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 …
A long time ago, a friend and I were sitting in a bar having a 5,397 hour discussion about the many merits of heavy metal when he asked “What the Hell is it about power …
Escapism: One of the principle elements of power metal that has kept me in its corner lo these many years. More so than any other off-shoot, power metal demands a predilection for escapism from its …
When news emerged that old Mercyful Fate axemen Michael Denner and Hank Shermann would be reuniting for a new band, lots of old guard metalheads were understandably stoked. The inclusion of Cage wailer Sean Peck …
Despite his mastery of the German language (huge assumption here), Waxen is actually a solo project of an America: multi-instrumentalist Toby Knapp from Sheridan, Wyoming. Given the name “Toby Knapp” and the location of Wyoming …
The last time we spoke, I was salivating at the prospect of Retrogore, thanks to the excruciatingly exquisite Termination Redux EP. Truth is, I already had it in hand at that time – I just …
For those of you who indulge in World of Warcraft (turns out it’s actually Warhammer), the name Be’lakor will likely mean something to you. He may be the original Daemon Prince raised up by the …
The EP has any number of uses – the long, standalone track, the nutty collection of oddities, experiments, and covers, or simply releasing a shorter collection of songs – and the format has been used …
Having been previously unfamiliar with Montreal’s Phobocosm, I found the band’s second album, Bringer of Drought, to be a challenging listen. Phobocosm has a unique approach to death metal. The band is very heavy, oppressively …
