Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Album artwork by Maciej Kamuda] I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese culture, but more importantly, I admire its people. That fascination has persisted throughout my life, stemming from childhood when I was just captivated by the beauty and courage of …
It’s been a minute since I’ve committed any significant amount of time to listening to doom. Any doom, really. From anywhere. Of any type. And not because there hasn’t been great doom the past few years. Rather, my attention has …
[Cover Art by Daniel Karlsson] Februus is a one-man project driven by the prodigious and still developing talents of Sweden’s Andreas Karlsson. His latest, Construction of Conflict, delivers 40 minutes of guitar-centric death metal that, despite being packed to the …
There’s much more than this plane of existence. Are you willing to listen? A few years ago, one of the more obscure bands on my year-end list happened to be Germany’s Ch’ahom and their debut full-length LP Knots of Abhorrence. …
Imagine waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror only to see the face of Vegard Sverre Tveitan looking back at you. Imagine the pressure of knowing that you were responsible for Emperor’s …
[Album artwork: Andreas Marschall] Gelsenkirchen, Germany, early 1980s: A young Thomas Such finds himself not particularly taken with the notion of spending a perfectly good life buried in the depths of the local coal mines. …
Sweden’s Dead Kosmonaut is pretty clearly still feeling out their place in the heavy metal pantheon. On debut full length Expect Nothing and last year’s standout Rekviem EP, they’ve played a mix of smooth trad, …
From the cabinets of Caligari Records comes Skumstrike’s Execution Void EP, released only on cassette and limited to a mere 150 copies. The band’s third overall release, Execution Void is a significant improvement over 2018’s …
[::] is more interested in exploration than accessibility. Then again, accessibility in metal is often skewed by our place at the extreme end of the spectrum. Not having a singer, writing long songs, and having …
Discovery can be such an important part of finding new music. The ever-elusive hunt for new music that strikes a heartstring – whether it be old or new, just finding something that resonates is one …
Deep in the forest at the edge of the clearing, near the overgrown ruins of the Toad King’s ancestral palace, a letter lies on the ground, splashed with blood and caked in mud. It is …
Who is to truly say in which “wave” of black metal we currently reside? Most black metal these days is sold with descriptors of “second wave” or “early” or “trve kvlt” or perhaps “pagan.” What …
