All posts by Last Rites

GENERALLY IMPRESSED WITH RIFFS

Last Rites’ Best Of 2013 – Combined Staff List

This is the end of the line. Well, not really. There’s still a full two weeks left in the year, and you’re still bracket-busting your way towards crowning a Metal Madness 2013 tournament champion. But as

A Devil’s Dozen – Emperor

Metal fans often seem to have problems deciding what constitutes “true black metal.” Is it lo-fi production and satanic lyrics? Perhaps it’s tremolo guitar riffs and non-stop blast beats. Whatever the essential elements may be,

Is It Worth It? – YOB’s Catharsis: Masters of the Remaster Debate the Reissue

On November 12th, Profound Lore reissued YOB’s sophomore full-length Catharsis nearly ten years to date of its original release. With a spiffy sound courtesy of Tad Doyle and a much-needed art design update thanks to people with functioning eyeballs, Catharsis 2.0 looks

Keep it Short, Stupid- EP Round-Up: November 2013 Part 1

Trying to keep up with all of 2013’s releases is like committing to a filthy second job. Well, your old pals here at Last Rites are ever-so willing to walk directly into the line of

Keep It Short, Stupid – EP Round-Up: November Part 2

Heavy metal’s highway is stacked ten miles deep with bumper-to-bumper short-player traffic in 2013, and we’re doing our best to pick through the releases most likely to land on our readers’ collective radar. Here’s round

Things That Go Blargh In The Night – Songs That Scare Our Scribes

Our friends, coworkers, and subway-squinters-at-our-patches all say the same thing: “Metal? You like scary music.” Like every cut pumping through our cans is nothing but a game of Candyman. To them, we’re frittering away our

A Devil’s Dozen – Type O Negative

All bands (well, most) strive to carve a unique identity for themselves, hoping to notch an eternal scar in their little thread of history. Few succeed. Fewer still can boast that they carved their name

A Devil’s Dozen – Morbid Angel

Let’s get this out of the way: Morbid Angel shat the bed thoroughly with its last album, the title of which we shall not bother to mention. However, rather than reflect on how the mighty