To be an artist is to have a vision. When you’re a musician, a writer, an actor, or whatever else you do in the creative arts, there’s something in your head that you want to get out and get across to other people. Creative people find a medium that speaks to them and then utilize…
It’s here. Today is the day; the day that most metalheads are all listening to the exact same album, except maybe those pretending to not even be curious. That’s right, Metallica’s first studio album in seven years, 72 Seasons, is out today. With 12 songs, it clocks in at an hour and 17 minutes. Let’s…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…