Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Cover artwork by Old Hag] When I initially realized that Arckanum’s first album after a long hiatus—and, technically, its breakup—would be released on All Hallows’ Eve, I devised this rather cutesy and far-fetched idea to compare the entire album to …
[Album artwork / art direction by Joseph Niet / The Creative Corporation] Offering up a textbook definition of “holy crap, time flies,” Black Sabbath’s swan song, 13, was released 13 years ago, on June 7th, 2013. In a curious move, …
If you’re just now catching up, well, we’re just now catching up. Seth Buttnam and I (plus one uninvited guest) are rounding up some of our favoritest grindcore (or grind-adjacent) releases of the past however many months, since we (read: …
[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 …
You ever see that movie The Expendables? Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Retro-80s action piece, throwback to the golden era of the style, totally captures the spirit and the feeling and everything that was great about …
One of the more amusing grievances metal fans toss into the ring these days relates to our genre’s prevailing fondness for keeping most every branch cemented in the past. Truth: It would be tragic beyond …
‘Tis the season for lists, and there is no shortage of them. Since it’s impossible to uncover every gem — those who feel they came close are surely bullshitting themselves — this is merely a …
What can be said about this year of our Lord 2017 that is now (thankfully, in many ways) behind us? I am tempted to go on a political rant about the demise of our planet …
For most of the year, I found myself thinking, “Huh, it hasn’t been a particularly great year for heavy metal.” Of course, I found myself thinking that while also getting busy listening to a whole …
Born from the same anarcho-punk bloodline, crust and grind are natural bedfellows. But of course, when bedfellows come from the same bloodline, well… sometimes the results are… a bit stunted. Belgium’s Marginal is a good …
Christ, it seems like I’m writing one of these somewhere about every two weeks now… But here we go again. We all woke up this morning to terrible news: Another metal brother gone, this time …
Howdy. As the full team top 25 article stated, 2017 was a year of big shifts at Last Rites. It was also a huge year of personal change for myself, but you don’t care about …
