Generally Impressed With Riffs
[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 …
[Cover artwork by Subhuman at Desert Dungeon] Let’s talk about our love for quirky metal. Okay, sure, any definable level of ‘quirk’ is obviously subjective, but I’m guessing you know we’re not talking about the guy who loves The Black …
A year ago I was just finishing up my top ten list when Svart Crown dropped a freakish slab of blackened death metal called Witnessing the Fall at my reviewing doorstep. Their Immolation-inspired cacophony gave me a nice pile of hate to …
originally written by Chris McDonald Current heavyweights of the melodic death/doom scene, Daylight Diesdebuted with this five song EP, originally released in 2000 and now being reissued in a digital-only format. Daylight Dies has since …
Originally written by Rae Amitay Mournful Congregation has been a staple in funeral doom for years, and my expectations were admittedly pretty high when I signed on to review The Book of Kings. What I …
Originally written by Doug Moore. If you look up Rwake on Wikipedia, it tells you that they are “a Southern sludge metal band from Little Rock, Arkansas.” This description may give you the wrong idea. When you …
The backstory of the formation of Vallenfyre has been fairly well bandied about, but bears repeating: founding member and guitarist of Paradise Lost Gregor Mackintosh, in coping with the recent death of his father, starts …
I like to think I’m the kind of person who doesn’t judge books by their cover, but I am, and I do. I also buy real LPs and CDs so I can enjoy the artwork …
Somewhere on the 210 freeway, I realized that Paul Masvidal is never going back to his old life. Nor should he. Because Cynic is an art project that was born into progression and has been …
Regardless of the recent explosion of directions that black metal seems to be travelling in, there remains a good number of projects that dedicate their work to pure, seething evil. Much like the music itself, …
