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 …
This month’s session is a tale of art as much as it is one of music. The band 100 Demons came onto the Connecticut hardcore scene in the late 90’s, after having chosen quite the …
The Italian punks in Cripple Bastards have been grinding along since the late 1980s, and though they haven’t always been among the first bands that come to mind when the sub-genre’s biggest acts are listed, …
Originally written by Rae Amitay It’s no secret amongst my metal-reviewing peers that I’m not the biggest consumer of thrash. I have an appreciation for a solid chunk of it, but the music just doesn’t …
Seven years ago, Municipal Waste’s now-classic Hazardous Mutation burst out as part of the big thrash revival — “revival” meaning “popular with the kids again,” since thrash never really went away. Hazardous was exactly what legions of bullet-belted youths were …
The immutable laws of statistics being what they are, it should come as no surprise that genre orthodoxy is a crutch much more often than a crown. Thus, when a band comes along that unswervingly …
From the town that brought you Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill comes Salvacion, a four-piece trad-metal outfit that dashes the requisite Iron Maiden-ish guitar harmonies with a palpable smoky haze. Way More Unstoppable is …
One of the things I admire about a group like Italy’s Ufomammut is that they manage to live and survive as a ‘perimeter’ metal band. Unquestionably heavy, yes, but enduring the years waaay out on …
Apart from the rather questionable choice of a name just one ‘y’ away from their semi-legendary countrymen in Desultory, and despite having a band logo that resembles a toothbrush cum torture device, Sweden’s Desultor impresses …
