Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Cover art by Claudio Elias Scialabba] Italy’s Into Darkness has been a band for approximately 15 years but is just now releasing its first full length album, Route to the Other Side, but all that time has been greatly beneficial …
[Cover art by David Preissel] The sounds of Neurosis’ “Locust Star” emanate from a desktop speaker wired to an iPod Nano via ⅛-inch cable “Hey maaaan … is that Ponderous Post Metal?” “Yeah maaan …” “Well turn it up MAAAN!!” …
[Artwork by Vicky “Liddo” Morales] In a soak-your-underwear sweaty, tetanus-to-the-touch warehouse in the middle of Skid Row, Raw Addict played its first show. Weeks earlier, drummer Isaac made the irresistible sales pitch, stating that the multinational band connecting grind lifers …
Picture this, brah brah: You’re out enjoying a nice meal with the in-laws. It’s a pleasant setting—a beach vacation, let’s say. The sun gently peeks above the horizon, illuminating the tides as they roll in and wash away the footprints …
Innovation is intrinsic to all living creatures and necessary for survival, and stagnation means death—the death of thought, invention and viability. Without evolution, we’d still be using a sharp stone to carve our knickers from …
The function of the record label has changed quite drastically since the days of yesteryear when the slick-haired, cigar smoking fat cat from Columbia would come in promising jumbo jets, cocaine, and world tours. The …
There’s a fine line between homage and thievery. Nearly two decades ago now, Municipal Waste came raging out of Richmond, with a silly sense of humor and a sound borrowed heavily from DRI, early Exodus, …
Ordinarily, I’m not much on live albums. For every Live After Death or Strangers In The Night or Live & Dangerous there are fifteen unnecessary catalog-fillers, most of them little more than a greatest hits …
Happy new year, friends. Here’s hoping 2019 finds you in good health and spirits. Before we can let 2018 go entirely, we have to look back into what the Last Rites Staff has been listening …
“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 …
As was often the case 30+ years ago, it was a record store that served as a linchpin for what would eventually become one of death metal’s most significant evolutions. Sure, a heap of credit …
So-called prolific artists, at least within the scope of heavy metal, tend to fall into the dime-a-dozen category, often releasing large bodies of work but with very little actual quality to be found within. This …
