Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Album artwork by Truls Espedal] It’s 17 albums for Enslaved now, comprising a discography I find exceptionally challenging to wrap my arms around. What’s going on here? Does anyone else forget that the relatively rote and by-the-numbers Frost is actually …
[Cover art by Per Spjøtvold] Want a fun way to acknowledge your own mortality? Think about how many years you’ve been listening to certain bands or albums. Of course, you, a distinguished devotee of this publication, surely engage in this practice, …
To put it mildly, I’ve been a bit sidetracked this year, so I apologize to all zero of my readers for not keeping them informed on the state of grindcore as I see it. Thankfully, I have some conscientious compatriots …
[Cover Artwork by Julia Proszowska] Something about the internet that only occurred to me recently is that it’s changed the way we think about death. Like just about everything else, the very notion of death has lost so much of …
Loudness is a crutch. “Maximum volume yields maximum results” is a fine bit of sloganeering, but as a guiding principle for music, its pithiness belies its hollowness. Of course, the act of listening necessarily requires …
It’s May, friends—well into spring and nudging on summer. And yet, the weather still sucks. The rain is seemingly incessant, the sun barely glimpsed, my summer clothes still packed away, and my motorcycle still un-ridden. …
“Album Of The Day” is a Last Rites Facebook feature we started whose purpose is quite straight-forward: highlight one album per day and say a few words about it. Understanding that not everyone chooses to …
Of all the anomalies to have occurred within metal over these many years—and yep, there have been some absolute whoppers—the phenomenon of Saint Vitus lingers as one of the more unique and underplayed. The band …
“Dear Friends…” Or so begin the always welcome mailing list updates from Sentient Ruin Laboratories with news on upcoming releases, sales, and the usual kind of information one would expect from an independent record label. …
It’s not a secret that the role of a record label has changed drastically in the age of the internet. Nowhere is this more true than in the underground, where endeavors are driven by genuine …
Even the cryptic album title Kings Under the Sand can’t throw the listener off the scent of this one. These German jerks are talking about dead pharaohs. I mean, those are the kings buried under …
Sympathetic Resonance is now rightly viewed as a classic of progressive heavy metal. It delivered the promise of the Twist of Fate EP and completed the comeback of one of prog’s most important duos: Fates …
