It’s an agreed fact that genre saturation eventually leads to genre decline. It’s also an agreed fact that this happened to death metal by around 1993/4. But was this as simple as genre saturation, or simply saturation of subpar music? The risk – for the interested fan – is in simply sticking to the same... Continue Reading →

The other day I find myself trapped in a Youtube hole when this video cropped up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybohhW7pf74   It’s a fairly standard clickbait screen rant. I’ve watched a few from this chap in the past. His ‘What Killed the Genre’ series offers some distracting summations of various genres of metal and rock. As with any... Continue Reading →

Megalith Levitation: Acid Doom Rites In many ways the true heir to Electric Wizard’s ‘Come my Fanatics’, this wholesome slab of murky doom metal is a big old beast to tackle. And just like CMF, Megalith Levitation’s first LP ‘Acid Doom Rites’ offers a few lessons in undertaking the delicate balancing act that is doom... Continue Reading →

OND: Carve Prog-thrash rising stars OND are back with the timely new single ‘Carve’, which tells the tale of a pumpkin being carved…from the point of the view of the pumpkin. For a metal song that sincerely explores this subject matter, this about as good as it could possibly be. ‘Carve’ sees OND once again... Continue Reading →

Industrial’s influence on extreme metal is probably greater than I tend to give it credit for. For all its shortcomings as a genre, some industrial has a unique atmosphere and energy to it that – when properly harnessed – is all its own. Its history has been almost as long and rich as metal’s, although... Continue Reading →

Can modern music that entirely references decades-old influences ever be evaluated on its own terms? Or are we condemned to simply say…if you like style x then you will like band y? But surely, no matter how well executed the imitation is, it’s still an imitation. The criteria we use to evaluate modern ‘retro revival’... Continue Reading →

Another round up of the noise of 2019. Takafumi Matsubara: Strange, Beautiful, and Fast The history of grindcore is an interesting one. At its inception it became a catalyst genre of sorts. Pure grindcore was made up of the bare bones of music; half songs and incomplete scraps. But the unique levels of energy and... Continue Reading →

At its most fundamental level, music is a form of pre-verbal communication. Compared to the precision of language it is clumsy and open to multiple interpretations, but in its rightful domain of emotional and instinctive expression words do not compare. Throughout most of history, it was something that everyone could engage with, both as musician... Continue Reading →

Here's two buried classics of a time gone by. A reminder that with enough enthusiasm and creative energy, sloppy execution can sometimes be a virtue in death metal. This music is granted additional charm the swampy, lo-fi aesthetics of many underground demos and EPs floating around in the early 1990s, beneath the radar of the... Continue Reading →

Broadly speaking the origins of American death metal lie in thrash, and the origins of Scandinavian death metal lie in a blend of d-beat and NWOBHM. Whilst it pleases me that this fits so well, there can be a danger in placing too much emphasis on the importance of regional sounds in the develop of... Continue Reading →