Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Cover art by Clare McCarthy] A brutal death metal album with a beautiful cover? Consider me intrigued by the contrast alone. Brutal death metal, despite its typical gory imagery, lyrics, and tone, has a peculiar charm. But it’s not just …
[Cover art by Adam Yates] Look, I’ll freely admit that I listen to and love some truly pretentious death metal. Hell, I ranked Ingurgitating Oblivion’s last album as my seventh favorite in 2024, and that album has its head so …
[Cover Art by Kristian Valbo] I love the story behind the music. Not that it has to be some dramatic, sensational, or lurid tale. Rather, I just really appreciate how a little window into the artistic process can color one’s …
[Cover artwork by Rotting Reign] Having slept on the first few releases from Australia’s Snorlax, I approached Toxic Current—the Aussie one-man blackened death metal band’s third full-length—with fresh ears. I won’t bore you with any references to a certain anime …
Absolutes are dangerous. The rhetorical logic of “all or nothing” is a violent assault on the beautiful heterogeneity of the world. Taking any position to its extreme endpoint risks gross oversimplification and infantilizing generalization. That …
Welcome, dear friends, to another edition of Staff Infections, wherein the staff here at Last Rites share what they’ve been listening to for the past month. Everything is still terrible here in the U.S.A., so …
[cover artwork by Adam Vick of Dark Meditation] Everyone you know and love is a shambling whole comprised of smaller and smaller parts. You can drill down through the cutaneous, into the tissue, within the …
“Way back in 2022” feels like about a million years ago, doesn’t it? We live in strange times, my friends, when time itself is strange… Back then, Belgian grinders Days Of Desolation released a record …
[Cover art by Eliran Kantor] You like thrash metal, right? And you love all things space, don’t you? Of course you do, you fucking nerd. Look where you are right now. If the idea of …
Avulsed is one of Spain’s longest-running and earliest death metal bands. And with a near-complete line-up overhaul since 2023, Avulsed is also almost entirely a new band. Only founder, vocalist, mainman, and Xtreem label-head Dave …
This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned Ari Aster, nor will it be the last. The famed horror director, known for films like Hereditary and Midsommar, are refreshing in that they don’t necessarily rely on …
A very strong argument can be made that over the last few years, no label has brought more top quality death metal to the masses than Czechia’s Lavadome Productions. From the forward-thinking work of Heaving …
