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 …
“Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains…” …
Pentagram’s 2011 album, Last Rites, had the air of a miracle about it. Singer Bobby Liebling, after decades of drug abuse, somehow cleaned himself up and managed to convince estranged guitarist Victor Griffin to rejoin the …
At several moments of his career, John Bush would have been forgiven for becoming a tad jaded and bitter. Armored Saint was ripe for crossover appeal, but they never gained as much success as they …
Originally written by K. Scott Ross. One of the old standbys for heavy metal discussion is whether or not lyrics matter. Does listening to Marduk make you some sort of Third Reich sympathizer? Should it? What about Stryper? …
Of all W.A.S.P.’s controversial antics throughout the years, Blackie Lawless’ fairly recent conversion to Christianity is probably the most shocking. This is the man who brought us classics like “Don’t Cry (Just Suck),” “Kill Fuck …
The blessing and curse that goes with our shared passion for music is that there’s often so many good bands that it’s difficult to keep up with them all. Maybe it’s just me and my …
I love Slayer, probably more than you. In my opinion Slayer is one of the top five metal bands the world has ever known, and the band’s first four albums are some of the best …
For whatever reason – and I’m going with “an oversaturation of mediocrity” – I don’t have much space left in my world for the whole retro-proto thing, even the best of it. So I didn’t …
