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 …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell Pantheist’s Journey Through Lands Unknown is a tough album to dissect; there are way too many things going on here, and they range from the outright awful to surprisingly promising. Unfortunately for …
Originally written by Michael Roberts. I was quite impressed with this young UK outfit’s last album Ruin and eager to hear how they would follow it up. That sophomore effort was a solid piece of abrasive metalcore …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell Two things need to be stated outright before diving into this tasty little four-tracker: 1) Nothnegal hail from the Republic of Maldives, Asia’s smallest country. Surely, this information will be forcefully rammed …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell Many years ago, I nervously stumbled through the doorway of Station 4 (then known as The Lab) with an absolutely brutal –brutal– fake ID embedded in my sweaty palm. It …
Originally written by Erik Thomas When influential or legendary bands return from a lengthy hiatus, the results can either be positive as heard on Gorefest’s La Muerte, Grave’s Back From the Grave and Celtic Frost’s Monotheist for example. Or they can be somewhat …
Good doom-death metal is depressing. That’s the point. Life can be bleak and it often burdens us with pain so heavy it challenges our very right to exist. The best bands in the genre have …
Some other reviews will say a lot about The Faceless’ previous -core leanings and make a big deal about this album’s movement away from that style and toward a stricter technical death metal approach. The …
Elite hail from Mo I Rana, Norway, which is about a stone’s throw from the Arctic friggin’ Circle; so far north that they get virtually no sunlight for most of the winter, during which temperatures …
