Generally Impressed With Riffs
[Cover art by Quinn Henderson] You’re familiar with the term, “unc,” right? If not, it generally refers to a washed up older feller whose personality in large part revolves around extravagantly performing confusion and/or displeasure at the mere notion of …
[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 …
Originally written by Jason Jordan. I agreed wholeheartedly with Mooring’s assessment of Totimoshi’s ¿Mysterioso? (2001). The Crucial Blast reissue (2005) of their second full-length served as my introduction too, and though I commended the quirkiness of ¿Mysterioso?, I felt the word …
Originally written by Ramar Pittance Harkonin make the wise decision of not having their primary influences made explicit on either their website or their Myspace page. So, while I can’t take the easy way out and …
Chris Sessions’ take: Trivium, then? OK, so what are my impressions? Not my cup o Joe, sailor. This is just more of the same shit I have been hoping to avoid reviewing for about a …
originally written by Jim Brandon I’ve only been able to briefly hear Insomnium’s In The Halls Of Awaiting and Since The Day It All Came Down until fairly recently, and after more concentrated listening I …
“Yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder man, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very …
Originally written by Dante Sacomani. I’m typically the last person willing to dole out any over exaggerated praise to a band who so obviously handpicks their musical cues straight from the back catalogs of legendary …
Originally written by Jeremy Garner Somehow I doubt I’m alone in this regard, but I consider Light This City to be easily one of the more entertaining American metal acts out there today, eclipsing the competition presented …
Originally written by Chris Chellis. The scope of Arriver is astounding. For an unknown band that, to my knowledge anyway, is unsigned and untouched by any major to devise something as massively mythological and textured as Vanlandingham and …
