Generally Impressed With Riffs
It’s a magical corner of the musical world where a band can combine an infectious nature with extreme oddness, and it’s in that corner that Idaho’s Seven Chains makes their home. Make no mistake about it, third album Swollen, In …
[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 …
Hero is the first full length album from Switzerland’s Bölzer, but unless you’ve avoided just about every blog of note over the past few years, and don’t spend one minute of your time on Heavy Metal …
A question that is not as off-topic as it likely seems: are nihilism and humanism necessarily incompatible philosophical doctrines? Should we continue to believe in reason and progress when presented with constant suffering and apparent …
Some bands wander by mistake. On their third album Mute Books, Canada’s Auroch have made an album that, while not exactly bad, is very much not an album I want to listen to. On its …
Void Meditation Cult, the solo project of Desolate Defiler, began back in 2009 as Sperm of Antichrist. To the delight of parents everywhere, the name was changed almost immediately. The only prior release is a …
You’d have to forgive Vancouver’s Anciients for falling slightly short of the mark with their 2013 LP, Heart of Oak. With only one — albeit excellent — EP under their belt and thriving on their high energy live …
One of unlimited advantages of Darkthrone is the fact that they’ve always guarded an inherent, gleaming “metalness” at their core that’s never come close to being doused. That’s something that likewise radiated within the foundation …
Like my beloved Overkill, Testament has been on a recent uptick across their last few records. After a seven-year lay-off, they returned in 2008 with a barnstormer in Formation Of Damnation, and then followed it …
Colombian Necktie’s first album – 2014’s Twilight Upon Us – was a decent enough little blast of sludgy hardcore, but not one that held a lot of staying power for me. There’s always potential in …
