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 …
[The eighth–and second-to-last–installment of our 90s Essentials interview series spotlights (The Lord Weird) Slough Feg’s Mike Scalzi. The stalwart frontman shines some light on the atypical recording process of Twilight of the Idols, as well …
Welcome, intrepid reader, to the first in what will be an ongoing editorial series highlighting albums and artists well outside the realm of heavy metal that might still make the seasoned headbanger pause their recently-unearthed …
Long-running Polish death metal outfit Azarath has returned to bloody action with fifth album Blasphemers’ Maledictions. The sound may be quintessential Polish death metal, but Azarath plays it with an intensely occult black metal focus …
We’re gearing up for the final act, people. Volume 8 of MetalReview’s 100 Most Essential Albums Of The 1990s might’ve been subtitled “Groundbreakers” if we had the front page real estate to allow for such …
It seems about once a year I’m involved in some variation upon the same conversation: “Anthrax doesn’t deserve to be in the Big Four. It should be Exodus / Overkill / Testament…” And I’m torn there ** …
Originally written by Erik Thomas You could argue that Dark Descent Records has the monopoly on 2011’s slew of awesome old-school Swedish death metal (Entrails, Undead Creep, Cryptborn, Miasmal, etc), but then along comes Pulverized …
These days live albums are not valued in the same way they were a few decades ago. Today, more often than not, they are tossed off to fulfill a contractual obligation and rarely receive much …
The city of New Orleans was founded by the French in the early 18th Century, and it has a long history of French-influenced culture in its food, music, and architecture. From the perspective of a metal …
