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 …
Something you quickly learn as a devoted music enthusiast is the fact that there really should be no lines drawn in the sand when it comes to appreciating the things that resonate with us. Just …
German deathers Sulphur Aeon did something neat with their full length debut, 2013’s Swallowed by the Ocean’s Tide – they pulled from all over the place without going overboard in any single area. Bombastic, blasting, …
There are plenty of adjectives in death metal these days. Progressive, technical, cavernous, blackened, atmospheric… And that’s all well and good, of course – it’s helpful to people like me trying to describe a record …
Admittedly, Deep Purple falls a little outside Last Rites’ usual scope of coverage. Deep Purple is not, strictly speaking, a metal band, but the group is ten times heavier than some of the fruity bullsh… …
After a few albums that mixed their signature doom/death/dark-plus-Celtic Frost-on-an-80s-goth-binge metal with some wondrous throws out of left field, Germany’s Valborg delivered an album that was, well, rather straightforward in 2012’s Nekrodepression. Of course, it …
Originally written by Chris Redar Seattle, WA’s Theories released a killer split last year with Wake, who are a personal favorite band of yours truly. And guess what- you didn’t read about it here, because …
Originally written by Chris Redar This is some white-hot shit right here, y’all. St. Louis three-piece Fulgora is redefining what it is to bring the thunder with their debut full-length Stratagem. “Full-length” is a pretty …
Akhlys is a side project of Nightbringer guitarist Naas Alcameth (because a pseudonym is cooler than being a black metal artist named Kyle Spanswick). When first putting ears on sophomore effort The Dreaming I, this …
