Meditations on the Death of Wishful Thinking

To be a writer, if you are any good, is to be a blasphemer. Humanity is an entropy engine because each person decides on what view of the world makes them look the best, and so the constant weight pushing down on us is that of the herd, of a group of individuals united only by selfishness, come together into a mob for the purpose of asserting their right to be different and unique, constantly leading away from an understanding of the world around us and any meaning that can be found in it.

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Roots of Evil: The Origins of Metal

With the fiftieth anniversary of metal music around the corner, forthcoming years will witness an increase of publications dealing with the history, legacy and defining characteristics of the genre. This could finally resolve the lack of consensus that still exists regarding the definition and origins of heavy metal.

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Whoredom Rife – Dommedagskvad (2017)


Review contributed by Jon Browning.

Whoredom Rife are exactly what is wrong with modern “underground” “metal”. All these posers do is take a bunch of riffs from records over twenty years old, chop them up, and randomly attach a few of them together to make… a track.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews: Fargo of July

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On the Seventh Day God Created… Master & Speckmann Project Reissue

Hammerheart Records is reissuing Master‘s second album, On the Seventh Day God Created… Master, on both CD and LP. Get the CD digipak as it contains the Speckmann Project as a bonus disc. Leave the vinyl with the same sound for the hipsters.

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The Sad Pandemic of West Coast “Black Metal”

Today’s American black metal has found itself right within the parameters of Poe’s Law which, when applied to this abomination of a music scene, would sound something like this:

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Tau Cross Regresses On “Deep State”

Tau Cross previewed the cover art and a track of their upcoming Pillar of Fire album on Relapse Records. “Deep State” sees the supergroup headed by Rob “The Baron” Miller regress towards a hybrid of crust, thrash, and modern rock as seen on the final Amebix album, Sonic Mass. While free of the overt Brit pop and Godsmack of Sonic Mass, “Deep State” is still almost static like a rock song with riffs around a static chord for catchy rhythms and vocal hooks to be arranged around. The instrumental music is a tired retread that I have heard at least a few dozen speed metal band do better before.

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Emperor Prepare Anthems… Anniversary Tour

Emperor are currently preparing to tour in celebration of the twentieth anniversary their second album, the third rate Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. While Emperor kept on wearing armor, Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk saw Emperor simplify their trademark complex, almost symphonic Norwegian black metal sound down to two to three note speed metal influenced riffs with neo-classical wank leads in conventional verse-chorus-verse heavy metal songs to appeal to a wider, Wacken-going audience.

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