Generally Impressed With Riffs
[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 …
[Cover art by Mister Curse] Stack Overflow In Corpse Pile Interface. Stack Overflow in…Corpse Pile Interface? “What’s in a name? That which we call a corpse pile, by any other word would smell as putrid” – billy shakes Forgive my …
2009 will go down as one of the busiest years in heavy metal history. An incredible number of must-hear albums were released, making this one of the most hotly-contested compilations in recent memory. Painstakingly selected by the …
originally written by Chris McDonald Evile’s debut full-length, Enter The Grave, garnered both praise and ire as one of the first noteworthy albums in the nu-thrash explosion to be released by a band not named …
“Hey, man, is that Freedom Hawk?” “Yeah, man!” “Well, TURN IT UP, MAN!” That decades-old commercial featuring two burnouts discussing the merits of a classic rock compilation is not only fitting because of the pun …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell Death metal’s second and third tiers are filled with murky waters. Also-rans and upstarts seem to float in a sea of muck, rudderless, until the wind blows them along the …
Obvious anus jokes aside, a name like Rimfrost at least lets you know pretty clearly what you’re going to get. The band call it Scandinavian black metal. Because that’s where they’re from and that’s what …
Originally written by Doug Moore. Music fans like to think of their genres of choice as purebred open markets. In self-contained worlds like underground metal, the audience’s shared sensibilities and the comparative absence of money’s …
Originally written by Erik Thomas Considering a lot of early classic thrash (Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Dark Angel, Toranaga, Xentrix, Onslaught, Kreator etc.) was much of my indoctrination to metal at a young impressionable age, it’s a …
Norwegian avant-garde metal-turned-self-proclaimed-“traumatic electronic” band Beyond Dawn gets some love from certain segments of the underground, seemingly perpetually cited for “defying convention,” but in listening to this compilation of their earliest works, it would likely be difficult …
