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 …
2012 didn’t bring about the apocalypse, but it was still a tempestuous collection of days. Still raw from the loss of David Gold and my future in Woods of Ypres, I spent the first few …
Last year there figured to be about twelve or thirteen albums I was trying to shove into my top ten. This year there are easily eight or nine trying to wiggle their way into the …
First thing’s first: Welcome to Last Rites! Now, it might seem weird for a “new” webzine to be bursting out of the gate with a Top 926-or-whatever Albums of the Year list, but, despite appearances …
California hardcoregrindmetalpunk trio Nails keeps cranking out the fuzzy-crusty feral fury, this one a re-recording of some of their earliest material, presented now with the tar-coated, Sunlight-leaning, ten-ton sonics that characterize their more recent efforts. …
Halo Of Flies originally released this 12” EP from Milwaukee’s Protestant back in September, but that limited run of less than 600 is sold out now, so they’re bringing Reclamation back around once more, and …
Greek duo Satan’s Wrath, featuring former Electric Wizard bassist Tas Danazoglou on vocals, drums and bass and guitarist Stamos K, has issued one of the most aptly named debuts in recent memory. Galloping Blasphemy is …
After several years of quarrels, court disputes, and confusion over when the album would see the light of day, Gaahl and King ov Hell’s post-Gorgoroth vision has finally arrived; and boy oh boy is it …
In a cursory, very informal, and half-drunken study of all the adjectives I usually toss around in regards to death metal bands, I noticed that most of those descriptors, while absolutely meant to be positive …
