Russ Solomon, the founder of the legendary Tower Records, passed away last Sunday while guzzling whiskey and hating on the lowest rated Oscar Awards in the history of the ceremony’s existence.target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow external”
6 CommentsTags: aging, Big Hollywood, consumerism, death, decline, music industry, Oscars, record stores, Russ Solomon, Tower Records
Some time ago, seminal band Slayer — who along with Bathory and Hellhammer created the germinal material and style of death metal — decided to call it a day after thirty-seven years of recording, touring, and generally causing problems. Upon the announcement of their retirement, many nascent and older Slayer fans came out of the woodwork, so the band has added a second leg to its tour.
4 CommentsTags: retrospective, slayer, tour
Summer is just around the corner, and you are no doubt thinking of your favorite Mexican beers — among the best in the world, like their death metal — to relax in the sun with. Do not drink Corona Light, of course, but the newly-minted Corona Especial in twelve-packs for the American market might bring out a smile. Alternatively, you can try a Modelo Especial Chelada.
12 CommentsTags: beer, beer mixture, chelada, Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V., modelo, modelo especial
Some bands gained prominence because of their influence on other musicians but were given less credit by fans years later because they no longer had current releases. The Dutch death metal assault Sinister crafted three albums of great influence but then faded away in the mid-1990s, leading to fewer people mentioning their place in the death metal canon.
19 CommentsTags: Brutal Death Metal, death metal, Melodic Death Metal, sinister, the netherlands
Raging black metal band Sammath posted a set from their show of February 24, 2018, at an unspecified location in The Netherlands, showing the furious assault of this intense yet melodic band at its maximum ferocity. Having burst into life in 1994, Sammath made a name for itself with albums such as Strijd and Godless Arrogance in a career arc spanning a decade and a half.
3 CommentsTags: Black Metal, sammath, the netherlands
Most people compare this music to Motorhead, but in my mind, it resembles a fusion between Black Flag and folk music like the old Bob Seeger tracks that limousine liberals pretended to like along with their Harry Belafonte and Leonard Bernstein LPs. A strong punk energy and rhythm pervades the music while a vocal-driven melodic sense guides each song to a quasi-ironic, bittersweet but triumphant conclusion.
5 CommentsTags: folk, lilou & john, metal, pop, punk
If someone goes on this tour, make sure to hand Justin Broadrick a telephone to signify that this album has been phoned in. As the term implies, when content creators are no longer focused on making their work significant, an “it’ll do” mentality results. This fits within what Godflesh and related Broadrick-acts have done through their careers.
9 CommentsTags: emo, godflesh, Grindcore, hard rock, Heavy Metal, indie, indie/emo, Industrial, industrial grindcore, punk
These dudes are from New Zealand. Cross A Perfect Circle with Vader, Fear Factory, and Immolation and you get Ulcerate. Taking a listen to this band, I want to thank your country for Dead Alive, but cannot help but think this album begins with an instant headache. I love the mid range DM vocals, and feel that they are really strong. The guitar comes across as missing something. At the 3:37 mark the guitar starts coming through with some darker, catchier moments. I cannot help but think the drums are a bit over-processed, and are being a bit overplayed. The snare sounds cool, but the double kicks are a bit distracting. To its credit, these songs are unpredictable. However, they could use more of a hook. There is a bit of a 90s industrial thing hidden in there, along with a little bit of Immolation off-balanced riffs. You have to listen real hard to hear it, but it sounds like bass distortion with a pick on the low end, adding some gnarleyness.
11 CommentsTags: A Perfect Cricle, death metal, fear factory, immolation, modern death metal, ulcerate, vader
In an unexpected turn of events, Mortal-Kombat-tier Norwegian opera-metallers Dimmu Borgir have gone full on symphonic power metal in their new song. Embracing the trending female fronted power/quest metal sound that has replaced metalcore as the newest wave of a strange phenomenon known as “girlfriend metal” (the metal your girlfriend puts on while she’s cleaning the house), Dimmu have essentially robbed the sound of Nightwish, Epica, and Within Temptation while yet retaining the Hollywood-orc vocals of Shagrath. While moments resembling early Blind Guardian are in fact an improvement over a preceding album that was almost completely devoid of guitars, this is by no means quality power metal nor is it the hybrid of older Dimmu styles that the band has been mouthing off about the past few months.
12 CommentsTags: blind guardian, dimmu borgir, Epica, female fronted, girlfriend metal, Nightwish, power metal, Shagrath, symphonic metal, trends, Within Temptation
Sometimes in between quests for the perfect transcendent meal, you wind up in the drive-thru. There’s nothing wrong with that- not every action in life has to be one of self-discovery or grandiose vision- sometimes you just want to destroy yourself as a brief respite from analytical or introspective journeys, which actually provides a contrast that truly showcases the merit in the pursuit of depth but also gives an objective worth to consumables that are designed with much less substance in mind. There is a place for what is now known as “slam” in the death metal pantheon, and as with any subgenre of course the progenitors are the best examples of it, as prior to its neanderthalic fall from grace it started as marriage of the percussive elements of Suffocation with the over-the-top imagery of gore-focused grind bands while limiting the use of humanistic elements like melody and cyclical structure. This is a more than valid metal style as it does actually transcend a known formula through divorcing it from song archetypes and instead celebrates an ignorance that is mirrored perfectly in masochistic savagery. Given that is is more rhythmically focused than previous death metal styles is it natural that it would meet its downfall by travelling down an insultingly urban path that betrays the savagery it had once wielded, but it is still worth revisiting a few choice releases to analyze what may unfortunately be the last true movement in a dying genre at the turn of the century.
10 CommentsTags: Brutal Death Metal, cenotaph, death metal, disgorge, Exuviate, Gore, internal bleeding, Mortal Decay, slam
