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 …
I toyed with several different introductions for this review, all based around the idea that Primal Fear’s past albums have been weak and largely forgettable, until I realized something: I haven’t listened to a Primal …
Originally written by Chris Chellis. Legends die hard. Or so they say. These German thrashers die pretty damn slowly. Twelve songs and one Guerrero tortilla chips bag later and I am left with a belly …
Originally written by Jason Jordan. Man, except for a couple passages, Sargeist do nothing for me. But I’ll go ahead and tell you about them, because otherwise it’d be a short review. This Finnish unit has been …
Originally written by Patrick Dawson No matter how deep I try to burry my Scandinavian heritage there are a few things that always excite me: Open-faced sandwiches, Fish Cakes, and Trolls. Oh look, it’s an …
Originally written by Chris Chellis. From Internal Void to Spirit Caravan and The Obsessed, Maryland is a breeding ground for quality doom metal. The same could be said about Southern Lord Records, home for many a lost soul in search …
Originally written by Jason Jordan. This has been a decent month for me so far, as I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing Black Crucifixion’s The Fallen One of Flames and now Svartsyn’s Bloodline. These furious Swedes entered the scene in …
Ramar Pittance’s take: I’m supposed to be outraged by this? Ugh, I think people drastically overestimate Children of Bodom, that’s the problem. I think they saw an artistic glimmer in those early albums, and now they’re …
“This recording was arranged, rehearsed, and recorded in 5 days with 2 microphones, and preserved with a cassette 8-track to uphold the true spirit of analog.” Couple the above statement with the fact that this …
