Metalheads love going to the post office. This is established fact; we are either sending off dubs or trades, or going there to receive a package full of music. Like most anti-social types, we do not trust centralized authorities like iTunes or major labels, so mostly our music comes in physical form. We like it that way.
27 CommentsTags: Black Metal, eremita produzioni, infamous, Kshatriya, solitudo, solitvdo, vsque ad sidera vsque ad inferos, warnungstraum
Article by Anton Rudrick.
Now that a thorough overview of Sodom’s career has been completed, and a short analysis from that overview has provided us with new insights, we can be more confident in our evaluation of their new album, Decision Day, in a way that allows us to tentatively explain the origin of its strengths and faults. This becomes especially useful with an album displaying averageness on all levels, showing no prominent ideas that distinguish it neither in the abstract nor the actualized, and furthermore, certainly not being more than the sum of its parts. The situation is one in which all that remains are the references that these streamlined and pre-fabricated pieces meant in their original contexts, and how this commercial product attempts to play on them for maximizing revenue.
Sodom has earned a solid reputation among the metal crowd through the years. Most fans of the metal underground will probably have heard about Sodom, or that of Tom Angelripper, and will express respect at the mere mention of either name. Their newest album displays traits which one would associate with their own brand of speed metal (a.k.a. thrash metal, incorrectly dubbed), but these seem filtered through mannerisms borrowed from styles acquired over the last two decades and a half while Tom Angelripper explored the mainstream side of metal. Decision Day is catchy, and every step and turn is a hook optimized for comprehensibility and mass consumption.
18 CommentsTags: 2016, decision day, German Speed Metal, hard rock, mainstream metal, pop metal, review, sodom, Speed Metal
Fenriz has been in the mainstream news lately for winning an election to his local town council by circulating a photo of him holding his stray cat Nugatti. He won election for a four year term as the second back up councilor who steps in when the first replacement is unavailable.
38 CommentsTags: cats, darkthrone, fenriz, mainstream, politics, toxoplasmosis, trends mosh core fun
Metalheads tend to be wary of punk, recognizing it only for its role as an influence on metal. This attitude obscures the fact that the best of punk is worth exploring on its own terms and merits, starting with perhaps the greatest influence of punk technique and heightened aesthetics in that genre, hardcore punk‘s The Misfits.
49 CommentsTags: Crossover, Earth A.D., glenn danzig, Hardcore, Hardcore Punk, punk, punk rock, the misfits, Thrash
For some time, Negra Modelo has been my go-to beer. The shelves are stuffed with variety, but much like metal, most of it straight-up fails by being too proficient.
9 CommentsTags: art, beer, economics, Heavy Metal, negra modelo
Article by Lance Viggiano.
Ananku is random stereotypical sentimentality in terms of both pseudo climactic release and legacy nostalgia underscored by the crooning of its capricious composer. One may skip to any moment of this record and find a passable to competent riff which invites the listener to further explore its contents. Yet to sit through the work in succession, the order – or lack thereof- is much akin to a dreamlike state. Waking life is a comedic but rationally apprehensive continuity; whereas the experience of dreaming is much like thumbing through to one’s favorite moments in no particular order and therefore as a whole Ananku betrays its efforts at thematic unity. The forces behind Serpent Ascending make a noticed use of genre firmament however indecisive haste fashioned for itself a fallen world.
17 CommentsTags: 2016, ananku, Black Metal, i voidhanger records, Jarno Nurmi, metal art, Philosophy, Serpent Ascending
Doomentia Records is releasing both Abomination albums, Abomination and Tragedy Strikes, on vinyl. Abomination was another death metal/punk hybrid band featuring Paul Speckmann of Death Strike and Master.
6 CommentsTags: abomination, doomentia records, paul speckmann, reissues, vinyl
Article by Anton Rudrick.
Following a tradition of Finnish death metal, Serpent Ascending first proved its allegiance to the old stream of thought on The Enigma Unsettled. The project stood out as possessing that rare gift that grants vision past forms and into the value therein encased as dormant power, codified, awaiting a worthy hero who can pull the Sword from the Stone. While using techniques and musical structures that are well-known, interesting counterpoint and chant-like melodies can be seen in that first album, inserting them in between more conservative power metal riffs that were eerie enough to belong to occult death metal but also displayed a penchant for memorable phrases. Five years have elapsed since then, and several Desecresy albums have seen the definition and reaffirmation of that band into a distinctly esoteric style. Many were keenly expectant upon the future of Serpent Ascending.
4 CommentsTags: 2016, ananku, Black Metal, death metal, Finland, Heavy Metal, Serpent Ascending
An old interview, rediscovered, that apparently never made it to publication, so needs to find a home here.
32 CommentsTags: death metal, ian christe, interview, lords of chaos, metal faq, metal history, metal theory, michael moynihan, Nihilism, sounds of the beast
The Boston Beer Company generally makes solid but unexceptional beers for a wide audience which isn’t surprising given that it is a brewery founded by a former corporate financier who was the son of a brewer to fill a hole in the market in the 1980s: domestic beers that could compete with mediocre European imports. Craft beer was just getting started and most of the big adjunct lager brewers had already diluted down the their product to the point where many wouldn’t even drink it. Jim Koch employed the same chemist and brewer who formulated Miller Lite to fine tune a beer an old family recipe he had been homebrewing for mass production. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is a genuinely good beer but what their Octoberfest eventually became in the 21st century is not. The first whiff and sip is dark fruits and toasted bread like a darker Marzen beer should be but then the unpleasantness hits you like an off-scented dashboard air freshener. The beer tastes like brown sugar and smells of artificial cinnamon and ginger. Sam Adams is hiding pumpkin spice bullshit in their Octoberfest seasonal for the Starbucks yuppies! Samuel Adams Octoberfest is one of those beers. The radlers, shandies, Zimas, pumpkin spice lattes, and mango IPAs for ex-sorority girls and effeminate homosexuals – wine cooler “beer”! The only positive attribute is that if you get this for free and drink the entire six pack, you will get drunk. Unfortunately, your excretate will smell like that of an unwashed obese man the day after Thanksgiving.
Quality: */*****
Purchase: */*****
Tags: beer, boston beer company, lager, samuel adams octoberfest, stinking shit
