Here we have two artists that took the basic building blocks of primitive extreme metal as it was in the early 1990s, and produced music not of this earth. Black metal of this era will forever be mired in the actions and words of individuals within the scene. I’ll be dealing with none of that... Continue Reading →

Following the explosion of (what can only be called) mainstream success for death metal in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a backlash was inevitable. Growing out of grassroots tape trading and zine distribution, analogue social media if you will, death metal had caught the attention of major TV channels, record labels, and concerned parents,... Continue Reading →

Defining words and actions as offensive is tantamount to declaring that your feelings have been hurt. This idea is nothing new. But people have extrapolated on this simple fact, and manufactured it into an anti PC war-cry. Advocates of political correctness are accused of trying to create a world without offence. Of trying to manufacture... Continue Reading →

It’s a well-established fact that metal has an unhealthy addiction to genre classifications. One look at our database over at metal-archives will tell you as much. It is not just the sheer volume of genres – many of which are  just the same groups of words shuffled around a bit – it’s also how important... Continue Reading →

The other day I was walking to work listening to Slaughtbbath, a standard fair primal black metal outfit from Chile. And like the vast majority of dirty black metal artists, they ‘sing’ about blasphemy, desecration of the sacred, gore, death, all the lovely violent themes common to this violent variant on extreme metal. Occasional lyrics... Continue Reading →

Doom metal takes many forms. The stoner doom variant, otherwise known as acceptable metal for non-metalheads, is the most direct descendant of Black Sabbath. The epic doom variant championed by the likes of Candlemass is essentially a slowed down form of traditional heavy metal. Then in the late 1980s doom became an optional add on... Continue Reading →

Because version 1 of this manifesto turned more people on to meat than off. If we set aside any facts about modern food production for the time being, the case for vegetabilism rests on two things. The first is the strength of our interest in consuming animal products, as opposed to an animal’s interests in... Continue Reading →

Finland boasts the highest proportion of metal artists to population size in the world, seen by many as one of the spiritual homes of this global phenomena, it touches on all colours and stripes of the subculture. In terms of death metal however, there is not a uniquely ‘Finnish’ sound in the same way as... Continue Reading →

When music of speed reaches some unknowable tipping point and morphs into ambient noise, it becomes akin to music at the opposite, unbearably, sluggish pole. These pioneers of doom played so slowly the prefix ‘funeral’ was added to emphasise just how fucking slow it is. They are aesthetically closer to black metal than they are... Continue Reading →

Primitive death metal’s ability to constantly re-invent itself within such simplistic parameters really is remarkable. By the early 1990s death metal was in danger of stagnating on all fronts. But despite the risks, there were those that insisted on carrying the flame for simple music that avoided the pitfalls of being simplistic. Two releases by... Continue Reading →