Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
The official history of Immolation By Kevin Stewart-Panko Immolation are the band that made me fall in love with death metal. Having purchased ‘Dawn of Possession’ on a whim back in 2005(?) on one of many surreptitious trips to Guildford HMV, something about this album clarified the small print of this genre for me. For... Continue Reading →
In a bid to further reduce our viewing figures we spend nearly two hours discussing one of the most challenging and divisive artists to emerge from Norwegian black metal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgX6Wh8e8cw&t=1918s
Vengeance EvangelOut 14th February on Lavadome Productions “Technical death metal” is a problematic label. Genre names often refer to some specific technique or dominant feature of the music itself. To apportion off a subgenre by simply asserting that it’s more technically demanding than its mothership can be something of a misnomer. Just exactly how or... Continue Reading →
Joseph and I go rogue due to a last minute change of plans, discussing politics, metal, and nostalgia, trying not to wet ourselves in the process. We hopen't you enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UYJpMLnUiY
The legendary Kam Lee joins for a roundtable discussion on scene dynamics in underground metal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woyIFZuI6no&t=1450s
How to avoid sex through music Spring is here. Trees are budding. Birds engage in their annual renewal of the housing stock. Days are lengthening, and somehow even the rainfall seems charged with heavy handed virility. The very air you breathe oozes sex. Of course this is all something I’m thoroughly against. The listening rotation... Continue Reading →
Taking a longue durée of its history, I argue that metal has always been at war with its own nostalgia, its canon formed at rare and exceptional moments of flux. I also ask whether we are moving into an uncanny period of harmony. Is the genre now at peace with its own stylistic norms? Has... Continue Reading →
Aedes: Odius ImprecationOut 31st January on Blood Harvest (originally released in 2023) Essentially a modern love letter to early Morbid Angel via the more chromatic tangents of the mid-90s exercised by Trey and the gang alongside Immolation. Whether intentional or not, there is a rawness to the delivery, a sense in which the music is... Continue Reading →
Tribulated BellsOut 24th January on Hammerheat Records (originally released in 1992) Coinciding neatly with our recent discussion on Chilean metal comes this reissue from Hammerheat Records of Sadism’s ‘Tribulated Bells’, an early intervention in Chilean extreme metal. Notable alongside the likes of Torturer for being one of a handful of bands to make inroads into... Continue Reading →
As someone who doesn’t shy away from the occasional negative writeup, I’m accustomed to seeing disgruntled messages in my inbox demanding I take down a review or adjust a % rating on Metal Archives. Recently, this escalated to a threat of legal action in response to one of my reviews from an individual who will... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 