Manic First Impressions: A Belated Dive Into Anacrusis
Like all of us here at Last Rites — and like most all of you, I would guess — I’ve spent a large part of my life exploring this beast called Heavy Metal. Since my …
Nils Patrik Johansson – The Great Conspiracy Review
Like the oblivious American that I am, I must concede that I was wholly unfamiliar with the killing of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme back in 1986. Catching up now (read: I researched it on …
Stallion – Slaves Of Time Review
When I was a kid just delving into heavy metal, I used to stand in the record store, parked in front of the metal section, and flip through the records and wish I had every …
God Dethroned – Illuminati Review
For the most part, melodic death metal and I do not mix. It’s not that I dislike it, per se, but mostly, I just don’t care about it — it so rarely interests me that …
Skumstrike – Execution Void Review
From the cabinets of Caligari Records comes Skumstrike’s Execution Void EP, released only on cassette and limited to a mere 150 copies. The band’s third overall release, Execution Void is a significant improvement over 2018’s …
Cianide – Unhumanized Review
Sometimes evolution is just unnecessary. Chicago’s gods of caveman death metal Cianide return with their first release in nine years, and only their third in the past twenty. (And even then, Unhumanized is only half …
Best Of 2019 – Andrew Edmunds: One Bird Cannot Make A Bad Pun, But Toucan
And so another year passes, the inexorable march of time… In the grand scheme of things, 2019 was a pretty good year for me, and I hope the same for you. I drank many good …
Oath Of Cruelty – Summary Execution At Dawn Review
Formed in 2010, it’s taken nine years for Houston’s Oath Of Cruelty to muster up their first full-length — it’s been a full five years since their last and only non-demo release, the two-song Hellish …