2018 on BMG
Dead Cross – Dead Cross (EP)
The American hardcore supergroup Dead Cross featuring Mike Patton and ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo released a self-title EP this year. The album, which came out as a surprise for the fans, includes two new songs and two remixes from their previous also self-titled album.
Released: May 2, 2018 on Ipecac Recordings
Nine Inch Nails – Bad Witch
A few years ago, Nine Inch Nails announced an upcoming trilogy, a promise delivered in 2016 with ‘Not the Actual Events’, followed by ‘Add Violence’ in 2017, joined now joined by ‘Bad Witch’, a record that implodes, expands and explodes in many styles, from free jazz and saxophone (played by Reznor himself) to electronica and blasting industrial. In addition, it is partly inspired by the work done for David Bowie on Blackstar.
Released: June 22, 2018 on The Null Corporation and Capitol Records
Mike Patton – 1922 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Mike Patton released on album the soundtrack to 1922, the Netflix original movie based on a Stephen King novel. His sounds accompanied on screen the creepy story of a man who admits killing his wife with his son in Nebraska and is left being terrorized by what he believes it’s his wife haunting him.
Released: July 20, 2018 on Ipecac
vert:x – death to false motorik
The year 2018 meant a new line-up and a new album for vert:x, and a move towards more experimental territories where music and noise became a mixture plugged into different frequencies. Unfortunately, ‘death to false motorik’ represents also as the last album to appear under the name vert:x. Nevertheless, vert:x’ resonance already resurfaces into different other respectable projects, such as xond or v:x. False motorik is dead, but long live vert:x.
Self-released on August 5, 2018
IDLES – Joy as an Act of Resistance
Idles is an English punk rock band formed in 2011 in Bristol. In 2017, they released their debut album ‘Brutalism’, which brought them critical acclaim and quite a nice fan base. This year, they came back with ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’, which is an album that delivers their political convictions via an intelligent insight built on an eclectic mixture of punk and post-punk influences and witty and socially charged lyrics.
Released: August, 31 2018 on Partisan
Cher – Dancing Queen
Cher’s ABBA covers album follows Cher’s appearance in the ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ musical. It received positive reviews and a tremendous commercial success all over the world. An album that deserves to be mentioned also because Cher sounds as better as ever while she is 72 year-old.
Released: September 28, 2018 on Warner Bros.
Tom Morello – The Atlas Underground
‘The Atlas Underground’ is the only Tom Morello album so far released uniquely under his own name. It features a vast list of guests coming from so many different musical areas, therefore the result is a sound that merges guitar riffs, electro-pop and rap freeform to the point where it’s extremely difficult to categorize the record as belonging to a certain genre. A bold album trying to walk in new fields by swinging among various styles.
Released: October 12, 2018 on BMG
Greta Van Fleet – Anthem of the Peaceful Army
It’s fascinating to see the critics of Greta Van Fleet oscillating to the extreme between calling them a fraud or a spike of genius. They may be some Led Zeppelin copycats, yes … but how much courage a band must have to touch those music monsters and how talented they have to be to do it so right? The album is both a wonder and a mystery. It doesn’t address the question on whether their artistic endeavor has a future, but it definitely acknowledges that it has a past and present.
Released: October 19, 2018 on Republic
Soulfly – Ritual
With their eleventh album, Soulfly are going back to the primitive, getting as close as they could get to their classic albums, building up on their well-established sound of groove metal mixed with tribal drums. Ritual is undoubtedly one of the best albums in their catalog.
Released: October 19, 2018 on Nuclear Blast
Daughters – You Won’t Get What You Want
I have never heard about Daughters before this release; ‘You Won’t Get What You Want’ seems to be their first album in 8 years and since they got back together. It’s a noise experimental and unconventional project, released via Ipecac Recordings, and which has gathered a lot of praise in the metal and mainstreams communities all together.
Released: October 26, 2018 on Ipecac Recordings
Sick of It All – Wake The Sleeping Dragon!
NY’s hardcore punk veterans Sick of It All have never fallen into the trap of living on past glory. Despite more than three decades of activity, SOIA continuously delivered intelligent and thought provoking albums at raging hardcore pace. And ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon!’ makes no exception. A politically charged album from start to finish, with witty titles for the songs, tackling every kind of problem with the world today, highly energetic and fuelled on musical aggression.
Released: November 2, 2018 on Century Media
