Retrospective: Septic Flesh – Ophidian Wheel

In the modern metal lexicon, European metal has often been used to denote bands that relied extensively on Iron Maiden harmonies, keyboards, pseudo-classical melodies, female vocalists, tremolo picked riffs and overall less influence from Pantera and Metallica. Septic Flesh have come to epitomize this style despite adding a lot more Metalcore elements to keep with the times. Before the name change, the band were once an overlooked force and presented many ideas that metal as a whole was never fully able to capitalize on. Ophidian Wheel is the summit of the band’s creativity and pushes the romantic qualities of metal even further.

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Xtreem Music to release Sinister’s “Perpetual Damnation” via their “10 Inches of Deathcult” series

Xtreem Music announced the “10 Inches of Deathcult” series which will provide long time death metal listeners with a chance to obtain rare and long out of print demos from classic 80s and 90s extreme metal acts on ten inch vinyl, with its first release, “Perpetual Damnation” from Dutch death metal legends Sinister.

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Archaic Modernism: The Art of Christophe Szpajdel Released

We have all seen his logos: Christophe Szpajdel illustrated the branding for much of classic black metal and rose to prominence as the genre exploded in the late 1990s. Heavy Music Artwork honors him in part of its book series on hard rock and heavy metal artwork with Archaic Modernism: The Art of Christophe Szpajdel, now available for pre-order.

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The Greatest Idiot Riff : Bolt Thrower’s “World Eater”

Master’s Paul Speckmann is known for taking an idea and squeezing everything he can from it through repetition and then utilizing the most direct route to return to that idea. Though this mentality would fail many bands because the riffs didn’t have the necessary urgency and creativity to work. Bolt Thrower on the other hand took this approach and pushed it to the logical extreme as each individual riff became the central focus while narrative development was relegated to an afterthought despite somehow still being present. What made Bolt Thrower so intriguing was that they possessed powerful riffs that were caveman like and more often than not completely idiotic yet the band managed to soar where others failed miserably.

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Coronavirus Mainly Killing Off Soy Fruit City Dwellers And Leftists (Darwin Chuckles)

Metal exists in part to explain an insane world in a way that will not drive us insane, with starts by acknowledging that everything that groups of humans think is order is chaos, the “chaos” of nature is in fact an intense order, and that we are not insane for noticing that humanity is insane and needs a 2×4 to the head to wake up.

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Metal Blade Records Re-Issues Anacrusis Titles Suffering Hour, Reason, Manic Impressions, And Screams and Whispers

Metal Blade Records reissued the first four records from overlooked technical speed metal act Anacrusis during the last quarter of 2019.  Hailing from St. Louis, Anacrusis incorporated crossover elements infused with familiar speed metal tropes, and later added more accessible progressive heavy metal elements while remaining musically astute.

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