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 …
Graves of the Archangels has chopped off my head and kicked me into the mouth of hell with a most sinister brand of evil, old-school death metal. Here we find proper fealty paid to the …
Originally written by Keith Fox. Winter is slowly receding here in Minnesota as all of the snow and ice is giving way to mud, cold rain, and stormy winds. I love spring for a lot of …
Originally written by Brian Sweeney. All too often, metal bands get caught up in the ethos of toughness, never stepping back to recognize the fact that what they’re making is entertainment. Yeah, it’s still art, …
Originally written by Brady Humbert. So, here we have the latest in what seems to be a stream of re-releases coming from the ass end of Testament’s catalog, consisting of the late 90s (Testament’s wild death metal …
Originally written by Jordan Campbell An overtly misanthropic black/death/funeral doom hybrid, Sol is the twisted vision of one Emil Brahe. Let There Be A Massacre is an extremely draining, totally nihilistic labor of hate, driven by a vehement disdain …
Some two decades and several thousand imitators later, Hellhammer exists outside of judgment or critique, not because they were really all that awesome, but because there’s a big disparity between their importance and their actual …
Dawn Of Demise are heavy; they definitely have that going for them. This heaviness is not the heaviness born of sheer blasting force, nor of abrasive chaotic clamor. This heaviness is the heaviness of a …
To be honest, I have no idea how the hell to label a band like Germany’s Island. Progressive death metal? The Orakel side of this release certainly maintains a number of death metal elements, but …
