Category: Features
Track Premiere: Prophetic Suffering – “The Suffering”
Whether it’s called war metal or bestial black metal (or if you’ve come up with a fairly pedantic set of parameters to separate the two), there’s no denying Canada certainly has a hell of a …
Deathsiege – Throne Of Heresy Review
Fast Rites: because sometimes brevity is fundamental. Sometimes you want bands with nuance, and sometimes you just want a band to roll over you with the force of 10,000 hammers wielded by 10,000 cloned Donnie …
Ancient Enemy – The Plague Ship Review
Fast Rites: because sometimes brevity is fundamental. The Bandcamp page of LA’s Ancient Enemy proudly states that they play “down to the gutter” metal. With The Plague Ship representing their first official release, you might …
Diamonds & Rust: 35 Years Of King Diamond’s Abigail
[Cover artwork by Studio Dzyan // Thomas Holm, Torbjörn Jörgenson] July 7, 1777: An individual called Count de LaFey hurls his pregnant wife down a flight of stairs upon discovering the unborn child she carries …
Track Premiere: Cryptae – “Pearl”
There was this kid in my fourth (maybe fifth?) grade class who was smart–I mean exceptionally smart. Xavier was very well spoken, well-read for his age, and extremely intelligent. The teachers mostly left him alone as …
Black, Raw, & Bleeding: Eulogy For The Unfallen, or Summoning The Flame Amongst The Shadows Of The Black Metal Underground
Greetings once again, Travel’rs, to the unhallowed halls of the dungeon beneath Castle Last Rites. This turn of the moon, a candle is set aflame in the darkest corners of the metals most black–not just …
Staff Infections – October 2022
Howdy, friends. It is time for Staff Infections, wherein we, the Last Rites staff, share what we’ve been listening to, you share what you’ve been listening to, and, hopefully, we all come away inspired to …
Diamonds & Rust: Savatage – Hall Of The Mountain King
Like everyone who is lucky enough to survive into adulthood, I was once a teenager. And though I will admit freely that, in retrospect, my teenage years were easier than those of many, nevertheless, for …