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 …
Someone needs to write an open letter to metal artists letting them know that albums simply don’t need to be longer than 48 minutes. When you have bands like Black Anvil reducing their typical run-time …
Hi everyone! I know I haven’t been writing a whole lot these past few years. I hope all of that is about to change and I know I’m the only one who can change it. …
If you’re a baseball fan (which I am), you’re likely celebrating pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training this week. We’re excited to see stars return, just as in metal we’re all aflutter to welcome …
Having only a two-song, seemingly one-note EP (Le Jour Se Lève) to go on, you can imagine the surprise at hearing the diversity of sounds, the mellowness, the near desert rock-like atmospheric touches across French black …
The year is 1985 and your parents are pissed. Your grades slipped again. It’s not that you aren’t smart. It’s that you can’t focus. Because Overkill just released Feel the Fire and it’s changing your …
The difficulty of discussing Arrayed Claws, the new 38-minute “EP” from Lorn, is not necessarily describing the individual elements. After all, most passages of the album, when taken in a silo, sound pretty familiar. The …
For years, on these pages and in myriad (often one-sided) conversations, I’ve opined that Overkill’s 90s and early 2000s forays into the then-modern trend of groove weren’t as embarrassingly off-base as those of most of …
The first thing that jumps out with regard to Nocturnes and Requiems is the album cover artwork. Regardless of what you take away in terms of its overall theme, the likelihood is pretty strong that …
