Rating: 3.5/5 …

Maybe I’m just an ornery fan who can’t get past a sound shift, but “Warp Riders” has proved to be one of my biggest disappointments of the year. You guys can enjoy the new sci-fi stuff all you want. I’m gonna go listen to “Freya” and “Winter’s Wolves” and continue my worship of Thor and Odin.

Children – “Hard Times Hangin At The End Of The World” released May 12, 2009 on Kemado Records Like their labelmates The Sword, the guys in Children favor retro stoner thrash riffs with NWOBHM noodling reminiscent of Priest and Maiden. However all in all, I’d say their closest parallel is Bison b.c., when you couple all that with their skater punk aesthetic. They play their guts out, but have some goofy fun too (witness song names like “Nuclear Bummer” or their made-up words like ‘unstoked’ (5) and ‘shredtopia’ (6)). They start off with a sweet narrative track (both lyrically [...read more]