Best known for combining belligerent heaviness with emotionally charged atmospheres and in-depth progressions, Chicago Death-Doom unit Novembers Doom have always been one to produce sounds that are difficult to categorize into certain binaries– to define is to limit, after all!Continue reading
Photo by Sam Jamsen
Right before taking Nordic Gothic to their first-ever US show at ProgPower US this past weekend, and braving the Latin American heat for a short tour, Cemetery Skyline are releasing “Nothing From This World.” The performance for the video was filmed on their sold-out Finnish tour in March and spiced up by Jari Heino for Coldstore Productions. Watch it here:
For Metal to feel its heaviest, it must also hold with the powerful attack of the guitar, a bleak emotional darkness to it, or it is just guitars beating your ears as fast as they can.
Phobetor has succeeded in finding the sweet spot here with their new album, A Solitary Sigil (Black Jasper Records).
For reasons best known to themselves, some bands deliberately go out of their way to disguise their influences and inspirations. Feral are not some bands. One listen to To Usurp the Thrones (Transcending Obscurity Records) and everything is perfectly clear.Continue reading
An entire anthropological study could be done on how the region a band comes from affects the sound of any given genre. Continue reading
With a formidable lineup, including members, past and present, of Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium, Amorphis, Dimmu Borgir, Sentenced, Entombed, The Abbey, and more, Cemetery Skyline have just delivered their latest single. Following two previously released tracks, the “Nordic Gothic” ensemble’s new number, “The Coldest Heart,” is accompanied by a visualizer video created by Metastazis. Watch it below.
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Let’s talk about Volbeat for a minute. They have a huge following and a ton of people dig ‘em. Good for them. I’m just not their target audience. I was born and raised on Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Deicide.
Within deepest, darkest Buckinghamshire, in the mighty English town of Milton Keynes, something has awoken. For six years the warning signs have been there. Dark, viscous rumblings emanating from rehearsal rooms, recording studios and the most blackened corners of the internet. In 2017 there was the Venomous Tongues EP. The following year there was second EP Scalps (Hibernacula). And then, silence.Continue reading
At what point do we (I? Is it just me by now…? in which case, I’ll get with the programme asap!) change our default position that bands twenty years deep into their careers shouldn’t be producing their best stuff in a heavy music arena? Cos it’s bollocks. Our staff voted-for album of the year top 3 picks for this year to prove it. The last ten years of evidence proves it. A whole plethora of written-off bands pushing well into their second, third, even fourth, decade with career best releases prove it. There’s a pervading feeling that age dilutes quality and / or heaviness, yet nothing could be further than the truth. Particularly in the Volbeat camp, because, Servant of the Mind (EMI), their twentieth anniversary and eighth studio release, is their best to date. Form is temporary when class is permanent.Continue reading