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 celebration of the release of De Vermis Mysteriis, we will be analyzing a High On Fire riff in this week’s lesson. And in keeping with our last lesson’s theme of majestic riffs that emerge …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell If Metal Blade / Rise Above‘s press hounds had their way, the members of Horisont would be walking around with “For Fans of Witchcraft and Graveyard” branded on their foreheads. …
originally written by Chris McDonald Slow albums that focus totally on a single sound and atmosphere can be difficult to stomach for extended periods of time. Hellvetron mostly averts this in the sense that Death …
On its second album, the potent and diabolically toe-tapping The Pilgrimage, the Canadian duo Mares of Thrace occupies itself primarily with making a hostile racket. If public sentiment demands that we must get more specific …
Albums like Astra’s The Black Chord reveal just how much the music industry has changed over the last 40 years. (I say 40 because that was about when progressive rock started flourishing.) Big, expansive, epic …
Only in metal could one find themselves exposed to more than one “deathhammer” in a single year. On second thought, we’re a community that’s generally obsessed with hammers, so maybe that’s not such a crazy …
originally written by Chris McDonald Acephalix began life as a more of a metallic crust band than a crusty metallic band, and their debut album Aporia was a good example of the potential this kind …
For years now I have ignored 3 inches of Blood because I thought the band was a joke… and it had a hardcore singer. Quite how I formulated the impression that the band was a joke, …
