Generally Impressed With Riffs
To start, let’s acknowledge that you and I don’t really know each other. This means, among other things, that I can’t say what “war metal” means to you. To some extent, maybe you just throw your hands in the air …
Kia ora, compadres. Welcome to the latest edition of In Crust We Trust. Below you’ll find a bunch of ear-wrecking noise to help you process and/or drown out the 24/7 horror show currently occupying our screens. Wherever you are, and …
Cryptworm’s third LP, Infectious Pathological Waste, quite charmingly arrives at the perfect time for yours truly; the deeper, choppier musical waters I’ve been swimming in the past few weeks have made for an often rewarding but exhaustingly challenging adventure. Conversely, …
[Album artwork by Aaron Turner] Neurosis’s willingness to push past the boundaries of metallic hardcore early in their career has influenced scores of bands across a wide range of subgenres. Hardcore, metal, and untold strains of avant-garde and experimental music …
Alright, friends, the world might be going to Hell in a handbasket, but that doesn’t mean you need be deprived of your monthly glimpse into the listening habits of the Last Rites Staff. In other …
[Album artwork by Lena Richter] “Nostalgia is probably overrated, at least the most common notion of it, the poignant sense that ‘what was’ is somehow inherently better than ‘what is’. It’s a lie of which …
[Album artwork by Shindy Reehal] Back in 1978, upon the release of their self-titled debut, Village Voice rock critic Robert Christgau panned Van Halen for making music that “belongs on an aircraft carrier.” It’s one …
Death metal’s primary function is, or perhaps should be, to whip the listener into a good old-fashioned frenzy with riffs aplenty. On Longing Voracity, their sophomore effort, Germany’s Teratoma zealously commit to and meet this …
[Cover art by Eliran Kantor] What exactly do we expect from Immolation at this stage of their career? This is a band whose legacy was set in stone decades ago by their impeccable early run …
Oh, it feels like a million years ago now, but way back in January, I wrote this one up as one of our (meaning, in this instance: “my”) most anticipated releases of 2026, and here …
1. “Stilllllllllaaaaaaaamennnnnntum.” If you love it when a band sings the album title, you’ve hit the jackpot with “Nimbus,” the opening song of Gorrch’s second album, Stillamentum. At the very top of that first track …
To this day, because of the Murderer’s Row of ’80s Bay Area thrash masterpieces, someone, somewhere, is plugging a cheap guitar into an old amplifier for the first time. And someone, somewhere, is cutting the …
