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 …
There was a time when strutting doom of this persuasion played a much bigger role in my life. Hell, there was a time when strutting doom of this persuasion played a bigger role in a …
OK. OK. So…OK. I have spent the last week picking myself up from the floor of my car, my room, my place in the universe and time, my soul, and my mind. Deceptionist has released …
Even if each Virus release has moved ever further from the black metal that anchored the band’s innovative beginnings as Ved Buens Ende, it’s really only made more salient their utter originality. Virus’ unique sound …
Sludge is, to me, a strange beast. When I hear it, I immediately fall in love. An ocean of distortion; tectonic pacing; so many places to do the single neck-shattering head bang – I should …
In a very short time, Hand of Fire has become one of the most talked about bands in the Bay Area metal scene. Their initial demo offering, Let The Killings Begin, is comprised of three …
Let’s start things off with song number two, “Sleeping Giant.” It’s got a fairly strong swagger at its heart, but…are you sure that giant’s sleeping? Perhaps I already hit my quota regarding this theme with …
True, dark spirituality is not often found within black metal. Sure, bands like to posture that they are Satanists while the vast majority of them probably don’t even know what that actually means. Basically, there’s …
If nothing else, the Dimensions of Horror EP, the latest release from the Matt Harvey-led semi-super group/Death tribute act Gruesome, proves that Savage Land was not a one-off affair. Is Gruesome going to be a …
