Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Album artwork / art direction by Joseph Niet / The Creative Corporation] Offering up a textbook definition of “holy crap, time flies,” Black Sabbath’s swan song, 13, was released 13 years ago, on June 7th, 2013. In a curious move, …
If you’re just now catching up, well, we’re just now catching up. Seth Buttnam and I (plus one uninvited guest) are rounding up some of our favoritest grindcore (or grind-adjacent) releases of the past however many months, since we (read: …
[Album artwork by Truls Espedal] It’s 17 albums for Enslaved now, comprising a discography I find exceptionally challenging to wrap my arms around. What’s going on here? Does anyone else forget that the relatively rote and by-the-numbers Frost is actually …
[Cover art by Per Spjøtvold] Want a fun way to acknowledge your own mortality? Think about how many years you’ve been listening to certain bands or albums. Of course, you, a distinguished devotee of this publication, surely engage in this practice, …
The final short story in James Joyce’s collection Dubliners is entitled “The Dead,” and begins with the following line: “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.” The story involves an elaborate dance …
Traditionally, bands with an exceptional lead guitarist, if they’ve got their wits about them, craft their sound around that player’s leads and solos. Nothing’s more frustrating than getting an album from one of those acts …
originally written by Chris McDonald If someone asked me to give an example of what the “extreme” in extreme metal is supposed to denote, Rotten Sound would be one of the first bands I would …
Round about a decade or so ago a boldly-titled comp called True Kings of Norway was released on Spikefarm Records. Featured were embryonic early works by Emperor, Immortal, Arcturus, Dimmu Borgir, and Ancient, obviously slapped …
originally written by Chris McDonald Its been said plenty of times, on this site and others, but it bears repeating: Moonsorrow epitomizes the term “epic” in a heavy metal context. Time and time again, these guys …
It’s been said before (and it’s about to be said again) that Poland has a deserved reputation for metallic excellence but not necessarily for bold genre-expanding innovation – which is to say, if a generalization …
originally written by Jim Brandon I always raise an eyebrow at the appearance of collaborations between well-established musicians who come together to form new projects, especially since about seven out of ten times there’s nothing …
Modern Evergrey presents something of a conundrum – they are several things, and yet they are none of them. They are a progressive metal band that has completely stopped progressing, has, in the eyes of …
