Category: Features
Riffology 103 – The Root Of All Evil
In retrospect, two installments of a column about great metal riffs without featuring a Black Sabbath tune is probably two too many. My bad. Today, I make it right. In this lesson we go back …
Pit Therapy – First Blood: Defenders Of Truth
In our first session of Pit Therapy, we discussed why Agnostic Front is both the greatest and most important hardcore band that has ever lived. In a sense, they’re a stone bookend that is holding …
Riffology 102 – Forensic Clinicism / The Sanguine Article
I hope you all enjoyed your extended winter break, but now class is back in session. In today’s lesson, we will examine a riff from the Carcass composition “Forensic Clinicism/The Sanguine Article”, which is featured …
Reverse Polarity – Lady In Decline
Welcome back, friends, to Reverse Polarity, the overarching goal of which is to highlight albums outside the realm of heavy metal that might nonetheless appeal to the discerning metalhead. These choices may not always be …
Titular Homogeneity – Masque Of The Red Death
So many horror fiction writers have served to inspire heavy metal music. Lovecraft gets the obvious nod, but the works of Edgar Allan Poe, too, have had a great impact on the genre. He was, …
Pit Therapy – Agnostic Front: Kings Of Hardcore
It should be no secret that we here at Last Rites want nothing to go undiscovered. Due to the fact that we’re faced with sorting through so much music, it’s become inevitable that classics might …
RIP Mark Reale of Riot (1955-2012)
On January 25, 2012, Riot founder / guitarist / mastermind Mark Reale tragically lost his lifelong struggle with Crohn’s Disease. The band issued the following statement: “To friends and fans of Mark Reale and Riot, …
Poison Tongues – Pig Destroyer
In this bimonthly column, staff writer Doug Moore takes a very close look at extreme metal lyrics. Some will be serious, some will be silly, but they’ll all go under the microscope. Pig Destroyer is …