Philip Trapp

Philip Trapp is a freelance writer who has written for Loudwire, Alternative Press, HM Magazine, Music Times, and others.

Philip Trapp

Philip Trapp is a freelance writer who has written for Loudwire, Alternative Press, HM Magazine, Music Times, and others.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Featuring Starflyer 59

On Starflyer 59's new album 'Lust for Gold,' frontman Jason Martin reflects on themes of nostalgia, change, and the elusive pursuit of meaning. Despite life's shifts, including his son now drumming in the band, Martin remains in search of the past's "gold," with his music steeped in the yearning that has defined his career.

HM Album Reviews

Weeping Hour

Hunger and Thirst

Weeping Hour is keeping a sonic heaviness surging through underground Christian music; undoubtedly, the Louisiana-based prog-core quintet that arrived on the scene in 2018 is pushing the envelope. Because...

HM Album Reviews

August Burns Red

Phantom Sessions EP/Constellations (Remixed)

Editor’s Note: This is a review of both releases. For a band that hasn’t released a new studio album in a couple of years – Phantom Anthem hit your ears...

HM Album Reviews

Gideon

No Love/No One

Feb. 1 saw the surprise release of No Love/No One, a ferocious two-song EP from work-tough nü-rockers Gideon. Loaded with the barbed-wire laced title track and backed with the...

HM Album Reviews

Impending Doom

The Sin and Doom, Vol. II

The earnest introductory prayer on Impending Doom’s gritty 2007 debut Nailed.Dead.Risen is called “Left Behind,” the title cribbing that of author Tim LaHaye’s doomsday drama-turned-film. Yet the now-prolific Christian deathcore band’s...

HM Album Reviews

Zao

Pyrrhic Victory

“There’s another four or five songs,” Zao drummer Jeff Gretz told us in November 2016 days before the release of the band’s vivid comeback album, The Well-Intentioned Virus. “I...

HM Album Reviews

Your Memorial

Your Memorial

Your Memorial says farewell with this five-song, self-titled EP, and, while the final release from this Twin Cities metalcore act is a bittersweet concept to process, the music couldn’t...

HM Album Reviews

Fleshkiller

Awaken

Fleshkiller may very well be the ultimate Facedown Records band. Leading the label’s 20-year dominion of Christian heavy metal and hardcore into the next era, the international metal supergroup...

HM Album Reviews

Lo Tom

Lo Tom

“Baby can’t do no wrong,” David Bazan sings on Lo Tom’s debut self-titled LP. “I think it’s pretty cool.” The former-and-back-again Pedro the Lion frontman is spinning his well-worn...

The Problem of Pain

Featuring Advent

North Carolina hardcore act Advent returns with ‘Pain and Suffering,’ the band’s first release in over seven years. Vocalist Joe Musten talks to HM about the comeback EP amid the wonder of life, the awe of death, and the inevitable anguish that shapes the interval

Here Until it Changes

Featuring TW Walsh

Singer-songwriter TW Walsh is charting his path through an increasingly insular world, documenting the hazy reveries that come with a culture detached. Feeling out the folkways between fear and liberation, he lays these proofs bare on ‘Terrible Freedom’

HM Album Reviews

Church Tongue

Heart Failure

Indianapolis hardcore band Church Tongue has burst on to the scene with a heart-stopping debut album. Heart Failure sounds downright filthy on first listen, its bombastic, grimy hardcore seeping through...

HM Album Reviews

Hands

New Heaven / New Earth

I must admit, I was caught by surprise when Facedown Records alumnus Hands announced their reunion and an upcoming performance at the label’s annual showcase, Facedown Fest. This spring’s...

Chaos into Peace

Featuring Zao

Signal the apocalypse: Metalcore conduit Zao returns with ‘The Well-Intentioned Virus,’ their first album in seven years -- and their most expansive work to date, where eye-opening depths of life and death unfold

I am Pariah

Featuring Glasslands

Glasslands, featuring former members of Icon for Hire and Beartooth, forge a new path with their inventive blend of heavy and ambiant on their debut release, 'Pariah'

HM Album Reviews

Wovenwar

Honor is Dead

The band's sound and message is best served hot, firing on all cylinders and blasting with their unique combination of aggressively catchy metal. Capitalizing on their surprisingly melodic 2014...

HM Album Reviews

Fit for a King

Deathgrip

Are you ready to die? Is anyone, really? The 89 rock music fans mercilessly slaughtered by ISIL terrorists on November 13, 2015 at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris, France,...

News 14 Oct 16 Zao

Zao to release ‘The Well-Intentioned Virus’ this winter, premiere ‘Observed/Observer’

In Transit

Featuring The Devil Wears Prada

Transition. We're all moving; physics demands it. Nothing stays still. Everything changes. The Devil Wears Prada deftly illuminates those fixed facts of life on the artistically engaging 'Transit Blues,' their sixth album and an imperative post-metalcore masterpiece.

HM Album Reviews

Artifex Pereo

Passengers

Passengers, Artifex Pereo’s latest album, picks up where their 2014 Tooth and Nail Records debut, Time in Place, left off. The Louisville, Kentucky six-piece ensemble plays grandiose prog-alt, usually...

HM Album Reviews

Hope for the Dying

Legacy

There’s a reason Hope for the Dying’s third full-length release was included on HM’s Top 25 Most Anticipated Albums of 2016 list. As one of Facedown Records’ most gifted...

News 8 Sep 16 Hundredth

Hundredth releases two new singles, ‘Dead Weight’ and ‘Victim’

News 26 Aug 16 Twenty One Pilots

Twenty One Pilots remixed by Mutemath’s Paul Meany for Louisiana flood relief

News 17 Aug 16 Impending Doom

Impending Doom hit the studio, resume work on upcoming sixth album

The Inside of Seaside

Featuring Seaside Holiday

Indie electronic band Seaside Holiday share the interplanetary vision for their new album, 'Grand Tours,' and the album's theme of human hopelessness made obsolete by unexplainable, celestial redemption.

News 13 Aug 16 Blood of the Martyrs

Blood of the Martyrs announces indefinite hiatus

HM Album Reviews

Islander

Power Under Control

Power Under Control finds Islander, the Victory Records second-wave nu-metal band, coming into its own. Here, the South Carolina outfit’s frequently-cited P.O.D. and Deftones influences converge with an all-out...

HM Album Reviews

Everything in Slow Motion

Laid Low

Midwestern post-metal band Hands released their swan song, Give Me Rest, in 2011. The group’s magnum opus, a quick look at its liner notes revealed that Hands — at...

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