For this Christmas season, a new view of underground metal. Presenting the:
Dark Metal Compilation
17 CommentsTags: dark metal, death metal, Doom Metal, merry christmas
Bad Brains – Bad Brains (1982)
Early English and US hardcore punk served as important catalysts in the development of underground metal. During the earliest years of the 1980s, it was hardcore punk and not metal that provided the most violent and intense music within grasp of disgruntled and alienated kids attempting to survive the suburbs of Western Civilization.
21 CommentsTags: bad brains, Hardcore Punk, jazz, metallic hardcore, nationalism, progressive rock, punk rock, reggae, review, washington dc
Acquiring the Taste : A Tour Through Progressive Rock, Part I
Since progressive rock first arose out of British and North American psychedelia, it has crossed every boundary that it could identify, which makes it like metal more a question of a spirit than a concrete set of musical or extra-musical traits. We can identify a few aspects of this spirit: a desire to make unique song forms which fit the shifting demands of their content, a passion for exploring melody and harmony, an obsession with the unconventional, and a chameleon-like ability to explore other styles and adopt them as its own.
15 CommentsTags: article, bo hansson, il balletto di bronzo, progressive, progressive rock, rock music, van der graaf
Thergothon – Stream From the Heavens (1994)
Murky and obscure like the style itself, a definition of doom metal proves elusive. Proponents of doom metal uphold it as a qualitatively discrete sub genre within metal on the grounds shared set of aesthetic, formal and ideological particularities that binds together a seemingly disparate conglomerate of artists and styles.
23 CommentsTags: 1994, Doom Metal, funeral doom, Heavy Metal, review, thergothon
Malediction – Chronology of Distortion (2016)
Despite what record labels and glossy magazines want us to think, metal has suffered from an incremental artistic recession for the last two decades, with the dearth of truly exceptional releases increasing in an almost linear fashion.
9 CommentsTags: anthology, britain, British Death Metal, compact disc, compilation, dark blasphemies records, death metal, malediction, pantalgia, review, UK
Agressor – Neverending Destiny (1990)
Straddling the no-mans-land between past and present, Agressor’s full-length debut offers a high-octane mixture of late-period speed metal and death metal technique, coupled with pulpy occult/sci-fi lyrics in the vein of Nocturnus, Voivod and Obliveon.
19 CommentsTags: 1990, agressor, death metal, france, French Death Metal, melodic speed metal, neverending destiny, progressive metal, review, Speed Metal, speed/death metal
Pathologist – Putrefactive and Cadaverous Odes About Necroticism (1992)
Like thrash before it, grindcore was born out of a convergence of elements of punk and metal. Where thrash combined metal song structure and intensity with the brevity and minimalism of punk, grindcore merged the most abrasive aspects of hardcore punk with the techniques of death metal of the oldest school, arriving at an uncompromisingly direct and streamlined torrent of atavistic rage.
16 CommentsTags: 1992, carcass, carcass clone, czech republic, Goregrind, Grindcore, pathologist, review
Roots of Evil: The Origins of Metal
With the fiftieth anniversary of metal music around the corner, forthcoming years will witness an increase of publications dealing with the history, legacy and defining characteristics of the genre. This could finally resolve the lack of consensus that still exists regarding the definition and origins of heavy metal.
25 CommentsTags: Ambient, article, black sabbath, cream, electronic, Genesis, hard rock, Heavy Metal, heavy metal history, heavy rock, metal history, origins of heavy metal, progressive electronic music, progressive rock, proto-metal, psychedelic rock, punk, tangerine dream, the stooges
Änglagård – Hybris (1992)
Those of you who despair about the lack of good contemporary metal music take notice –- it could be worse. One striking example is progressive rock which, after five years of unprecedented creative activity in the early 1970s, blew all of its fuses and left only pale imitations of a glorious past in its wake.
9 CommentsTags: anglagard, hybris, neo-progressive, progressive rock, review, Sweden
King Crimson – Lark’s Tongues in Aspic (1973)
Heavy metal was born in very late 60s and early 70s as a merger of heavy rock, proto-punk, horror film scores and progressive rock, carving out a new form of dark music that spelled out longer phrases than rock by using moveable power chords in complex riffs.
60 CommentsTags: 1973, article, composition, hard rock, king crimson, lark’s tongues in aspic, metal history, music theory, narrative, progressive, progressive rock, proto-metal, review, robert fripp, through composition
