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 …
There’s something to be said for offering just enough of a twist to stand out, but there’s way more to be said for crafting that twist into high quality tunage. Today’s subject: Toronto’s Paroxsihzem. They …
I suspect that the average listener goes into a 7” split with a completely different mindset than the participating bands intended, but why not judge for yourself? [Dreamy harp music and a shimmering cut scene. …
Although one-man black metal acts have seemed unusually ripe for mockery over the years, it’s not entirely clear to me why one dude singing songs about Satan, suicide, hobbits, dragons, or suicide by Satanic hobbit …
Though they’ve never achieved the acclaim of countrymen Asphyx and Pestilence, for some good reasons, the Dutch death metallers in Sinister certainly deserve some small amount of credit – for not giving up, if for …
For the sake of brevity, I’ll spare everyone the details of what went on in my life this year, how the weather is, how I feel about current global economic difficulties, etc. etc. etc. Like …
Originally written by Ramar Pittance In 2012, the heavy metal “album” I listened more than anything else was a mix comprising only songs made before 1990. It’s a lot of stuff I consider to be …
At the risk of stating the embarrassingly obvious: There’s a lot of music out there, out in the dim distant land just outside our individual reckoning. And well, really, that’s a comfort. If you’re a …
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every …
