Metal Music
Mid-month Metal Masterpiece 61: Midnight – Satanic Royalty (2011)
I don’t think it’s fair to heap abuse onto Midnight for being unoriginal. Sure, they might all be card carrying members of the Venom fan club, but Midnight’s music, and infectious energy, is really quite unique: a nasty mix of first wave black metal, speed metal, and NWOBHM that will absolutely delight you if booze,…
Read MoreBest Metal Albums of 2014
Another year of actually listening to new metal down, and I’m happy to report it was another year of quality finds! There weren’t any real standouts like Peste Noire and Satan’s new ones last year (too many of this year’s picks either repeat previous, superior works, or completely ape previous, superior bands), but I still…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 60: Hic Iacet – Hedonist of the Death
I really don’t listen to all that much death metal anymore, but when I do, it sounds like Spain’s Hic Iacet. Atmospheric, simplistic, and, above all, EEEEVIL as fuck, Hic Iacet’s debut demo really deserves all the hype that it created. Sure, maybe by 2011 this kind of stuff isn’t exactly breaking new unhallowed ground,…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 59: Kampfar – Mellom Skogkledde Aaser (1997)
Kampfar is one of those second wave Norwegian black metal bands that I thought I was totally over. The kind of stuff that I listen to and think “yeah, this kind of sounds like Immortal, or whatever second wave mainstay they are trying to sound like, not bad, but nothing I care to listen to.”…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 58: W.A.S.P. – W.A.S.P. (1984)
Any metalhead worth their salt will tell you that Glam music is SO NOT METAL. However, no metalhead worth their salt would ever suggest that W.A.S.P. should “leave the hall,” despite W.A.S.P.’s sketchy generic classification which usually lists them as a “hard rock” influenced metal band–at best. Still, no amount of make-up and album cover…
Read MoreIO5M 17: The Top Five Signs That the Underground Metal Band You Are Listening To Might Be Racist
Welcome back to my most infrequently occurring Monday feature! I’m speaking, of course, of Infrequently Occurring Fifth Monday (IO5M), where I come up with a new “top 5″ list on a quad-yearly basis. I can sometimes sail some dark waters in my quest for new, shitty-sounding underground metal. And it’s not a secret that some of…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 57: Blasphemy – Blood upon the Altar (1989)
1989 was a pretty brutal year for extreme metal. Grindcore and death metal had finally used the knowledge culled from a decade of metal malevolence to produce some of the filthiest recordings in the history of music. However, none were quite as filthy, quite as brutal, and quite jaw-droppingly evil as Blasphemy’s debut demo Blood…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 56: Inquisition – Invoking the Majestic Throne of Satan (2002)
Inquisition is one of those 3rd (4th?) wave black metal bands from the early 2000s that I missed during my half decade break from discovering new music. Not that they were going to be able to stay off my radar for all that long–after all, their unique approach to black metal really makes them stand…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 55: Sortilège – Sortilège (1983)
Though France is known for its filthy black metal, you don’t hear as much about more traditional French “heavy metal” bands. Still, they are out there, and Sortilège is one of the earliest and still the best. Today, I will talk about their legendary debut self-titled EP, one hell of a slab of Gallic heavy metal!…
Read MoreMid-month Metal Masterpiece 54: Arghoslent – Incorrigible Bigotry (2002)
One nice thing about the slowly growing infestation of really racist bands in the extreme music underground is that, by and large, they all pretty much objectively suck. I mean, even that Peste Noire album I covered last month, when it comes right down to it, really kind of blows. Thus, Arghoslent is the bane…
Read More