Grindcore - that furiously primitive bolt-on to death metal - got cruel and weird in the early 1990s; otherwise known as the end of history. What started as a one dimensional catalyst for new levels of making an unholy racket suddenly morphed into extreme metal’s equivalent of an avant-garde movement. Not all grind went this... Continue Reading →

It’s 1995, some of black metal’s most revered works have already been released, and many of the musicians responsible are now behind bars. But the movement is stronger than the murderous actions of one or two people. Music is louder than words and wider than pictures. Well, it's certainly louder than murder anyway. What better... Continue Reading →

Okay, so if we’re weighing it up against European death metal alone it’s a close run thing when you look at the early output of Therion, At the Gates, Bolt Thrower and Dismember, but in terms of quality and quantity I’m afraid the Americans just clinch it. And it’s consistent workhorses like these two artists... Continue Reading →

Musical extremity is a means to an end. This fact is perfectly demonstrated by the two artists we’ll be looking at this week. If black metal is not abrasive and obscure then it’s dramatic and symphonic, a combination which often leads to cheese. But here we have two studied sets of musicians who knew their... Continue Reading →

With the rise and rise of extreme metal came a competing trend for many musicians to return to music of humanity. Away from esoteric spiritualism, death, gore and war, a clutch of artists arose who wished to leave their own stamp on familiar themes, and started writing what can only be described as loves songs... Continue Reading →

‘The Story of Anvil’, released in 2008, follows failed Canadian heavy metal band Anvil as they embark on a disastrous European tour and endeavour against all the odds to release their thirteenth studio album ‘This is Thirteen’. The film opens with footage of Anvil playing at a festival in Japan to a packed out crowd... Continue Reading →

If you're a kid failing to fit in at school, something strange begins to happen in your mid-teens. You begin to embrace the outsider status as a badge of honour. This can manifest itself behaviourally, fashionably, culturally. Forever on the outside of the ‘cool’ clique looking in, you decide to build your own idea of... Continue Reading →

Satyricon and Gorgoroth both achieved an undeserved level of fame in the post 2000 extreme metal scene. The former for fusing black metal with more conventional chord patterns and time signatures, creating a style now known as 'black ‘n’ roll'. The latter for positioning themselves as the ugly and violent bastions of true black metal... Continue Reading →

Funeral doom represents the other end of the extreme metal spectrum to black metal in many ways. Whilst death metal largely relies on riffcraft before guitar tone to justify its existence, for funeral doom and black metal (approximately the fastest and the slowest of underground metal), surface level aesthetic can make or break an album.... Continue Reading →

I guess back in the day old school death metal was just…death metal. At some indeterminate point in the early 2000s it came to refer to artists at work roughly between the years of 1985 to 1993, who made a name through tape trading and zines. More recently still some metalheads have revisited our history... Continue Reading →