Monolithe – Nebula Septem Review
For reasons both unknown and likely unknowable, I am a complete mark for the sort of mathematical and musical formalism with which Monolithe has constructed Nebula Septem. For this seventh album, the seven musicians of …
Primordial – Exile Amongst The Ruins Review
Two facts are indisputable: Primordial is a Very Good Band, and Exile Amongst the Ruins is a Very Bad Album. Maybe those facts seem difficult or painful to reconcile, but let’s face it: great bands …
Summoning – With Doom We Come Review
As someone who loves Summoning unabashedly, here’s a bit of a strange angle to lead with: Summoning is… boring. Or maybe a little more to the point, Summoning’s music is at its best when nothing …
Nortt – Endeligt Review
Most art forms have their own genres, stereotypes, and conventions. A fairly time-worn convention in literature is the idea of the “beach read.” This is typically the sort of book – often lightweight, sometimes trashy, …
Best of 2017 – Dan Obstkrieg: For The Love Of Everything
For most of the year, I found myself thinking, “Huh, it hasn’t been a particularly great year for heavy metal.” Of course, I found myself thinking that while also getting busy listening to a whole …
Krallice – Loüm Review
In a way, Krallice’s music has always struck me as being about listening. Although the quartet’s music is not improvisational, its knotty intricacy and near-constant interlocking and delinking patterns suggests a group of peers in …
Impureza – La Caida De Tonatiuh Review
Look, I love big, important, seriovs heavy metal as much as the next jagoff. Heavy metal with fiery polemics, off-kilter discord, svpremely intellectval paeans to the twelfth sub-level of Satan’s savory succotash, whatever, great. That’s …
Blut Aus Nord – Deus Salutis Meae Review
Just in time for Halloween: what could be spookier than an extremely disappointing album from a typically vital and engrossing artist? Blut Aus Nord’s Deus Salutis Meæ again trudges into the bleak blackened industrial abyss in …