Category: Band Primer
Where Angels Dare To Tread: A Solitude Aeturnus Primer
A case can and should be made for Arlington, Texas doom vets Solitude Aeturnus being in the running for the most underrated classic metal band to ever come out of these United States. True, an …
La Fragua Del Fin Del Mundo: Thirteen Spells Of Chilean Witching Metal
Part I: The End Of The World Chile is nestled between giants. Towering in the east are the Andes, the longest mountain range in the world, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. To the …
Just A Little Of Your Fire: A Dark Quarterer Primer
Dark Quarterer is a heavy metal band from Italy and it’s okay if you don’t know who they are. That fact would probably surprise virtually no one, actually, including the band. If you are already …
Crossing The Fiery Path: Into Thy Mighty World Of Hellenic Black Metal
The importance of Bathory to black metal can never be overstated. By 1990, Quorthon had already laid out the blueprints for every black metal scene of any major relevance, and this was three years before …
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 …
Just At The Edge Of The Light: A Psychotic Waltz Primer
Every passionate music fan has a litmus test band or artist, the one that, when mentioned, signifies the speaker’s legitimate expertise in that area. For a lot of progressive metal devotees that band is Psychotic …
The Seal Of Quality – A Riot Primer, Part 2
The 80s were tough on Riot, even as the band was creating classic metal albums. There were endless line-up changes, contentious dealings with labels, managers, and producers, and mostly, there was a massive disparity between …
The Seal Of Quality – A Riot Primer, Part 1
For those of us who don’t believe in predestination, the past is an endless series of could-have-beens. Every adventure left unchosen branches out in infinite directions, all the possible pasts and futures winding around one …