Underground metal grew in part because it was unselfconscious. Its bands expressed notions both idiosyncratic and subconscious, so it was evocative at a level below the rationalizing mind. Mekigah attempt to resurrect that observational weirdness with a Godflesh, post-metal, and doom metal hybrid.
7 CommentsTags: Ambient, Doom Metal, Industrial, mekigah, post-metal
Noise gets less attention than it did back in the 1990s when everyone wanted to try new sounds with new gear that escaped the tyranny of notes and scales, but it remains a powerful force for voicing a union between texture, rhythm, and the basics of melody. K.K. Null has developed it into a voice of its own.
8 CommentsTags: joel gilardini, k.k. null, noise
Doom metal probably does not qualify as a genre, more as a descriptor, since doom stretches between old school heavy metal all the way through melodic death metal and even grindcore, but it requires a certain mood: a slow ominous urgency with a sense of gravity bearing down the futility of all existence.
23 CommentsTags: Doom Metal, doomraiser
Before melodic death metal became a new way to rebrand Iron Maiden style heavy metal with death vocals, a few bands explored the idea of applying melody to death metal, and Desultory distinguished themselves early on with a speed metal influenced variety of heavy metal that used a lot of death metal technique.
112 CommentsTags: death metal, desultory, Heavy Metal
Metal music stood against its time by endorsing the mythological-historical view of our world instead of linear progress driven by technology, metaphysical dualism, and peer pressure. As such it is the ultimate minority voice calling for realism among the blur of human emotions and fears.
87 Comments
When we look back at the present era, we will separate out stuff that was aligned with the mainstream illusion from material that tried to discover an inner truth paired with external reality. Anything outside of the bourgeois Consumerist, Communist, and Christian social bubble will endure.
15 CommentsTags: cold war, death metal, Satanism, slayer, Speed Metal, underground metal
By the time black metal and death metal made it back, the actual inspirations — Slayer, Hellhammer, Sodom, and Bathory — were almost forgotten in a rush toward the new style that was birthed from combining their approaches. Now the history fleshes itself out a bit.
115 CommentsTags: Bathory, Black Metal, book, jose luis cano barron, pagan records
Condemner pursues more of an explicit war metal sound that merges Havohej with touches of Demoncy and Beherit along with ancient death metal like Mythic and modern war metal like Kaeck. It grinds, it establishes a primal and intolerant logicality, and then it expands into mystical texture.
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Writing about a dead genre can be exhausting. You search through ten thousand bands looking for the few that grasp what the genre was always about — its newer incarnations are meaningless — and despite enjoying this, find that the good is drowned out by the mediocre.
103 CommentsTags: art, Black Metal, Heavy Metal, Satan, underground metal
Unholy Craft builds in the style of later Darkthrone with the pacing of Mayhem, delivering an enjoyable journey through melody meeting noise and pummeling d-beats and blast beats, which although somewhat fungible manages some unique riffs based in compelling rhythm accented by melody.
36 CommentsTags: Black Metal, unholy craft
