Funeral doom mixed with melodic Swedish-style black metal and some heavy metal elements, Ornamientos del Miedo might have a subtler influence in electronic music with this two-song EP of layers built around the same melodic progression, with breaks for counterpoint riffs before resuming momentum.
No CommentsThe Serpent and the Pentagram: The Official Chronicles of Necromantia by The Magus and Aris Shock (2023)
Most popular music memoirs fall into either criticism or worship of the phenomenon of popular music itself, focusing more on the fan response and megalomania of musicians than the reasons behind the creation of this music. The Serpent and the Pentagram takes a different approach.
2 CommentsTags: aris shock, Black Metal, necromantia, the magus
Armoured Angel – Stigmartyr (1992)
Legion are those who have attempted a synergic hybrid of speed metal into underground metal. Although the number of succesful outcomes remains modest, a handful notable works such as Immortal At the Heart of Winter and Merciless Unbound make the idea somewhat plausible.
No CommentsTags: amoured angel, Australia, Speed Metal
Brocas Helm – Into Battle (1984)
Spurred on by the epiphanic New Wave of British Heavy Metal, heavy music exploded in the United States during the early 1980s with literally thousands of bands spawning across the country. Taking obvious influence from seminal acts such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead, and Dio-era Black Sabbath, US heavy metal managed to acquire a character and life of its own, manifesting in some cases in a more muscular sound while others pursued more progressive or melodic leanings.
11 CommentsTags: brocas helm, Heavy Metal
Xysma – No Place Like Alone (2023)
For years many of us have told death metal bands that instead of trying to mix hard rock into their death metal, it makes more sense just to cast off the underground metal aspersions and go full hard rock. With a mix of Motörhead, Iron Maiden, and AC/DC plus their own melodic and prog touches, Xysma do that.
76 CommentsDoomstone – Those Whom Satan Hath Joined (1994)
Among seemingly insatiable hunger for all things old school or concept-oriented, it seems unbelievable that Doomstone were once an anomaly. Bypassing the early 1990s underground metal boom, Doomstone embraced a deliberately retrogressive channeling of the “evil” side of 1980s heavy metal.
30 CommentsTags: doomstone, Heavy Metal
Eulogy – The Essence / Dismal (2016)
Death metal followed a standard distribution like everything else. At first, a few pioneers patched it together out of what they had at the time, then a generation of bands emerged who solidified the style, followed by others who tried to make sense of that strong lead, before the imitators came.
15 CommentsTags: death metal, eulogy, Florida Death Metal, New York Death Metal
Sadistic Metal Reviews: Heat-Death of the Metal Universe
Imagine a genre: it succeeds, so then all these lost people come in and make their own versions of it, trying every possible variation. Soon the field is so full of weird instruments and odd timings that all of it sounds just about the same, and no one can pick a good band from a bad one. This is heat-death:
56 CommentsTags: abysmal lord, act of impalement, analepsy, ashen tomb, conjureth, entropia, irae, maerzfeld, microgeneration, nocturnal departure, obituary, ofermod, penthos, rexoria, rigor sardonicus, satanic warmaster, skeletal, slayer mob, smr, thulcandra, vrag, witchmaster
World Terrorizers: A Tribute to “World Downfall” (2021)
Bands do cover songs to learn from them, to show their ability to nail it as well as the original, and to expand upon what have become classics of the metal culture. It is one thing to play a song, and another to deconstruct it, analyze it, and reassemble it to show an understanding of it.
29 CommentsTags: Abyssus, birthy of depravity, bones, Carnal Blasphemy, cursed blood, flashout, gorilla panic, Grindcore, mass defect, progress of inhumanity, psychotomy, ripped to shreds, sacrovore, sarkast, skullsmasher, soulskinner, stheno, terrorizer
Blood / Incantation – Split (2022)
In its earliest incarnation, Blood created crafty riff-alert grindcore like Disharmonic Orchestra and Carbonized, other European grind that took a backseat to the UK and US versions, despite playing more with song structure and phrase. This origin has now almost entirely been swallowed by death metal.
7 CommentsTags: blood, death metal, hells headbangers, incantation