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 …
Like a lot of metal fans, my music collection is global as hell, but England’s contribution to my list of favorites is really pretty staggering. Most who know me have gotten relentless earfuls of my …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell Absu‘s 2009 self-titled comeback was almost universally hailed as an exemplary exhibition of blackthrash dominance. Proscriptor McGovern had been lying dormant for roughly seven years following the beloved Tara, but …
Aaron Funk is a bad man. The Winnipeg native has been bashing out top-notch electronic albums under the name Venetian Snares at a rather astonishing rate over the past decade, but always with a devilishly …
The career of the Czech Republic’s long-running black metal weirdos Root has experienced both the benefit and detriment of odd timing. Having missed the first wave of black metal (Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer, early Mayhem, the …
Sweet wind-surfing Moses, has it really been seven years since these Norsk bastards dropped Desert Northern Hell? Now, hold on, before you get your fact-checking nerd rage in full flush, it’s mostly a rhetorical question, …
As the serrated fuzz of the Boss Heavy Metal pedal rips through the speakers in the opening strains of “A Feast for the Grave”, the first track on Cryptborn’s Into the Grasp of the Starving …
Alice Cooper’s last album, 2008’s Along Came A Spider, was his highest-charting record since the 1991 release of Hey Stoopid. A concept album about a serial killer, Spider also marked Coop’s return to the theatrical after …
It’s always refreshing when a band doesn’t make a guy guess. Greece’s Acherontas plays a very familiar, easy-to-digest and dare I say comfortable brand of dark, “occult” black metal. Their combination of intertwining, countering tremolo …
