Hulu’s long-awaited docuseries from Dark Side Of The Ring creators Jason Eisner and Evan Husney. A trailer has dropped for Into The Void: Life, Death & Heavy Metal, an eight-part series. The series premieres September 22nd and covers key personalities and events that helped to shape metal history. Metal Blade’s CEO and founder Brian Slagel contributed. Continue reading
There are truly many directions you can go in music by taking influences from all over and finding a sound that is respectful to all of those influences. Malevich continues to evolve this approach with their latest release, Under a Gilded Sun (Church Road Records). This nearly forty-minute journey borrows from black, death, and sludge metal with dashes of grindcore mixed in. There are a few tracks on the album that feature a build-to-climax song structure, similar to how post-metal bands structure their songs.Continue reading
Out via the British extreme music-centered label Church Road Records, UK Hardcore five-piece unit Still In Love launches a debut full-length entitled Recovery Language – with thematic focuses circulating around the discourses of generation trauma, catharsis, emotional release, and personal boundaries. Highly introspective and deeply rooted in raw, intense emotions that speak of resilience, the aggression-laden UK Hardcore undertones of this album fit the recurring themes so well, with a hint of Post-Hardcore influences as well. Continue reading
What first became so apparent when listening to The Immortal (Supreme Chaos Records) is that In Mourning are one of the best bands when it comes to using different volumes and styles of vocals to not only pique interest, but to completely encapsulate and tell a story.Continue reading
Guitars quite literally illustrate the opening action of “By The Light”, a group of paladins attacking an evil necromantic death cult. Their failure and the sole survivor Emaly’s efforts to avenge the deaths form the balance of Burning Sun’s Retribution (Metalizer Records), a Power Metal tour de force of a concept album in the vein of Helloween and my last album reviewed for Ghost Cult, Martyr. Pancho Ireland’s vocals maintain smooth power akin to Bruce Dickinson.Continue reading
Noted author Steven Blush is celebrating 15 years of the release of American Hardcore, the documentary film based on his award-winning book of the same name from 2001! He is kicking off a busy summer of projects by hosting screenings, starting this Monday. To preview a season of events appearances, and talking hardcore history, Steve caught up with Keefy to discuss the project and his upcoming book, “When Rock Met Hip-Hop!”Continue reading
Much like their distinct name, The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die continue to pen unique songs with flavor and character, and new studio album Dreams Of Being Dust (Epitaph Records), is no different.Continue reading
The sophomore album from Portland’s Tar Pit, Scrying the Angel Gate (Transylvanian Recordings), sets Lovecraftian themes against a style of doom that relishes the blues-based jams. An organ haunting the opening track from the back of the mix. The backbone of the song is a lumbering wall of fuzzed-out riffage. This song eventually builds the dynamic into a more metallic attack. Vocalist Don Gozalo brings an emotive howl to the songs. Unlike most doom frontmen, he is not as blatant an Ozzy disciple. This helps set their overall sound apart from their peers. Continue reading
Post-Mr Bungle’s dissolution in the early 2000s, Clinton “Bär” McKinnon relocated to Melbourne, Australia with stacks of material he’d written originally for the Eureka, California eccentrics. Thereafter, the formation of Umlaut followed, and a line-up that currently reads as the aforementioned McKinnon – Tenor Sax/Flute/ Clarinet/Keyboards/Guitar/Lead Vocals, Angus Leslie – Guitar/Backing Vocals/Keyboards, Bassist Shane Lieber, and recent addition Danny Heifetz (ex-Bungle) on Drums.
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).