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 …
By design, the music of Neurosis should not work within the confines of the EP format. Their success has long been dependent not only upon their ability to craft earth-shattering hymns of tectonic force, but …
From Man To Dust is the second album from Cincinnati, Ohio’s Beneath Oblivion, and it offers more than ample evidence that the Rust Belt remains a potent source of crippling rage and desperation. All in …
A few months back, I reviewed the “debut” by blast-from-the-past outfit Hell, and though the sounds of the two are worlds apart, the stories behind that band and Scotland’s Iron Claw are similarly both stretched out and slowed …
Once upon a time, in a place called England, in a time called the mid-1980s, the Gods of Crust Punk gave birth to an angry baby, a child whom they christened Grindcore. At the time, …
Still going, friends. There’s no end in sight yet for this relentless onslaught of visceral volumes, and number six is a doozy. From the looks of those top three, you’d expect this to be the …
originally written by Chris McDonald Revocation is the kind of modern band that makes you proud a be a metalhead. This is a young, immensely talented outfit that harbors both serious respect and admiration for …
By the time Andrew Curtis-Brignell started Caïna in 2004, one-man black metal projects had already earned themselves a sterling reputation – fairly, in many cases – for laughably rudimentary songwriting, glass-shards-being-flushed-down-a-toilet production, and all-around foolishness. …
Preamble transcendental – [tran-sen-den-tl,-suhn-] adjective 1. transcending, surpassing, or superior. 2. being beyond ordinary or common experience, thought, or belief; supernatural. 3. abstract or metaphysical. 4. idealistic, lofty, or extravagant. black metal – [blak met-l] …
