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The Imperial Reign of Emperor

by Brock Dorsey on January 26, 2018

The most technically and musically gifted band of the Norwegian black metal scene, the legendary Emperor are also the most well known outside of the documentary-level engagement that plagues most who know of Burzum and Mayhem. Formed in the small rural town of Telemark Norway as a side project to a soon-forgotten death metal band, the group overcame the imprisonment of 75% of it’s lineup to deliver the most grandiose album of early 90s black metal. Though Emperor’s career was far from perfect, it made a profound impact on the young genre and ultimately proved it’s limitless developmental possibility.
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11 Comments

Tags: Anthems to Welkin at Dusk, band catalog, Black Metal, discography, emperor, ihsahn, in the nightside eclipse, IX Equilibrium, progressive metal, Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise, samoth, Thorns

Gorguts – Pleiades’ Dust (2016)

by Jerry Hauppa on January 11, 2018

Gorguts is a band that for a majority of its career has resembled an act that is at war with itself artistically. After a serviceable debut comprised of purely death metal notions and peaking with its most dense and progressive release in The Erosion of Sanity, the band chose to scale back its arrangements while imbuing its approach with a discordance that may have laterally trespassed its prior unsullied metal constructs but at the same time gave Gorguts an identity all their own. With regards to their contemporaries, you cannot currently say a band “sounds like Gorguts” without indirectly focusing on the sound created on Obscura, and the band’s own knowledge of that most likely has controlled their writing ever since — to the detriment of their overall intents in each record from then on…

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23 Comments

Tags: death metal, gorguts, Progressive Death Metal, Technical Death Metal

Roots of Evil: The Origins of Metal

by Johan Pettersson on August 15, 2017

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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25 Comments

Tags: Ambient, article, black sabbath, cream, electronic, Genesis, hard rock, Heavy Metal, heavy metal history, heavy rock, metal history, origins of heavy metal, progressive electronic music, progressive rock, proto-metal, psychedelic rock, punk, tangerine dream, the stooges

Retortion Terror / Invidiosus – Split (2017)

by Daniel Maarat on August 12, 2017

Retortion Terror and Invidiosus serve up a high-speed, fourteen minute technical grindcore split with one stronger half holding up the weaker side as on most split releases.

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8 Comments

Tags: 2017, death metal, deathcore, Grindcore, invidiosus, retortion terror, review, split, Takafumi Matsubara, techdeaf, technical metal

Unholy Hope #1

by Staff on August 6, 2017

Cassette demos reviewed by Linus Douglas.

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47 Comments

Tags: 2017, article, black 'n roll, Black Metal, compact cassette, demo, demos, entsetzlich, flowing black metal, funeral altar, megalith grave, review, siech, split, unholy vampyric slaughter sect, vaal

Nergal Decries Fundamentalist Islam

by Daniel Maarat on June 30, 2017

Behemoth frontman Nergal came out against what he termed “Radical Islamists” in a recent interview conducted after a Rammstein concert in Berlin was evacuated due to a terrorist threat.

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48 Comments

Tags: behemoth, christianity, islam, mainstream metal, metalcore, modern metal, nergal, poland, politics, Rammstein, Religion, terrorists

Bill Steer Admits Making Arena Rock

by Daniel Maarat on May 7, 2017

Bill Steer, the guitarist of sell-out grindcore legends turned butt rock turkey Carcass, did an interview with hipster social justice warrior rock website Vice Noisey last week where he ranked Carcass’s albums in order of his favorites. Bill Steer admitted that Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious was pretentious death ‘n’ roll instrumental wank and that continuing in that style would not have provided any future for the band so they started writing heavy metal for arena rock fans on Heartwork as only about three hundred people at every big show Carcass played actually liked death metal at all. Bill Steer finally dropped all pretense of Carcass’s later material being traditional heavy metal and admitted it is actually written as arena rock in order to please the most people.
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13 Comments

Tags: arena rock, beavis and butthead, Bill Steer, butt rock, carcass, death 'n' roll, Grindcore, Heartwork, pop metal, reek of putrefaction, sell-out, Speed Metal, stadium metal, stadium rock, Surgical Steel, vice magazine, wanking

Homebrewing FAQ

by Jonathan Peter Wilkinson on December 26, 2016

A cultured human being should pursue a good hobby. It’s somewhat more interesting if said hobby involves a mild vice or foible. The hobby should also develop skill and produce a satisfactory end product. It should make the person somewhat unique amongst a group of peers and allow them to develop camaraderie with their fellow hobbyists. It becomes a Schelling Point so to speak.

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9 Comments

Tags: alcohol, beer, homebrewing, the good life

Sadistic Metal Reviews 9/24/2016

by Staff on September 24, 2016

Some sorry schmuck has to shovel it into a hole and set it on fire.

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32 Comments

Tags: Altered Perceptions, Amphisbaena, Anal Blasphemy, Aum, black 'n roll, Black Tomb, Celestial Grave, Chine, crypto-indie, deathcore, Faustian Dripfeed, Gespenst, hammerheart records, Hellbringer, hells headbangers, hipster bullshit, Hoath, Ill Omen, Iron Bonehead Productions, Mare Cognitum, metalcore, Rebaelliun, Rest, Saboter, sadistic metal reviews, Seventh Xul, Shadecrown, Shataan, Shokran, sig ar tyr, Sol Sistere, Soulwound, Summit, The Black Twilight Circle, The Hell's Decrees, The Last Band, Vlad in Tears, War Metal, Warpvomit, Wyruz

This Ain’t No Fantasy: A History Of Punk’s Most Iconic Band, The Misfits

by Johan Pettersson on September 6, 2016

Metalheads tend to be wary of punk, recognizing it only for its role as an influence on metal. This attitude obscures the fact that the best of punk is worth exploring on its own terms and merits, starting with perhaps the greatest influence of punk technique and heightened aesthetics in that genre, hardcore punk‘s The Misfits.

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49 Comments

Tags: Crossover, Earth A.D., glenn danzig, Hardcore, Hardcore Punk, punk, punk rock, the misfits, Thrash

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