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 …
In the interest of full disclosure, it must be admitted that I can be quite susceptible to the seductions of great cover art. In the case of Germany’s Sulphur Aeon, the glorious art that adorns …
Grand Supreme Blood Court’s debut, Bow Down Before The Blood Court, marks the return to recording of former Asphyx guitarist Eric Daniels. The band is the brainchild of Daniels and co-guitarist Alwin Zuur — Zuur …
My guess is that we’re about three years away from doctors revealing the truth that over-exposure to Tetrabromobisphenol-A in our computers significantly adds to intensified OCD behaviors in the greater human population. More and more …
As a style, symphonic black metal is generally theatrical, grandiose, and (without necessarily implying fault) often quite pompous. It isn’t exactly a sub-genre known for scaling it back. That made Irreversible Decay, the debut from …
German (and Central European) metal has always contained a notable strain of off-kilter innovators. Sure, the careers of Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom have been staked on aggressive but mostly straightforward thrash, but one also must …
Originally written by Ian Chainey I. I want you to know the majority of this piece was written between bouts of staring out the train window, trying to look through my reflection, but always catching …
Let’s get one thing clear: Suffocation is, without a doubt, one of the greatest death metal bands in the history of our rotten, festering world. This is, as the Dothraki say, known. But consistent and wholly …
Portland’s harrowing, blackened, gloomy deathrock outfit Atriarch announced itself quite suddenly with 2011’s debut Forever the End. As good as that first album was, though, it finds itself happily eclipsed in all respects by the …
