Generally Impressed With Riffs
[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 …
[Cover artwork by Luca “Zeero” Zironi] There was always something uniquely charming about Konquest’s brand of traditional heavy metal—an almost whimsical breeziness that still felt like a near perfect balance of playful and substantive. A long-lost Italian cousin to Sweden’s …
[Cover art by Beyond Art] There are bad musical moods, and then there’s Mylingar. Over the course of the last decade this group of anonymous Swedes has concocted the type of ill-meaning black/death that makes Diocletian seem like a Care …
I’m a big enough man to almost admit when I’m almost wrong. Last year, I reviewed the two-track teaser EP by this latest of Rogga Johansson’s myriad projects, and I wasn’t really blown away. Given …
Here’s the thing: You’ve probably heard this before. Australia’s Encircling Sea grafts earthy black metal themes and musical motifs onto a bedrock of lengthy clean doom structures and sweeping post-rock. So, while the band’s sound …
Ever find yourself thinking, “Man, I really love mid-80s hardcore, but sometimes I wish they’d just lose the self-righteous socio-political agenda and get down to tackling really important topics…”? And if politics, religion, and personal …
After a while, even someone who writes about music for a hobby is bound to repeat his or herself. There are only so many angles, analytic tools, or perspectives that one person can provide. Enter …
Since I am pretty much out of interesting angles on old-school death metal, I will just get down to business with this review. Poisoned Void is the debut from Finnish death metal act Vorum. Though …
If your chief goal for heavy metal is to find something to accompany evenings spent thinking about defiling nuns under the sweltering glimmer of a smoldering chapel, Norway’s Altaar ain’t likely to land on your list …
“If you’re gonna do it, do it live on stage… or don’t do it at all” So proclaims frontman Neil Fallon in the opening title track of Clutch’s tenth studio album, Earth Rocker, laying down …
In its roughly two-decades’-long existence, Greece’s Septic Flesh has been unusually restless. The core has (nearly) always been a heavily atmospheric style of death metal, but listening to this reissue of the band’s 1994 debut, …
