Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Album artwork by James Koehnline] As much as I love and appreciate the fact that my metal foundation was fortified by growing up alongside the genre in the ‘80s as a youth, I owe a great deal of my undying …
[Cover art by Fenomeno Design] Did you know that Chile is pretty darn good at death metal? If not, you must be new around these parts, in which case, I say, welcome friend! We’re glad to have you here and …
It’s a magical corner of the musical world where a band can combine an infectious nature with extreme oddness, and it’s in that corner that Idaho’s Seven Chains makes their home. Make no mistake about it, third album Swollen, In …
[Cover art by Claudio Elias Scialabba] Italy’s Into Darkness has been a band for approximately 15 years but is just now releasing its first full length album, Route to the Other Side, but all that time has been greatly beneficial …
Originally written by Doug Moore. Generally speaking, self-awareness and metal don’t go terribly well together. Too much critical distance from one’s own work can squelch intensity and expose band members as the self-involved douches they …
I have a feeling my being an American fan of Rhapsody of Fire attaches to me the sort of stigma that fellow Statesider’s associate with the kind of person who spends Friday nights slumped over …
Note: for clarification purposes, this review covers two separate re-issues from Shadow Kingdom Records of Iron Man‘s first two releases — this is not a “2-on-1” package. One of the many rewarding things about steeping …
Scream marks the tenth solo studio album (or eleventh, depending how you want to count Under Cover) for metal’s reigning Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne. Beyond that, the man needs no introduction. His backing band, …
Calling Buzz Osborne eccentric is like saying Tiger Woods is wound slightly tight. It’s among the grossest understatements in the long and storied history of gross understatements. This is, after all, a close friend of …
originally written by Jim Brandon One of the toughest battles I’ve faced as a reviewer isn’t just the obvious writer’s block, or even burnout; it’s cynicism. I make it a point to give any band …
Originall written by Jordan Campbell Nothing–and I mean nothing–will kill an album quicker than a lackluster vocal performance. That’s not to say we haven’t given out our share of passports; every death metal fan on the …
Chile’s Perversor, curiously one of three bands from Latin America with said moniker, brings the time capsule approach to their primitive form of extreme music. Demon Metal is a handy little EP that very believably …
