It has been almost thirty years since Pantera changed the landscape of the metal scene with Cowboys From Hell (East/West, Atco) and its repercussions still live on in music today. It’s an obvious comparison to make for the debut album of the Exhorder spin-off project, Heavy As Texas, but it’s one that needs to be stated straight off the bat. However, there are numerous other influences and musical styles that are present throughout the album.
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Nostalgia can often be treated with cynicism and suspicion. Oftentimes heralding the past can be seen to be a cheap way of living of someone else’s glory through pale imitation, or can equally be seen as a pointless endeavour that does nothing to progress the state of artistry. For those who are not naysayers of throwback music, it can provide a comfort and a safety net; the points of reference are starkly apparent and it does nothing to rock the boat leaving the listener with a warm sense of familiarity.Continue reading
They say you should never judge a book by its cover. If you do you might imagine that Ulysses, by James Joyce, is a novel about Irish architecture rather than a masterpiece of modernist literature / a meritless stream of consciousness depending on whose opinion you ask for. A cursory glance at The Other Side Of Sadness (Prosthetic Records) by Austrian quartet, Tripsitter, would imply nu-Metal with its monstrous, Korn-like depiction of a family portrait. What we get instead is a curious blend of Hardcore, Shoegaze and even the tiniest hint of Black Metal – so intertwined are the latter two thanks to Blackgaze.Continue reading
Hardcore music, and its derivatives, are going through something of a renaissance. With the release of 2017’s Forever (Roadrunner Records), Code Orange astonishingly brought a fresh ideation to a genre already brimming with brilliant bands. It wasn’t so much a reinvigoration as it was a rewriting of the rulebook in a manner that has seen many bands attempting to play catch up or ape the style. Not every Hardcore influenced band is trying to rip off the Pennsylvanians however, and one such example is New York quartet, The Machinist.Continue reading
Was Thrash a fad? With the indomitable rise of The Big 4 to the point of global phenomenon in the eighties, along with the likes of Exodus and Testament to name but a few, the sub-genre was a world-conquering behemoth with no signs of relinquishing its stranglehold on the zeitgeist. With Metallica’s turn to stadium Rock on their self-titled effort – better known as The Black Album (Elektra) – and the emergence of the Seattle Grunge movement, Thrash was dead in the water, being dropped into obscurity as rapidly as it had become a buzzword. Continue reading
Polar have been a staple part of the Metalcore underground scene, touring with the best that the genres have to offer, like Stray From The Path. “We want this to be the next big step up” claimed guitarist, Fabian Lomas. “Nova is basically going to elevate us.” With a newly claimed maturity and direction to their sound and the expectations set by the band, Nova (Arising Empire) is set to be the big-hitting Metalcore album of the year.Continue reading
Black Metal: Metal’s most infamous subgenre. The bastard son of Sabbath’s breed, Black Metal has always traded on evil and infamy. Where Black Sabbath made passing mention of Lucifer, Black Metal worships at Satan’s blood-stained altar in reverence. With this infernal DNA coursing through the genre there comes a weight of devilish expectation. Black Metal ought to terrify and perturb, it should scare the more conservative listener into a stupor. Can Wormwitch rise to this legacy?Continue reading
A great philosopher of our age often posits a question. It may be a rhetorical question, but one that every fan of heavy music finds themselves asking every day. It is not a question of faith, nor meant to invoke an existential crisis, but one far more important and intrinsic to the makeup of Heavy Metal. “Do you want heavy?”. Well, if the answer is yes – as it always should be – then look no further than Enterprise Earth.Continue reading
Started by a couple of friends nearly two decades ago, Nightrage is a band that has been through a lot of changes over the years. One of the founders, the guitar hero Gus G moved on to other things, but the other creator, Marios Iliopoulos has been faithful in making monumental Metal with this act since the early 2000s. The evolution of this Greek/Swedish hybrid group has sculpted their sound into something uncommon and exceptional. Their eighth full-length album, Wolf To Man (Despotz Records) presents their particular music with severity and soul.Continue reading
Blackened Hardcore is beginning to have its day in the sun. This is, relatively speaking, of course, as the amalgamative subgenre still firmly lives and breathes in the underground, but the likes of Svalbard and KEN Mode have been making serious waves with their critically acclaimed latest releases.
Exhaling from the ashes of acrimony, Totaled formed in 2017 and bring us their debut album, Lament (Profound Lore) and their take on Blackened Hardcore.Continue reading