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 …
Given the untamable diversity of styles that the term conveys, there’s almost nothing one can say accurately about heavy metal as a whole that isn’t so generic as to be hopelessly vague. Nevertheless, here’s a …
In 2013, Dream Death issued its sophomore album, Somnium Excessum, twenty-six years after its cult classic debut, Journey into Mystery. In a comparative blink of an eye, album number three, Dissemination, has arrived, proving that …
Chicago’s Polyptych is an ideal representation of what’s very right and wrong with metal in 2016. Thankfully, what’s amiss isn’t actually a result of something the band has done, and it’s very fixable. First, let’s …
A lot of bands and artists are not aware of their limitations. One could run down a list of musicians that have honed their craft in a simpler, more time-honored style only to attempt an …
Long before 2006, when Grave Miasma wised up and changed their name from Goat Molestör, the band cemented their sound as a pragmatically chaotic blackened death metal outfit. Sharing members with Cruciamentum, Destroyer 666, Binah …
The first week of April, 2016 was a great stretch. Not only did it deliver another opportunity to break away from the daily grind to meet up with some fellow Last Rites folks and drink …
The return of Mike Howe to Metal Church was some of the best news of 2015. No disrespect to the late David Wayne, of course – he fronted the band on two absolutely great records, …
It seems like these days you can’t swing a dead possum without hitting another throwback, old-school death metal band. Certainly many of these revival bands mimic the Gothenburg sound for its palatable ease. Yet, some …
