It’s not uncommon to hear about how much someone’s favorite band means to them. For as long as there has been music, people have been drawing strength and comfort from their favorite performers. Finding a band that speaks to you and that you can relate to can be an immense sense of relief when you…
Metal stands in opposition. The mainstream, the church, politicians, pop culture…all tend to thumb their noses at metal and metalheads. Who gives a shit though? What’s popular is very rarely what’s good, and what makes the big bucks is usually, at the least, compromised and at worst, completely manufactured. If the music we loved was…
Spain’s Undead knows damn well how to make a killer death metal record that won’t die. Since bursting onto the scene in 2015 with their debut EP, Blood Enemy, Undead has steadily built a following and a name for themselves as purveyors of true, classic death metal. The promise of their early EPs was fulfilled on…
Blaze of Sorrow, which formed in 2007, damn well knows what it takes to make a black metal album stick. Since their debut, L’Ultimo Respiro, in 2008, the band has put out seven albums of killer, atmospheric black metal. The Blaze of Sorrow sound takes traditional elements from classic black metal bands and blends them…
Sometimes having your head cleaved in twain is just what the doctor ordered. Besides the fact that it’s hot as Hell out and the breeze might feel good, getting your noggin split open let’s you get out all that extra junk you’ve been carrying around up there to make room for the good stuff. It’s…
There’s an inherent sadness in the human condition. Life can be great and all but, like Bruce Dickinson once sang, “as soon as you’re born, you’re dying.” Take comfort and refuge in whatever works for you but, when it’s all said and done, we’re really all just decaying sacks of meat in a pot that’s…
The world of heavy metal wouldn’t be what it is today without the influence of Brazilian metalheads. The land that gave us classic bands like Sepultura or Sarcófago and festivals, like Rock in Rio, has more than earned a place of honor in the heart of most heshers worldwide. The culture and the overall musical…
Within the world of extreme metal, Sweden has been bringing death to all for quite some time. Be it Dismember, Entombed, At the Gates, or Bloodbath, Sweden’s contributions to the timeless art of death metal needs no question. Between the HM-2 drenched buzzy style of death to the melodic Gothenburg sound, Swedish bands haven’t just…
It’s been a long road out of Hell but, if you’re a fan of speed metal, you’re probably damn sure that Hellcrash made the journey. After forming in 2013 and dropping their Ready to Burn in Hell demo, audiences were left with scant offerings from Hellcrash over the next set of years. Outside of a split and…
The world is full of chaos. That’s not a new idea or a statement that’s particularly profound but it’s true. Although this has always been the case, it certainly feels like the chaotic nature of everything has been ramping up over the past stretch of years. Sometimes it feels like the world is sitting on a…
Checking in on the human condition isn’t exactly a chipper task these days. Granted, things haven’t been going smoothly in the world for quite some time, but lately it feels like everything has been kicked into overdrive and the fire is getting out of control. We could dive into examples galore but that’s a little…
Having fun is sometimes an overlooked part of metal. Beneath all the buckets of blood, corpsepaint scowls, and arguments over who is or is not trve kvlt, the music is there to be enjoyed. Sure, some bands might not come out and say they want you to have “fun” with their ultra-serious endeavor and that…
Two decades is a damn long time to be doing anything. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, 20 years is a blip in human existence but, when you’re living the ins and outs of your daily life, that span of years can feel like most of a lifetime. Keeping with something and putting in…
Big, important shows are a Hell of a time. Seeing Tom. G. Warrior perform Hellhammer songs with Triumph of Death at Maryland Deathfest last year? Yeah, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. Getting to finally hit a Metallica concert, and it happens to be a headlining slot at Lollapalooza? Buddy, you better believe that’s quite the occasion….
Sometimes it’s easier and more efficient to just take care of business on your own. Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely an appeal to teamwork and having others help with a task can certainly make the work easier and less lonely. That being said, when it’s a creative endeavor, other people around can dilute your…
What is the path to Hell really paved with? Good intentions don’t make a ton of sense if you think about it in either a literal or a theological sense. So what would that path toward the gates of Tartarus actually look like? What kind of monstrous road are you trudging along after your final…
Metal, as much as any other genre, loves a good comeback story. There’s something immensely satisfying in a band that comes roaring back to life as strong as ever that just feels exhilarating for both the fans and the performers. The last decade has been filled with triumphant resurgences of a multitude of killer bands who have…
There’s a certain sound that you kind of expect to hear when you put on a metal album from New Orleans. The sludge, Southern rock, and blackened thrash styles that a lot of the town’s biggest bands trade in have become synonymous with NOLA metal. It’s a common enough theme in music that bands in…
Black metal has always had a history with helping people express deep wells of pain and sorrow within their lives. The tortured shrieks, the dark lyrics, and the harshness of the music all make for a natural outlet for artists to purge the demons from their minds or at the very least commiserate with other like…
When it comes to death metal, there’s a fine line between technical and incomprehensible. Plenty of tech death bands out there have players that can arpeggio so fast you’d swear their fingers were on fire and drummers who can double kick until their feet fall off but that doesn’t necessarily translate to music that us…
Horror lurks everywhere around us and we wouldn’t have it any other way. As a society, we are fascinated by tales of serial killers, both real and fictional, as well as monsters of all shapes and sizes. Take a look at how many installments get made of even the most mediocre slasher film or how…
Metal sometimes gets badly stereotyped as a lesser form of music in the lyrics department. Sure, there are plenty of bands within the genre that write, shall we say, less than stellar words to go along with their music but that holds true for every style. To me, it feels pretty unfair that metal gets…
There’s never been a better time to be a pot smoking death metal fan. On the metal front, it’s easier now than ever to access any and every band, from the obscure to the most mainstream (well, mainstream for death metal), and bands are way more able to interact with their fanbase from all over…
It’d be hard to think of a more fitting moniker for a brutal death metal band than Serial Butcher. The name itself pretty much tells you everything you’d need to know about the outfit. It’s kinda hard to imagine a bubblegum pop group calling themselves Serial Butcher, isn’t it? When you come up with a name…
Editor’s Note: Last summer, I conducted two interviews with people from two of my all-time favorite bands. This interview with Crowbar drummer Tommy Buckley was one of them. Due to issues with my old laptop, I thought the files got deleted before I had a chance to transcribe them, which was a massive bummer. Other…
Are you ready to have your skull caved in? Kind of a weird question to ask, I know, but if you’re a death metal fan then you’re probably always down for a little cranial crushing if the mood is right. Well, it’s a Friday and the mood is more than right if you’ve picked up…
Faith, at least how it’s practiced by a large swath of the world, is a cancer on our society. Think about some of the worst abuses of power in recent years, from pedophile priests to apartheid states to the vicious and obsessive persecution of trans individuals across the U.S., faith in a higher power has…
There’s something to be said for going the lone wolf route when it comes to music. Sure, sharing the load and having others to help out can make things easier but it can also lead to a lot of tensions and scheduling issues that can hamper the actual creation of music and lead to all sorts…
There are exceptions to most rules but, by and large, the death metal faithful aren’t really the faithful type, at least in the theological sense. Sure, there are some christian death metal bands (quality not guaranteed), but it’s a style that lends itself way easier to ripping an angel apart than praising one. The fury, speed,…
It can be a struggle for bands to release records that people care about over any period of time. That first burst of youthful creativity might be all you’ve got to really offer the world and lead to what you’re remembered for. Other bands might make it a decade or so before internal issues, trends, and the…
The old saying goes that if you stare into the abyss too long, it’ll stare back. While that might sound like a frightening prospect to most people, extreme metallers are cut from a different cloth. If you’re a fan of heavy records that effectively mix doom, death, and black metal, the abyss returning your gaze isn’t…
It’s almost more difficult to grasp how the bizarre wouldn’t interest someone than how it would. Everyday life can get so boring and dull and routine definitely can make today feel like yesterday feel like tomorrow feel like yesterday in one long, unbroken line. The bizarre, the weird, the strange all give us a chance to…
49 minutes. 11 tracks. One butt-rock extravaganza that makes me thankful Godsmack isn’t really considered metal. They’re one of those bands on the fringes of rock that intermingles with the genre, and based on someone’s opinion and propensity to argue, one might disagree with you about the classification one way or another. But I stand…
Conjuring isn’t for the faint of heart. When you start playing around with supernatural forces and calling upon entities beyond our understanding, you risk letting something you can’t control or comprehend loose upon the world. Mess around with forces from beyond and you just might end up with a scenario on your hands that looks…
Extreme metal is meant for the nighttime. Ok, so there’s obviously nothing wrong with blaring Celtic Frost at any time of day but the night just feels more appropriate for anything and everything extreme. Face it, your black Cause of Death T-shirt looks way cooler when it’s not 80 degrees and sunny out. Sure, outdoor festivals are…
It’s been a long wait, but the first Lord Mountain LP has finally been unleashed upon the world. The Oath, released on January 20 of this year, builds on the promise that Lord Mountain displayed way back in 2016 when they released their self-titled debut EP. Fans who dug the band’s first output will not be disappointed…
Sometimes a record comes along that is both firmly rooted in a genre and that transcends that genre. It’s a tough task to make something that is readily identifiable as death metal, for instance, but that also includes elements and ideas that are pretty far afield from what you’d normally get with a typical release…
There’s not much better fodder for death metal inspiration than horror. It doesn’t particularly matter if the horror in question is the kind that hunts you down in your dreams with a knife glove or the more realistic kind that sneaks into your house while you’re away and waits in the closet for the lights…
People find inspiration everywhere. A brush with death could be the push you need to make a grand change. Maybe something as simple as a nice walk in the forest gave you the motivation to write something haunting. Even just experiencing someone else’s art can be the impetus that a lot of people need to…
Death metal needs bands like Nothingness. There’s nothing wrong with sticking firmly within a specific genre and making art that doesn’t stray from the boundaries of what makes that genre unique. Bands do it all the time and plenty of my favorite bands aren’t the most experimental in their approaches. There’s nothing wrong with that…
Going it alone can be tough, especially when you’re a band. Writing, recording, and performing music is an onerous enough task when you have partners around you, let alone when all the decisions fall on your shoulders. There certainly are benefits, like not fighting over creative directions and figuring out how to split revenue, but there’s…
It’s always a Hell of an exciting time when a band you really dig releases new music. As soon as that album gets announced, you circle that date on your calendar and now you’ve got something to look forward to, something to get you through the day and give you some kind of light at…
There are some places around the world that just seem to breed great music. Whether it’s the climate, the attitude of the natives, the local water…some places just seem to be hotbeds for creativity. Anyone that loves extreme music (or Hell, music in general) knows that New Orleans is one of the strongest scenes for pretty…
The music that stays with you, that actually lives as a part of your life, that shit comes from the heart. It’s probably a real “duh” statement but you have to put your heart and soul into something to make it last. How many disposable pop albums that all sound the same are released in…
The best music doesn’t give a fuck what you think. That shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone reading a zine that tends to skew towards the more extreme side of metal. It’d be pretty damn near impossible to make a killer death metal album if you were worrying if this lyric or that idea…
You ever listen to something new and pretty quickly think, “Wow, that was nice of the band to make something specifically tailored to me!” Granted, bands make music for the unwashed masses to enjoy but still, every once in a while, something hits you that feels like it was your own personal taste profile that…
Like the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That old chestnut works when describing extreme metal as well as anything else. When a genre like death metal has been going strong for decades and decades, there’s not much of a reason to stray too far outside of the bounds of the style…
There’s nothing wrong with being firmly rooted in one genre. If death metal, for example, floats your boat and you have no interest in playing outside of those boundaries, then you’d be in fine company. That being said, some of the best stuff out there is made by artists that aren’t worried if their album…
Ashes are usually what’s left at the end. When the fire has burnt out and everything that it’s consumed has been taken, ashes are all you’re left with. There’s a finality to something being reduced to ashes. Few things feel more like a definitive ending than everything distinctive about something being burnt away from it….
Some bands take their sweet time getting it together. Those first few releases can be rough but promising, showing listeners what could be in store for them if they stick with the group for a few outings while they figure things out. Putting together kickass records, and doing it consistently, takes time and effort. It’s…
Side gigs and hustles are pretty much what you’ve got to do to survive in the world these days. It seems like everyone you know is driving a rideshare on the weekend, running an Etsy shop, selling their old shit online, or whatever it takes to scrape by. Unless you’re in the upper echelons of the…
Sometimes the metal release calendar doesn’t make you wait too far into the year to have new faces rip your old face off. The ink is barely dry on the shitshow that was 2022 but we already have one of the most exciting debuts of 2023. That Repulsive Nature, the first LP from Seattle death metallers…
It doesn’t take long into Ritual of Ash, the debut longplayer from Australian death metallers Ashen, to realize that these dudes know what the Hell they are doing. If you’ve listened to enough death metal over the years, Ashen’s influences should be pretty readily apparent upon firing up their first LP. Pretty much any band that…
Katatonia’s latest album showcases the experience of a band that’s been at this since 1991 while also remaining completely comfortable in the hard-rock lane they’ve been in since the release of 1998’s The Discouraged Ones. There are 11 tracks and no surprises on their new album, Sky Void of Stars. The new release wastes no…
Heavy times call for heavy music. It’s no secret that people lean pretty mightily on whatever brand of music speaks to them when the going gets tough. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you’ve noticed that the going has gotten tough lately for most people. Having a great piece…
A ton of great debuts come out every year from across all subgenres of metal to the point where compiling a list of the best debuts every year can be a pretty perilous task. Last year I ended up putting together my end-of-the-year debuts list way too late and had a ton of albums to…
It takes a lot to stand out in the world. With more people having more access to more types of entertainment than ever before, getting yourself recognized and remembered as someone or something that rises above whatever crowded field you play in can be a Herculean task. Granted there are more outlets for exposure than…
Finding the line between thrash and death metal can sometimes feel like trying to determine the world’s shortest tall person. There’s not a lot of difference between the heaviest of thrash and death metal sometimes, and honestly, who cares? Genre definitions can be extremely limiting and, honestly, if a band is a thrash-influenced death metal band or…
Talk to anyone deeply into extreme metal for long enough and you’ll walk away with a list of new bands to check out and a full playlist of stuff you’ve missed or haven’t gotten around to yet. Extreme metal fandom, and music fandom in general, is a mapping diagram of bands leading you to other…
Let’s face it, extreme metal is not a genre for the faint of heart. Between the ravenously hungry living dead, the slaughter of nuns, and the blazing fires of Hell, extreme metal is something that you don’t get into if you’re wired like everyone else. If you want to play it safe with music that…
It’s been a Hell of a year for metal. Bands thought long dead clawed their way out of their graves, old favorites signed off after putting in years and decades of stellar work, new bands celebrated the start of what will hopefully be long and fruitful careers, and veterans of the scene put out stunning…
Trying to tackle a top ten list of songs is a lot more work than it sounds like it should be at first, but then you take into consideration the sheer number of songs that were released in 2022. Even when a parameter is set, considering we’re called Metal Plague, that it should be in…
A lot of the time the start of the journey is the most exciting part of the whole thing. The future is wide open with promise and no one really knows what the rest of the path will end up looking like once all is said and done. The untapped potential that still waits to…
The pandemic might not be over (despite what our elected officials might say, ICUs running out of beds due to COVID complications tends to make me not want to consider us out of the woods yet) but the live show hiatus certainly is. Concerts are finally back in full swing with many exciting tours out…
I have to admit, this is one of the things I’ve most been looking forward to when I started this site. I absolutely love end-of-the-year lists. There’s something about people making definitive statements about the art they loved over the past year that has always interested me. Agree or disagree with them, they always provide plenty of…
The last decade or so has seen plenty of events that make the doom of mankind seem rather imminent. Between economic collapses, pandemics, wars, and environmental destruction, it can feel like the end is nigh and getting out the sandwich board and screaming it from the street corner might start making sense. It’s hard to feel optimistic about the…
History, as a subject, is one that tends to appeal to metalheads. Between the battles, struggles for power, delusions of grandeur leading to downfalls, and more death and destruction than a disaster flick, history is ripe with plenty to mine for inspiration for metal fans and bands alike. For those with a more nuanced approach to…
If you’ve been lamenting the lack of Lamentations albums for the past six years, your ship finally came in back in November when the Singapore progressive death metal outfit put out its second album, Passion of Depression. If you dug the 2013 debut, Echoes in the Wind, then you should be pretty stoked on the band’s follow-up. Passion of…
Extreme metal desperately needs bands like Blackbraid. There are so many bands starting out or stumbling out of their infancy that all end up sounding, if not the same, pretty damn close to it. There are only so many new ways you can do brutal death metal until it gets repetitive, for instance. That’s not…
Plenty of toxins have done plenty of damage to the world but, for my money, no toxin has been more damaging to the face of the Earth and the cause of humanity than the toxin of organized religion. If you’re a thinking adult, you really shouldn’t need too many examples to back this up but…
Torture and metal kinda go hand in hand, don’t they? Whether it’s death metal bands singing about gruesome ways to elicit pain or black metal bands putting various implements of suffering on an album cover, methods of making humans scream and squirm fit very well within the confines of music’s most extreme genre. Hell, arguably…
Anyone that loves metal knows that South America does metal better than most places on the globe. Whether it’s Sarcófago, Sepultura, Mystifier, Abhorrence, Krisiun or any of a myriad of other killer bands, our friends near and south of the equator know a thing or two about making maniacal metal. Bands across the continent have spent…
This year has seen a plethora of fresh offerings from new bands. There’s something undeniably exhilarating about hearing a debut and knowing that this is a band to watch out for. Whether a band can build off a promising first outing is another story but when the debut is all you have, and damn good at…
While 2022 has seen the start of a lot of promising metal careers, it also comes with the end of one. Root, the legendary black metal band from the Czech Republic, announced this year that they would be retiring from live performance and studio recordings after the release of their 11th and final LP due to…
Phil Hall is not a man given to downtime. Whether it’s putting together thrash classics (thrashics, if you will) with Municipal Waste, weed hazed death metal with Cannabis Corpse, or political-tinged crossover with Iron Reagan, Landphil can usually be found working on something music related. With so many albums across so many genres, you could be…
Sadly, the days of the video store are gone. Picking out a movie for the night doesn’t entail walking through row after row of VHS or DVD cases and picking out not only what appeals the most but what’s actually in stock. Now, rather than the tactile experience of wandering through aisles with other movie fans,…
Resurrection is not a rare event in the world of metal. Since the dawn of the new(ish) millennium, plenty of bands have come and gone and come back again. Everyone from Carcass to the Tygers of Pan Tang have reformed and put out killer records since their triumphant returns. Bands long thought dead and gone have…
Death metal is music by and for the underground. If you’re a fan of the style (hell, even if you’ve only heard a song or two), you understand what I mean. Screaming and growling the most disturbing, violent, and extreme lyrics that Jack Ketchum never wrote does not lend itself to mainstream appeal. Certainly some…
Death metal is, and this should be obvious, not a peaceful style of music. Hell, with death in the name itself you should know that you’re not in for a sonic experience conducive to mindful meditation. The speed, power, and rage behind the best death metal speaks to turbulence and upheaval. To put it another…
Goatwhore is a band that cares as much about what the mainstream thinks as can be expected from a band that named itself Goatwhore. For the past 25 years, vocalist L. Ben Falgoust II and guitarist/vocalist Sammy Duet, along with a variety of skilled drummers and bass players, have been making their own unique brand…
Chicago has produced so many musical legends in its storied history that just compiling a list of them would end up looking like a phonebook (remember those, kids?). It doesn’t matter if you are talking about hip hop, blues, punk, rock, singer-songwriter, or metal, Chicago has made its mark on the musical landscape of whatever…
To say that life is hard for most people is a bit of an understatement. One obvious tool people use to help cope with their problems is art, whether as an artist or a devotee. Art in its various forms such as music, movies, or books can help people get through life. As far as…
A pharmacist, by definition, dispenses medicines that, in theory, are meant to make you feel better. If something is wrong inside you, something that needs medical attention, you’re going to need a pharmacist somewhere along the line to give you some form of medicinal help. But what about those of us who have more of…
For those of us who live and breathe metal, discord is not stranger to us at all. We are, quite frequently, at odds with the world around us. The more into the world of metal one dives, the more of a disagreement that person is going to have with what the mainstream thinks is “good”…
Maurizio Iacono is a busy man. Between melodeath masters Kataklysm, Roman history themed Ex Deo, heading Hard Impact Artist Management, founding Distortion Music Group, and co-owning booking agency Continental Touring, it’s hard to imagine Iacono having much free time on his hands for anything, let alone a third musical project. Taking it easy and kicking…
It’s been a wild ride for Horrendous, the death metal band originating between Philadelphia and South Carolina, but one that has been an exciting journey for fans of the genre to follow. Formed in 2009 by punk loving brothers Matt and Jamie Knox along with their more metal-leaning friend Damian Herring, the group started with…
Metal fandom is for life. When something stirs in your brain the first time you hear Judas Priest or Black Sabbath or Cannibal Corpse, that connection is made for the long hall. To be a metal fan is to be devoted to the heaviest music on Earth and to not give a flying shit what…
A gut wound lingers. In the movies, a gunshot to the middle tends to be a drawn out affair, with the unfortunate recipient left to suffer in agony for hours or days. It’s a visceral process of suffering, expiring from a gut wound, and one that’s a more than apt title for a death metal…
The last few years have seen a variety of bands long thought dead rise from the grave to kick asses and melt faces once again. Time away from their bands, renewed interest thanks to readily available older material on the internet, and astronomical leaps forward in technology have all brought fans clamoring for the return…
It’s true to the point of being cliche but it really is staggering how many influential bands and musicians have come from New Orleans. Whether you’re a fan of jazz, metal, hard rock, blues, rap, country, or pretty much any and every genre and subgenre in between, you can most definitely find an act from…
Some bands are easy to pin down. Cannibal Corpse is death metal, Mayhem is black metal, Megadeth is thrash, and so on and so forth. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a band comfortably falling within one subgenre or another. On the other hand, there’s something exciting about a band that takes what they love from…
There is no shortage of guitar heroes within the worlds of hard rock and heavy metal. Plenty of different axemen have come and gone and left their marks on not only the music and the fans, but also on the musicians within the scene as well. Pretty much any guitarist you talk to will instantly…
There doesn’t seem to be a more readymade target or subject of discussion for metal musicians than religion. By their very nature, our religious institutions seek to control individuals and get them to conform to their way of thinking and their beliefs. If you know anything north of nothing about metalheads, conformity really isn’t our…
If you love death metal, you probably love Terry Butler, whether you know it or not. You can’t be a fan of the genre without liking Massacre, Death, Six Feet Under, Obituary, or Inhuman Condition. One, or all, of those bands has definitely been in your rotation at some point if you dig the genre…
Regardless of how old you are, the grim reaper is coming for you. It might not be today, it might not be next week (or hell, it might!) but sometime, you will have to meet the man in black during your fateful, final encounter. That’s the band news. The good news, for metal fans at…
Plenty of family members start bands together. The Abbott brothers in Pantera, the Hoffman brothers with Deicide, the Cavalera brothers with Sepultura…I could list brothers in bands for quite some time and only scratch the surface of successful sibling pairings. Less common but still not unheard of are the bands that feature father and son pairings such…
Most bands take years to catch on and that’s assuming that they take off at all. Grinding it out in a band, building recognition and respect, and cultivating that fanbase is a never-ending journey for groups. That long road between deciding to start a band and having a strong following can take years or decades…
Being a new band can be tough. There is no end to the bullshit that is required of people in bands if they want to exist for any period of time, let alone make any money or gain any attention. For many bands, their local scene is a source of security and comfort. Having other bands…
Death metal has always thrived in Sweden. When looking at pockets around the globe of where the art form has always had a strong fan base and a fertile ground for exciting albums and bands, Sweden is probably the first stop outside the States for many listeners. The Scandinavian country has produced plenty of classic…
You shouldn’t really need an intro for a Jonas Renkse interview. Chances are, you’ve dug his work in one of his bands. If you’re a death metal fan, you are seriously missing out if you haven’t heard anything from his supergroup, Bloodbath. If you’re bread is buttered more on the prog and doom metal side,…
When everything has been said and done, by a conservative estimate, around a billion times by now, it truly takes something out of left field to feel original. Combining death metal with thrash and throwing in banjos, saloon piano, and hand drums sounds like a recipe for either disaster or something wholly original. Pairing the…
In the world of extreme metal, the Chicagoland area is an underrated spot. Sure, Florida, New York, and California get a lot of attention, and deservedly so, too. That being said, Chicago’s contributions to extreme metal and the bands that call that area home have been criminally overlooked by the national media. Plenty of cool…
It’s no surprise that musicians put a ton of themselves into their work. Just the act of creating is, in and of itself, an incredibly intimate process of putting something of yourself into your art that, you hope, will deeply affect its particular audience in some way. How much of yourself you put into that work…
Ask any metal fan and I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to tell you their own personal list of bands that are too big and bands that are too small. Everyone has their own unique takes on who should be huge by now and who shouldn’t. For every band you say, someone else will argue…
Longevity is hard to come by. In the world of music, it’s damn near impossible to stay consistent and relevant over any period of time, let alone 40-plus years. Bands come and go with regularity and many acts with a stretch of time behind them will inevitably find themselves wearing down and slowing up. Albums…
Horror and death metal go hand-in-hand. Just looking at the name, death metal, should obviously be a clue that this is a type of music that caters to the darker side of life and draws from the same wells of terror that the horror genre does. Both art forms are littered with broken bodies, viscera,…
There are a lot of bands that, when you think about them, one person comes to mind. When I say Deicide, you probably think of Glen Benton. With Behemoth, it’s Nergal. For Death, Chuck Schuldiner should pop in your head. With death metal legends Monstrosity, Lee Harrison is the man in the eye of the…
Any fan of extreme metal knows, or should know, that one of the most fertile spots for exciting bands is Finland. For decades, Finland has turned out a variety of great death metal bands in particular and extreme metal bands in general. Amorphis, Rotten Sound, Demilich, Necropsy, and many, many more have put Finland on…
Whether you believe in the divinity of the man that the Romans supposedly nailed to a tree all those years ago or not, there is nothing at Golgotha. The hill where the man Jesus is supposed to have been crucified is, more or less, just a hill. What is left behind is either a testament to…
Does anything good ever come from opening the sarcophagus? In the best case scenario, you disturb the rest of some ancient Egyptians and have to deal with the putrescence of centuries-old corpse stink. That’s the best case scenario. In the worst case, well, we’ve all heard the Mercyful Fate song. As far as I know, no…
Werewolves are just cool, aren’t they? When the full moon strikes, the normally mild-mannered man or woman turns into a ravening beast, roaming the countryside looking for throats to tear out and entrails to feast on. What’s not to love about a giant beast stalking through the night with unrestrained fury and unsheathed claws? It’s…
Obviously, it’s an exciting time to be a fan of extreme metal. Shows have been back in more or less full force for some time now, new albums are getting released, and fans are finally getting to see what bands did with all the forced downtime during lockdowns. More than a few bands have emerged…
Combining great things can, when done right, lead to a wholly new experience out of the synthesis of multiple elements. Deathgrind, blackened thrash, slam…these all take pieces of different genres’ identities and meld them together to create something that is, hopefully, the best of both worlds. When everything has been done before, mashing your favorites up…
It shouldn’t be any shock to anyone who has even half ass paid attention to extreme metal over the last chunk of years that Texas is one hell of a fertile breeding ground for new and exciting bands. Within the massive confines of the state, there are a variety of different scenes spread throughout providing…
Change is, say it with me, inevitable. This holds particularly true within the world of music. How many bands out there have only original members? Hell, how many have mostly original members? Vocalists, guitar players, drummers, bassists…they all come and go as time goes along. Changing circumstances, waning interests, or just personality clashes all lead to bands…
The world, as it spins now, is a place full of myriad different horrors waiting around ever my step. You can really pick your poison out there as for what horrific nightmare gets your goat at the moment. You’d be well within your rights to be scared stiff about mutating diseases, economic collapse, nuclear war,…
When it comes to death metal, Matt Harvey knows what he’s doing. He definitely should, being that he’s been playing in the same death metal band, Exhumed, since he was in high school. Whereas most of us would probably struggle to remember what we were up to back then, Harvey has taken his youthful passion…
Overkill is a word that doesn’t hold much meaning in the world of extreme metal. You want the riffs heavier? You want the lyrics gorier? You want the tempos faster? It seems like, within extreme metal, there’s a place to take whatever excites you to the highest degree possible and then break past that level….
Even though it’s already been a fruitful year for debuts, the strong starts just keep coming. In the middle of April, Disfuneral put out their debut LP, Blood Red Tentacle, and it’s a must-hear for fans of old school death metal. The French band, which only has one EP out before the new full-length, has…
What do you like to barbecue? Sauced up wings? Nice buttery corn on the cob? Veggie burgers with a good seasoning? Human flanks? Ok, that last one might just be for Hannibal Lecter, Leatherface, and a certain Belgium-based brutal death metal band. Since its formation in 2015, Human Barbecue has been pumping out high-quality brutal…
This year has already been a fruitful one for metal fans. There has been a slew of exciting debuts, groovy new releases from old favorites, and welcome returns either planned or already out from bands that fans have been dying to hear from again. In late March, Ohio-based Bloodgate made their triumphant return with the…
There are very few things that are more exciting within the world of music than a good debut. A solid start for a band is something that should get every fan of the style of music the group plays jacked for what could hopefully be a long and fruitful career. Proficient debuts give you something…
Within the world of metal, initial perceptions can oftentimes be misleading. When I first heard of Canadian band Death Perception a while ago, they were billed as a death metal band and, while I’d say that’s more or less pretty accurate, they’re a lot more than that. Melding influences from thrash metal and groove metal,…
Being able to do death metal vocals, in and of itself, is a hell of an accomplishment. Being able to play keyboards and do drum programming as well is even more impressive. Throw in being an outstanding visual artist sought after for album covers and other pieces makes for a hell of a triple threat….
Wharflurch, which formed in Florida in 2019, does not have the output of a band that’s only three years old. They might have just one full-length to their name, 2021’s Psychedelic Realms ov Hell, but through that record, along with three EPs, three splits, multiple compilation appearances, and a live album, Warflurch has more than made…
I love death metal that pulls guts out, smashes faces, rips limbs from the body, and genuinely revels in the squishy feeling of putrefying organs between your fingers. That being said, it’s certainly not an issue when a band has something different to offer. Although gore and horror might be my bag, variety really is…
If you are looking for inspiration for an extreme album, something that will provide you with a depth of monsters, madness, and malice beyond the imaginings of mortal man, H.P. Lovecraft’s work has to spring to mind. Plenty of bands have drawn inspiration from the writings of the imaginative New Englander and his Cthulhu mythos. Lovecraft’s…
Stephen King once wrote, “Sooner or later, everything old is new again.” Within the world of the creative arts, that’s one of the most true maxims in all of music. Musicians take inspiration where they can find it and mold it to fit their own unique interests and needs. Unless you were alive centuries ago…
Plenty of artists have gotten a lot of mileage out of reflecting on the cosmic nature of our place within the universe. Turning to the vastness of space and humanity’s seemingly infinitesimally small role within the cosmos has provided a well of inspiration for art from everyone from Tool to Blood Incantation to 2001: A…
If you’ve been paying attention to the extreme metal scene over the past decade, you should know Full of Hell. Formed in 2009 by a group of incredibly determined and musically talented teens, the band has been making harsh, utterly unclassifiable music since. The band’s first release, 2010’s EP The Inevitable Fear of Existence, marked…
This is part two of a two-part interview with Fang VonWrathenstein (Ty Christian) from Lords of the Trident. Click here to check out part one in which Fang discusses the band’s history and how they’ve managed to stay independent over the years. For more on 2022’s The Offering and what the band has on the horizon,…
It tends to feel good in a story when the hero wins, especially when real life is as dire and depressing as it has been the last few years. A great tale of valorous protagonists taking on ultimate evil and coming out with the upper hand may be the best way to grab an actual…
If you’re a fan of heavy music, Henry Rollins shouldn’t need an introduction. The perpetually pissed-off vocalist more than made a name for himself during his time fronting hardcore punk band Black Flag throughout the ‘80s. Chances are you already grew up listening to albums like Damaged and My War. If his Black Flag output somehow escaped you,…
If you didn’t know, the world changed a bit in 2020. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtually every industry on Earth was affected and mutated in some way. For music, live shows were done for a while, tours were cancelled, and recordings were put on hold as lockdowns and stay-at-home orders ramped up…
There’s something to be said for music that reflects the time it was recorded in. It’s more than readily apparent that, unfortunately, the current epoch isn’t the most optimistic of eras. Between the degradation of the natural world and the constant state of war the world of mankind feels compelled to never leave, chipper tunes…
For as long as I’ve been alive, to tweak an old adage, there have been three constants: death, taxes, and Cannibal Corpse. Releasing their debut, Eaten Back to Life, the year after I was born, Cannibal Corpse has been smashing faces my entire life across 15 (and counting) full-lengths of never-waning intensity. To stay relevant…
Nothing is guaranteed with a descent into a chasm. Maybe the dark, waiting maw of the ravine holds the promise of exciting geological formations to explore. Lost ruins hidden for centuries could sit undisturbed, resting in anticipation of the first human eyes to see them in years. If you’re not so lucky, death and evil…
Obsession is a double edged sword. Obviously, obsessions can drive you to get things done. That constant compulsion can prompt and prod you to get your music recorded, your short story written, your mile time down. It can be a wonderful tool to strive toward constant improvement and perfection. Of course, the dark side of…
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Well, at least you can when the band is NunSlaughter. The first time you hear that name, you can kinda guess what these dudes are all about: down-and-dirty metal custom made to piss off Christians the world over. There’s really no middle ground between the road…
Gore, at least in the fictional sense, has a certain appeal to it, doesn’t it? There’s something about seeing buckets of blood and foot after foot of intestines thrown around in a scene that makes you (depending on the quality), laugh your ass off or feel sick to your stomach. It’s a time honored tradition…
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot to be miserable about lately. Ok, well maybe not just lately, but the current crop of obstacles to a happy and healthy future for our big blue ball can seem downright impassable sometimes. Between the never ending pandemic, a world always at war, and the rising cost of,…
For anyone with even a cursory knowledge of metal history, it shouldn’t be a shock that the San Francisco Bay Area is still pumping out great bands. When you talk about important scenes or locations in metal history, the Bay is really one of the top ones that has to come to mind. Although the…
When something molders, decay sets in. Neglect leads to the slow process of disintegration to the point where what you’re left with is a decomposed mess, barely recognizable as an object once valued and vibrant. It’s a process akin to rot setting in in the heart of an abandoned or forsaken entity. This deleterious mechanism…
Saying you like metal tells someone as much about you as saying that you like fiction books or long movies. It narrows it down to the art but leaves a lot of room for guessing on the particulars. Do you like death and hate metalcore? Does black metal float your boat while thrash leaves you…
Atmospheric black metal bands tend to be a dime a dozen. For every genuinely exciting release, there are five or six more littering release days that sound frustratingly similar. I’ve heard a couple this year already that just didn’t excite me in the least or do enough to differentiate themselves from other bands out there…
There are plenty of exciting and diverse ways that you can be splattered. Maybe you stumble in front of a semi and become roadkill. Perhaps you forgot the window was open in your high-rise apartment and you took a fatal tumble to the less than forgiving street. Hell, you might have pissed off a scanner…
A harsh, nihilistic world calls for harsh, nihilistic music. The last few decades have seen catastrophe after calamity after quagmire repeated ad nauseam. In a world constantly engulfed in war, perpetually on the brink of climate disaster, and struggling through a pandemic that still kills by the thousands daily, waking life is anything but a…
For more than 20 years, Dallas Toler-Wade has been a steadying hand within the world of death metal. The North Carolina-born Toler-Wade first made his name as the guitarist and one of the vocalists behind the otherworldly run that Nile went on in the ’00s through the mid-’10s. It’s no coincidence that Toler-Wade’s first album…
Nightmares stick with you. You wake up with sweat dripping down your back and a noise halfway between a pained wail and a terrified scream lodged in your throat. The bathroom is calling you now that you’re awake but that hallway is awfully dark and, although you’ve walked it a million times, those oh-so-familiar features…
We’ve all been there. You’re at a concert, having some brews, having a blast, having a headbang, when all of a sudden, a turd rises to the top of the punchbowl and ruins your good time. This turd takes many forms but in the end the result is always the same: a bummer of a…
Much like the cover of the band’s second LP, this year’s Yawning Depths, to listen to Thorn is to descend into the gaping maw of doom-drenched death. The band, which is the brainchild of Brennen Westermeyer of grindcore band Fluids, has been on a tear since Westermeyer formed the one-man group in 2019. Since its inception,…
There’s something about experiencing the story of a thrilling quest to get you feeling alive, isn’t there? Knights, dwarves, and elves hit the road with the intent of reclaiming their birthright or vanquishing the malevolent force at the heart of the land or hell, maybe just to seek out copious amounts of treasure. Whatever the…
It might be the most fundamental truism on a universal scale but time really doesn’t wait for anyone. For death metal, that might be even more relevant than it is in any other form of music. Playing with the blistering speed and aggression needed to pound out classic death metal releases takes its toll on…
Anger gets a bad rap these days. The amount of people that I’ve seen complaining about people’s anger at the status quo as something bad over the last few years truly baffles me. Corporate greed keeps the majority of this planet locked into a perpetual cycle of economic servitude, politicians offer the illusion of choice…
Storms are some of the most destructive forces in all of nature. They have the power to rend the very Earth that they rage over and wreak havoc upon anything and everything unfortunate enough to be within their path. For anyone raised in the Midwest, there’s a special sense of dread that lies in the…