Metal has a long and proud history of cross-pollination with other subcultures, the oldest, closest, and most important being punk. When post punk exploded in the 1980s it sprouted something of a revolution in alternative music. Artists as diverse as Blondie, Joy Division, The Talking Heads, Swans, and The Fall all made headways in alternative... Continue Reading →

Guest entry exploring cherished albums courtesy of Francis Swift Preface: It should be noted that the following list was incredibly difficult to compile, and took quite some time to finalize. Why? Well, certainly not because of my encyclopaedic knowledge of art and music history, as will become quite evident. Rather it is due to the... Continue Reading →

Before I knew anything much about music, my older brother George was religiously reading Melody Maker in the early 2000s. Out of the many purchases he made as a result one album caught my attention at the age of 11 or 12. ‘Rated R’ perfectly encapsulates all of Josh and Nick’s strengths as musicians. Their... Continue Reading →

For early grindcore artists, after album number two, there seemed to be but two choices, start playing death metal, or breakup. Carcass have all but disowned their first effort, 1988's ‘Reek of Putrefaction’. This is largely because the sound one finds herein is a messy wall of noise, even by the standards of artists who... Continue Reading →

These are the metalheads that wear trainers and tracksuit bottoms, not spikes and leather. These are the metalheads that smile. These are the metalheads that run from one side of the stage to the other when launching into a guitar solo. And these are the metalheads whose drummers spin their sticks around in their hands.... Continue Reading →

Considering these two artists approach technical thrash from very different backgrounds, they ended up playing a remarkably similar style by 1989. Montreal’s DBC were a thrash/crossover band, who only managed to release two albums in their career, but still left a lasting impression on the scene. After releasing their self-titled ‘Dead Brain Cells’ of 1987,... Continue Reading →

Grindcore is another funny one in metal circles. Much like thrash, the rise of grindcore was either championed by punks playing death metal, or by death metallers playing punk. In both cases the results were simplistic extreme music taken to its most absurd conclusion: micro songs playing at lightning fast tempos. The lyrics, again, reflected... Continue Reading →

And so we finally turn our attentions to artists who were directly influenced by the pedigree of the early and mid -1980s. Although the two releases we will be looking at here are pretty much contemporary to the classic works of Slayer, Celtic Frost, Bathory and, Sodom, this was now a younger generation of artists,... Continue Reading →