Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Album artwork by Harshanand Singh] The third album is in some ways a litmus test for a band’s longevity. Three albums is a sufficient sample size—you can generally tell where a band is headed, whether they’ll last, whether they speak …
[Pre]-historically speaking, the boys, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz, have always been influenced by the likes of Celtic Frost, Bathory, and all things ‘80s. In fact, they don’t shy away from the fact that it’s always been about that era. After …
[Cover art by Quinn Henderson] You’re familiar with the term, “unc,” right? If not, it generally refers to a washed up older feller whose personality in large part revolves around extravagantly performing confusion and/or displeasure at the mere notion of …
[Artwork by Caroline Harrison] “Nonsense” opens with a slow fade-in of distorted guitars and seismic drums — the chaos before the swarm. It’s a trick of the trade, the extreme metal equivalent of a camera operator calling out “speed” before …
[Album artwork by Martin Messner and Patrick Klopf] Perhaps you’ve noticed by now that these Diamonds & Rust treatments have a tendency to dip into a sort of narcissistic form of self-interest when generated by …
[Cover art by Mihály Zichy] There’s certainly nothing wrong with grindcore that sounds like a violent raccoon orgy in a dumpster full of nuclear waste, but I tend to be ever-so-slightly more partial to those …
You do something for thirty-plus years, and you get pretty good at it. Case in point: Finland’s thirty-five-year-old progressive metal wizards Amorphis. After starting out in a more death metal direction, over the last few …
Hello, friends. Everything in the world is still terrible and seemingly getting worse. Nonetheless, it’s time for Staff Infections, our monthly glimpse into the listening habits of the Last Rites staff. Usually I tally up …
It might be hard to believe, but Paradise Lost’s return to their doom/death roots on The Plague Within is now a full decade old. This makes them almost double veterans of their own sound, now …
[Artwork by Ryan Lesser] It starts softly. “Obey Capricorn,” the opener of Slomatics’ eighth album, Atomicult, begins with drummer/vocalist Martin Harvey all by his lonesome. “Behold: the moon, the sun, the stars, the sky,” Harvey …
[Cover art by Grellach] One of the great joys of heavy metal is how often it forces you to learn random things. A little peek behind the Last Rites curtain for you: we have a …
[Album artwork by Aleksandra Pawłowska] Earlier this year, I finally grabbed the limited edition CD reissues of the early works from Montréal, Canada’s very excellent Obliveon—one of those oft-overlooked projects that arrived somewhat late for …
