Perhaps one of the finest bands in the fast tremolo death metal style pioneered by Slayer, Massacra slipped under the radar for many in the US/UK because of erratic distribution and have only recently seen regular reissue.
6 CommentsTags: death metal, massacra, svart records
We lost a giant among guitar players last Friday when Julian Bream passed on to the Other Side, where hopefully he is shredding still:
13 CommentsBream was born in Battersea in 1933, the son of a father who played piano and jazz guitar – a self-built electric version – and taught Julian the rudiments of each instrument. Bream’s talent earned him a scholarship at the Royal College of Music, where he studied piano and cello. But he was largely self-taught on his primary instrument, the guitar. He played his first public guitar recital in Cheltenham in 1947, aged 13.
That year his father chanced upon a sailor walking through London carrying a lute and asked what it was. The sailor sold it to him and Bream began learning it, eventually helping to revive wider interest in the instrument and Elizabethan music.
Tags: classical guitar, julian bream
People write odes to all kinds of things. Sometimes, they write in appreciation of a good pipe of tobacco.
3 Comments
Gore, horror, and revenge cinema converge on a single idea: the ability of the normal protagonist to snap out of the sleepwalk of civilization, recognize a problem beyond which socially-mediated language can address, and overcome moral qualms in order to address it with absolute certainty. Rambo: Last Blood comes straight from the middle of this genre.
3 CommentsTags: cinema, rambo, sylvester stallone
Hanging out on the edge of the thrash genre with MOD and SOD, the Mentors represented the side of thrash that took thematically after punk; most thrash either placed metal riffs in punk songs (Cryptic Slaughter, Suicidal Tendencies, Fearless Iranians From Hell) or punk riffs in metal songs (DRI, Dead Horse) and took after one of the two thematically, but the Mentors kept the party and sleaze side of punk alive.
2 CommentsTags: elbow deep, gore-grind, Grindcore, mentors, Thrash
Producer of many legendary albums, Martin Birch has died at 71:
1 CommentTags: black sabbath, blue oyster cult, deep purple, fleetwood mac, iron maiden, martin birch, rainbow
French death metal institution Loudblast will release their newest album, Manifesto, continuing their journey through old school death metal and associated heavy metal genres. After thirty-five years of being active as a band, this act presents a somewhat unique view of underground metal.
No CommentsTags: death metal, loudblast
Coming from those classic years between speed metal and death metal, Pestilence launched themselves into death metal history with Consvming Impvlse and then slowly transmuted into a progressive death metal band, later returning as a progressive metalcore act in the 2000s.
2 CommentsTags: death metal, metalcore, pestilence
As COVID-19 passes from terror into absurdity, Hammerheart Records is offering a free mask with any online order. It may work for viruses, but it certainly works well for armed robbery! You can also pick up low-cost versions of classic metal albums, many of which are pre-COVID-19 and so feature band photos without masks.
10 CommentsTags: covid-19, hammerheart
On October 30, Vic Records plans to release the first Sacramentum EP, Finis Malorum from 1994, originally issued on Northern Records in limited quantities. Owing to rising interest in this epic melodic death metal band, more Sacramentum material has been re-issued, starting with Far Away From The Sun back in May.
2 CommentsTags: Black Metal, death metal, sacramentum, vic records
