Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Album artwork by Harshanand Singh] The third album is in some ways a litmus test for a band’s longevity. Three albums is a sufficient sample size—you can generally tell where a band is headed, whether they’ll last, whether they speak …
[Pre]-historically speaking, the boys, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz, have always been influenced by the likes of Celtic Frost, Bathory, and all things ‘80s. In fact, they don’t shy away from the fact that it’s always been about that era. After …
[Cover art by Quinn Henderson] You’re familiar with the term, “unc,” right? If not, it generally refers to a washed up older feller whose personality in large part revolves around extravagantly performing confusion and/or displeasure at the mere notion of …
[Artwork by Caroline Harrison] “Nonsense” opens with a slow fade-in of distorted guitars and seismic drums — the chaos before the swarm. It’s a trick of the trade, the extreme metal equivalent of a camera operator calling out “speed” before …
Smoke rises from a dirty ashtray and drifts over the side table toward the yellowing windows. September has bled into October, unusually warm, and time seems to have stopped altogether. Day after day, the same. …
“We’re all doing life abuse, Manny” said my colleague. And it’s true. Life has fucked us all up this way and that way. Some of us have had financial abuse. Some have had physical abuse. …
Somewhere, in some galaxy far, far away, lies some poor creature who’s never had the chance to binge King Crimson’s Red, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, Death’s Symbolic, Morbid Angel’s Altars of …
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 15 years since Oranssi Pazuzu delivered their dynamite debut Muukalainen puhuu, because never in the years since has it failed to feel fresh, nor has the band …
Here’s a funny thing for someone ostensibly in the business of making words about sounds: sometimes I just… don’t wanna. Sure, like a desperately hungry squirrel misunderstanding the meaning of “no nut November,” sometimes I …
[Cover art by Dmitriy Egorov] Ontology of Nought is a deeply overwhelming album. You probably already knew that, though, looking at that title, the fact that one song has 17 words in its name, or if …
[Album artwork: Alessandro Canu & Davide Chiussi] When you have as much experience with the full depth of heavy metal as does the Last Rites collective, with a few of us tallying four decades of …
[Cover art by Paolo Girardi] The passing of Trevor Strnad will forever be linked to Servitude as it’s the first album to be released by The Black Dahlia Murder since that terrible day. However, I would like …
