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 Chris Chellis. This re-issue presented a number of obstacles, but the most obvious for me as a critic is the fact that I was barely two years old when Awaken the Guardian was first …
Originally written by Chris Chellis. As the name would have any wise listener assume, this group produces what is essentially the vision of one Devin Townsend. As the music recorded on Synchestra proves, Devin Townsend is one …
Originally written by Chris Chellis. Never having listened to anything quite so sweeping in sound, I was thrown just a bit off balance when I first listened to Falkenbach’s Heralding – The Fireblade, a rerecorded version of …
Originally written by Jason Jordan. I like Poland. I like grind. I like Selfmadegod Records. I like Antigama. I like Zeroland. What I don’t like, however, is that this record is being touted as a full-length even …
Does the name Amicuss ring a bell? That was the name given to the much anticipated project of Phil Anselmo, Killjoy (Necrophagia), and Casey Chaos (Amen). Unfortunately, a professional falling out between Anselmo and Killjoy, …
One day there was this band called Cannibal Corpse who were part of a great little scene of American Death Metal bands who wanted to be heavy; not good, not bad, not mind blowing, not …
Originally written by Jason Jordan. Out of the records unleashed by Selfmadegod as of late, Dimension 303 is my favorite. While I do have good things to say about Third Degree, Wojczech, and Antigama, Catheter upstage their fellow grind combatants. For starters, …
It’s been over four years since Zero Hour became the darlings of the prog-metal underground with their Towers of Avarice release. That may not seem like a long time for that genre, but seeing as …
