Alice In Chains released their epic chill EP Jar of Flies (Columbia) on January 25th, 1994. The album is notable as the bands’ first number 1 album and the first Rock genre EP ever to land at #1 in the Soundscan Era. The album made a huge impact with several of the songs remaining in their setlist to this day. Read our deep-dive retrospective for the 25th anniversary of the album and jam out to the EP today and celebrate! Continue reading
Life Of Agony’s classic debut album River Runs Red was released 30 years ago today, on October 12th, 1993 via Roadrunner Records. Coming out of Brooklyn, New York and produced by Josh Silver (Type O Negative), the album shook the Hardcore and Metal world to its core with its heavy, catchy riff-heavy songs, impassioned vocals, and frank lyrics about suicide, drug addiction, ptsd, and family trauma. The band continues to tour and perform these songs around the globe, and made a sequel album, 2018’s acclaimed The Sound of Scars. Read retrospective we created for the 25th anniversary below, and jam out to some LOA today.
The comeback to end all comebacks, the story of Back in Black (Atlantic Records) began with tragedy but ended in triumph. While comebacks usually require some form of absence from the public eye, a few weeks would barely register as a blip on the timelines of most bands. But for AC/DC, that short space of time was literally life-changing. Continue reading
Success has a way of messing with a good band. First world problems compared to the millions of bands that never make it, sure. However, so often when an emerging band that has fast become a genre leader, big corporate record labels can foul up the flow. This was almost the case of White Pony by Deftones, and the case where the hype was lived up to by pencil pushers, bean counters, and greed almost wrecked the game. White Pony is the band’s pivotal third album, where they built off the stylistic changes that came in with Around The Fur (Maverick) and pushed their sound further than before. In the process, they severed themselves far from the Nu-Metal wave that was exploding at the time and firmly created a new camp of “Deftones Music” as a category. That is, until, the label got in their business later on.Continue reading
For many, the nineties would prove to be the end of heavy metal as we knew it. Bands who rose to greatness in the preceding decade suddenly found themselves either retreading old ground, out of their depth trying to explore new territories, or simply grinding to an unceremonious halt. Within just a couple of years, denim, leather and even the term “heavy metal” itself, were out.Continue reading
“What if there’s no more fun to have?” This seems to be a common sentiment among many when looking at the state of the world these days. Here at Ghost Cult, we’re hoping to bring a little joy, perhaps, dare I say, a will to live? If you’re anything like me, music is as essential to you as the air that you breathe, the blood in your veins, or Matt Pike’s lack of a shirt.Continue reading
What happens when a band hits maturity? It’s bound to happen to all the bands you love. It’s definitely hard for some fans to accept when their favorite band, was once new and youthful have become the elder statesmen of the scene. Some bands also struggle to come to terms with aging and changing. Others try and recapture their earlier sounds, while others strive to evolve. This is what happened to Pantera twenty years ago when they created their album Reinventing The Steel (East/West). Continue reading
Just the other day, I used the Instagram filter “What Goth Band Are You?” and victoriously was labeled Depeche Mode. Though I strive to be dark, brooding, emotive, sexy, and mysterious, I feel it’s best left to the professionals to truly embody and exhibit such traits, and there is no finer example than electronic rock/synth-wave masters, Depeche Mode. Thirty years ago today (March 19, 1990), Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher, and Alan Wilder gifted the world their seventh studio album, Violator (Mute Records) and today, we look back in celebration and appreciation of a record that pushed boundaries, created timeless classics, and explored sex, desire, hedonism, and other ‘taboo’ topics (with a pinch of religion). Continue reading
Post-Hardcore is a sub-genre that gets tossed around today as commonplace, but in the early 1990s, it was a new little brother that the older sibling was not ready to cede attention to. As Hardcore Punk mutated into other offshoots, post-Hardcore started to gain ground. In New York City alone, the epicenter for many new waves of hardcore music, a lot of bands crossed over (see what we did there) and bands started to absorb elements of both with Prong, White Zombie, and Biohazard were all leaning more on metal vibes, Quicksand formed by members of ex-hardcore legend status bands we’re pushing towards a new sound. Heavy, but not in a tough guy way, vulnerable, but smart. By the time the members of essential musical outfits Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Beyond, Bold, Burn, and Collapse formed an anti-supergroup, released demos and the amazing Slip (Polydor) album, and toured tirelessly, fans in the scene could feel they were building to something huge. They walked in both worlds of Punk and Metal but were also world-building themselves at the same time. Continue reading
Black Sabbath in 1970, photo by Warner Brothers Records
On the sleeve: a grainy picture of a woman dressed in black. A stagnant pond. A creepy looking mill house.
And two words. Black Sabbath.
On the record: Rain. Thunder. A tolling bell. Those three notes. That voice.
And just like that, in February of 1970 – appropriately enough on the 13th – the face of music was changed forever.