Two Cent Review: 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker)’s ‘РЛБ30011922’ (Skopofoboexoskelett)

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

And the winner for this year’s most difficult-to-pronounce band name and album title belongs to … 夢遊病者 and their album РЛБ30011922. The production is raw, the experimentation unlimited and the sound just about as atonal as music can get. But sing-songy guitar passages and merciful breaks allow the listener to catch their breath and, like a good workout, push through what is ultimately a very rewarding listen that will make music fans who thrive on challenging themselves all the stronger for it. Read my full review at Treble.

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Amorphis Bassist Says It’s Impossible for AI to Create ‘Real Metal Music’

Posted in Interviews, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Olli-Pekka Laine, founding bassist/backing vocalist of the greatest progressive metal band to ever come out of Finland – Amorphis – sums up the act in one word: “professional.”

“Amorphis is a really professional band, so we don’t actually [need to] rehearse that much,” he told The Bad Penny yesterday. “We only rehearse when we enter the studio, right before that, and before the shows, of course. But I’d say that we probably … rehearse … maybe one or two times a year, maximum.”

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Strange Passage’s ‘A Folded Sky’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

What makes Strange Passage from Somerville, Massachusetts, strange in the raddest of ways is that their take on psych-rock is tight and precise, and their songs are well considered from melody and flow to texture and tone. Read my full Treble review here.

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On Tyranny: Transcending Obscurity Works Around Trump’s Tariffs With Innovative Move

Posted in Features, News, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

It doesn’t take an economic genius to know that Donald Trump’s deranged obsession with tariffs – a fixed charge on an imported good that citizens of the country importing the good ultimately bear the cost of paying – is wreaking havoc on America’s economy. Not to mention the economies of many other countries across the world.

The policy is so plainly dumb and illegal – it’s the U.S. Congress that authorizes tariffs, not the executive branch – that it appears likely even the U.S. Supreme Court, which has failed to rein in Trump to the severe, perhaps irreversible detriment to our country – is going to strike down Trump’s unilateral move, which appears to be the only be the only kind he can make due to, you know, that whole separation of powers thing. (Hence the reason why this post is part of our On Tyranny series.)

Anyway, one of The Bad Penny‘s favorite record labels – Mumbai, India-based underground extreme metal specialists Transcending Obscurity – declared Monday that they’re executing a workaround to Trump’s moronic policy.

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The Bad Penny’s Top 50 Best LPs of 2025, Pt. 1: Sharon Van Etten, Spy, Turnstile, Swans, Cloakroom

Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

A lot of fucked-up up shit happened in the U.S. this year. Way, way too much of it. For many of us Americans who actually carry values in our hearts instead of bloviating about them or slapping bumper stickers on our monster trucks, it was almost too much to bear.

Fortunately, 2025 also saw the release of a staggering number of stellar records, which made the year a little more … well, bearable. Hence, for the first time ever, The Bad Penny is deviating from its usual annual tradition of limiting out favorite listens to just 10 and breaking them into a five-part series containing 10 records per installment.

What follows is the first batch.

41. Sharon Van Etten – & the Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)

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Paz Lenchantin’s ‘Triste’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Whatever you were expecting from a solo album by A Perfect Circle and Zwan collaborator Paz Lenchantin, you won’t be prepared for what you hear when you press play. Read my full review of Lenchantin’s Triste at Veil of Sound, one of Germany’s premiere sources for alternative, experimental and heavy music, with a particular predilection for post-rock, black metal and krautrock.

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On Tyranny: Singer/Songwriter Robert Deeble Claims ‘Faith-Based Social Justice Work Has Been Lost,’ Creating Power Vacuum for Autocrats

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck


Seattle singer-songwriter Robert Deeble has a lot on his mind these days, and it isn’t just his seventh record, The Space Between Us, which is planned for release Feb. 6 through his own Mind Bomb Publishing imprint. Nay, the socially attuned, voracious reader, prolific musician and contemplative in the truest sense of the world is trying to gather what he gained from spending four years mostly in isolation – but with some help with trusted collaborators. They include bassist Viktor Krauss (Allison Krauss/Robert Plant), drummer Lacey Brown (Damien Jurado) and producer Ric Hordinski (producer, string arrangements, guitar).

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Fimbul Winter’s Ex-Amon Amarth Members Name Their Favorite Amon Amarth Songs

Posted in Interviews, Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , on 11/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

A new band named Fimbul Winter is here to deliver fresh songs that hearken back to the earlier sound of Amon Amarth, much like the Halo Effect is doing for those longing for what many consider to be the peak albeit bygone era of In Flames. Also similar to the Halo Effect, Fimbul Winter have cemented their legitimacy and ensured they’re not merely a bunch of wannabes by featuring some of the most important musicians that Amon Amarth has counted in its ranks over the past three-plus decades.

They include founding members Anders Biazzi and Niko Kaukinen, who play guitar and drums, respectively, for Fimbul Winter; and another ex-Amon Amarth member, Fimbul Winter’s lead guitarist Fredrik Andersson (who recently shared with us a poignant memory of recently deceased At the Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg). Rounding out Fimbul Winter’s lineup is vocalist Clint Williams of Munitions note. The Bad Penny caught up with the majority of Fimbul Winter’s lineup last month, ahead of the band recently releasing its five-song debut EP, What Once Was.

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On Tyranny: Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum Laments Trans Exodus From US, Loves Zohran Mamdani, Details Witnessing ICE Brutality

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

“I feel, like, not so complacent, but enthused, honestly, in a great way. I feel good. It’s my job. I’m an artist, and that’s kind of what I need to do. I need to provoke and I need to demand answers and I need to challenge things.”
-Roddy Bottum

—

With his new memoir The Royal We out now, I recently spoke with Roddy Bottum of Faith No More, Imperial Teen and Man on Man fame about a very wide range of topics. Read some of them in my FLOOD feature and my Bad Penny story (in which he recalled a bizarre incident involving his paranoid ex-girlfriend Courtney Love).

In this part of the interview, part of The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series, Bottum shares his first-hand accounts about the shameful and horrific acts occurring in the United States: the exodus of trans people leaving out of well-justified fear; and ICE attacks on immigrants, demonstrators and U.S. citizens.

But Bottum also discusses what he sees as a silver lining: The recent election of Democratic-Socialist Zohran Mamdani as the youngest-ever and first Muslim mayor of New York City. Here’s that portion of our wide-ranging conversation:

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Pet Sounds #72: Sorry, Dudes and Dudettes – Your Dog Probably Doesn’t Appreciate You Playing Metal or Punk

Posted in Features, Interviews, Pet Sounds with tags , on 11/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Taking a break from our normal routine of chatting with musicians and our pets, we shifted the focus of Pet Sounds to whether your dog likes the same music you do. If you’re into soft indie-rock or meditative sounds, you’re probably in the clear; if you think your pooch wants to head-bang or mosh along with you to metal or punk, brace yourself for some bad news.

The Bad Penny recently spoke with Natalia Shahmetova, CEO & founder of a new app called “Woofz,” about this subject. Try not to get upset, fans of heavy music, but Shahmetova disclosed that: “Small or anxious dogs settle with acoustic, soft indie and warm tones. In our playlists, we use tempo as the guiding principle: music that fits the dog’s natural energy level tends to work best.”

Read our full interview after the jump.

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