Fast Rites – Volume 12
December always sees the number of new releases considerably decreasing, and heavy hitters certainly dominated the release calendar in recent months. As the end of the year fast approaches, the LR staff’s focus will go toward …
Thanksgiving Turkeys – 2016’s Fowlest Flops
Stand back, because I’m about to drop an idea bomb that you’ll never believe: Some albums are really good, but some albums really suck. Like, really, really, really suck. I know it’s hard to fathom, …
A Devil’s Dozen – Katatonia
With apologies to the poet Wallace Stevens, one might think about Katatonia’s career as something like thirteen ways of looking at melancholy. Few bands have been more single-minded in their pursuit of gloom and creeping …
Battle Royal: Judas Priest vs. Iron Maiden – Two Bands Enter, One Band Leaves
Battle Royal is back and more unfair than ever! In the first installment, we cruelly pitted Metallica against Slayer based ONLY on their 80s output. The result was a dirty tie amongst the LR crew …
Fast Rites – Volume 11
Maybe ‘Back To The Future: Part II’ was merely off by one year? Defying all sound reasoning, the Cubs are the best team in baseball, and good metal releases continue to fall through the cracks. …
A Devil’s Dozen – Vader
Vader. It takes guts to give your band a name like that. Death? The most common thing in the world. Grave? Yeah, everybody has one. But naming your band after the Dark Lord of the …
Gems from the Back of the Fridge, Part 2 – Albums You Might Have Missed in 2016
You again? Hath ye already fully osmosed the first ten treasures imparted upon thine hallowed pates by way of Part 1? Of course you have. Plus, it’s 2016 and our mutual noise addiction requires a …
Gems from the Back of the Fridge, Part 1 – Albums You Might Have Missed in 2016
You have a better chance of living off the cash in your tip jar as an embalmer than you would keeping up with every metal release that shoots across this scene’s radar every year. All …