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 …
Originally written by Rae Amitay Ahab’s ever-pulverizing and gorgeously textured music has had me on their proverbial hook since the brilliant 2006 release, The Call of the Wretched Sea. Funeral doom at its finest, the …
Although rising out of the tape-trading culture of the underground 80s, Master’s Hammer has long been thought of as the Czech branch of black metal’s second wave, probably because their excellent early works were contemporaneous …
Back in 2010, Dawnbringer’s fourth album Nucleus arrived on Profound Lore with a groundswell of acclaim. Given Profound Lore’s reputation for unnervingly consistent quality, and Dawnbringer mainman Chris Black’s impeccable pedigree in High Spirits, Superchrist, …
I’ve had more than a handful of people remark that I’ve been too critical of the Robert Lowe era of Candlemass responsible for King of the Grey Islands (2007) and Death Magic Doom (2009). In …
originally written by Chris McDonald “Sometimes, people that are mentally challenged, and have a history of sexual abuse… mutilate their own sexual organs.” I don’t get the opportunity to write about slam-heavy brutal death metal …
What the world needs now is another retro Swedish death metal band like I need a hole in the head. In the past few years, the spirit of Stockholm circa 1990 has been so thoroughly …
Are my eyes deceiving me? Is this really a new Prong album? Guess I kind of lost track of them as Tommy Victor continued his work alongside Al Jourgensen and Glenn Danzig. It probably didn’t …
Rex Brown and Vinnie Appice have both spent most of their lengthy careers in the shadows of larger than life figures. Phil Anselmo and Dimebag Darrell were always the focal points in Pantera, and Vinnie …
