Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Cover artwork by Old Hag] When I initially realized that Arckanum’s first album after a long hiatus—and, technically, its breakup—would be released on All Hallows’ Eve, I devised this rather cutesy and far-fetched idea to compare the entire album to …
[Album artwork / art direction by Joseph Niet / The Creative Corporation] Offering up a textbook definition of “holy crap, time flies,” Black Sabbath’s swan song, 13, was released 13 years ago, on June 7th, 2013. In a curious move, …
If you’re just now catching up, well, we’re just now catching up. Seth Buttnam and I (plus one uninvited guest) are rounding up some of our favoritest grindcore (or grind-adjacent) releases of the past however many months, since we (read: …
[Album artwork by Truls Espedal] It’s 17 albums for Enslaved now, comprising a discography I find exceptionally challenging to wrap my arms around. What’s going on here? Does anyone else forget that the relatively rote and by-the-numbers Frost is actually …
I’m a bassist, so I’ve heard roughly seventeen trillion jokes about our kind being the forgotten ones. I’ve seen the meme about the correlation between your instrument and the amount of girls each musician can …
The heyday of thrash existed during a time when metal bands still had an outside chance of making a meager living off their talents. This moderate level of success, or rather the possibility of that …
With Chasms, Oakland quartet Lycus has presented us with a rarity in the highly specialized sub-genre of funeral doom. The record deals in the usual shades of brown, grey, and otherwise grimey tonal and lyrical palette that’s become …
At this point, probably only about 12% of all musicians anywhere haven’t been involved in a side project with either Shane Embury or Danny Lilker. Or at least, they haven’t yet been involved in one. …
Abbath Doom Occulta: Born Olve Eikemo. Longtime frontman of Immortal. This doofus: Reach level 30 to unlock advanced resource harvesting. Abbath: New band formed by Abbath Doom Occulta after his split with Immortal. Joining …
We’ve done a couple dozen of these Devil’s Dozens now — from Death to Voivod to Immortal to whomever — and I don’t remember any being as divisive behind the scenes as this one. No …
From epic and gothic to funeral and death-infused, 2015 was a banner year for doom metal of all forms. Perhaps lost amidst the bigger names that released albums last year was France’s Ixion, purveyors of …
