Christopher McArdle Music News, Reviews, and Poetry

The Alpha Dog Of Albums? Alpha by. War Of Ages Review _______________________________________________________________ Welcome to the latest edition of the "Music Review" blog series. This one comes courtesy of a challenge by the person, or people behind the Instagram tag "aggressiveworshippers" . So shout-out to them for that, and be sure to go follow them if you are a fan anything in the Christian Rock, Metal, and Metalcore genres. Moving on, the review was put as a challenge on their story that read "Is anyone going to do a War Of Ages Alpha review?" . To this point I do not know how many of their 1,600 followers have seen, and decided to write their review along with mine. So let's see if my review can meet what they are looking for. And hopefully it will make it to their page on Saturday! Now, looking at the artwork, I can see why you might think that they are not a "Christian Metalcore" band. But believe me when I say...

The Silent Planet Phenomenon!  A Concert Experience For The Ages ! _______________________________________________________________ Welcome to another installment of my concert blog series. In this installment I will be covering a band that I have wanted to cover for quite some time now. And as the subheading says their set is one to be experienced. The band I am talking about is Silent Planet.  This four piece Melodic Metalcore/Post-Metal band out of Azusa, CA began their musical conquest in 2009. They independently released their first two EP's. The first being "Come Wind, Come Weather" which they recorded in Atlanta with producer Matt Goldman , and released in 2012. They then went on to tour with Dayseeker and Becoming The Archetype . And in between EP one and two they played the 2013 "Scream The Prayer" Tour with bands like Fit For A King , Wolves At The Gate , and Those Who Fear .  Their next EP came in 2014 and this one was titled "Lasts...

Knocked Loose Headliner? __________________________________________________________ Hey guys! Welcome to another edition of my concert blogs. The band for this one comes straight out of Oldham County, Kentucky. Bringing a new age twist to the time honored classic genre known as Hardcore. This five piece band known as "Knocked Loose" came into the hardcore scene in 2013. They released their first studio material with their first record label Little Heart . This was an EP titled "Pop Culture" back in 2014. They released another EP/Split Record with Damaged Goods  on the label No Luck   split with the label Little Heart. And finally in early 2016 the band signed with Pure Noise records and released their first full length album with that label titled "Laugh Tracks" .  Fast-forward to 2018. The band has played shows supporting bands like Every Time I Die , and Comeback Kid . They even played Warped Tour in summer of 2017. Then they embark on their fi...

The Alpha Tour  (War Of Ages, Convictions, and Earth Groans) Welcome to another concert blog here on my page. This one comes from a show that I attended last week. Another one at Scout Bar in Houston where I picked up a photo pass from one of the touring bands. Six were on the cards. Three touring, those are mentioned in the title. And three that are locals. Those are not mentioned here and will not be in this blog post. But going up right before this article is another edition of my "Local Music Spotlight"  and this article will have a link to it down below. With that being said. Let's get on to the touring bands for this article. Earth Groans The first of the three touring acts up was the South Dakota natives in Earth Groans. This four piece, Hardcore-Punk band brings a unique and mustached experience to the stage. Being labelmates on Solid State Records with other Christian bands like Silent Planet, Phinehas, Fit For a King, and Norma Jean . The lat...