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 …
As a metal fan, certain things happen when you see a band named Loincloth with an album called Iron Balls of Steel. Visions of Manowar dance through your head, followed by epic battle scenes of …
Duplicate Records is slowly but surely gaining a reputation as a boutique label with a keen eye for compellingly odd takes on the darker ends of metal’s vast spectrum. 2011 alone saw Einar Sjursø’s (of …
Those who have not yet had the pleasure of experiencing the band that one of our writers described as “Jim Morrison’s corpsepainted and drug-addled suicidal spawn” should know right now that no comparisons, regardless of …
It should be no secret that we here at Last Rites want nothing to go undiscovered. Due to the fact that we’re faced with sorting through so much music, it’s become inevitable that classics might …
Redemption’s strength has always lain in the band’s willingness to embrace all the wonders of the prog metal palette without ever fully succumbing to the subgenre’s insatiable appetite for wonkiness. Their focus has always been …
originally written by Chris McDonald I count myself in a relative minority of listeners who believe that Psycroptic has been trending steadily upward with their last few releases. This band has shown perhaps the most …
Warning: if you have an aversion to soulful, artsy, and uplifting prog metal, you are hereby kindly asked to leave the room. No really, you’ll have to wait outside; we don’t serve your kind here. …
Nails’ Unsilent Death was something of a sleeper disc for me in 2010 – it made only a minor impact upon my ears in its initial release, but for whatever reason (read: my unfocused lack of …
