aabboreno

by Anthony Abboreno In the ’80s and ’90s, Order from Chaos created raw death-thrash brimming with social discontent. When Order from Chaos split up in 1996, bass guitarist and vocalist Pete Helmkamp went on to found Angelcorpse, while guitarist Chuck Keller and drummer Mike Miller started Ares Kingdom. Of the two, Ares Kingdom has been […]

Image by CultMetalReview by Anthony Abboreno Throneum pursue Death Metal until it becomes fulfilling in itself. Blasphemy, grue, and punkish riffs are their own justification. Don’t look to the lyrics for philosophical insight. Don’t listen to the music for technical inspiration. The content is stupidity and ugliness, with no moral lessons to give. It is […]

Pictured: Criminal Tendencies zine #3, 1991Review by Anthony Abboreno I wish I could have been this cool in high school. Probably as a direct response to the success of Daniel Ekeroth’s Swedish Death Metal (reviewed here), where Nirvana 2002 is praised as one of the greatest Swedish Death bands that never recorded an album, Relapse […]

Artwork by Chadwick St. JohnReview by Anthony Abboreno Arckanum presents an intimdating front. Start with the sound, get to the ideology later. In either instance, Dissection isn’t a bad place to start. Musically, Arckanum is more minimalist than Dissection, and more inclined to the swaths of tremolo picking instigated by Transilvanian Hunger and Emperor. Crucially, […]

by Anthony Abboreno I first discovered Ignitor two years ago through this blog, when Cosmo posted a link to his Metal Injection review of their 2007 album Road of Bones. That album kicked my ass like Painkiller, with hammering riffs and awesome vocals by Erika Swinnich, a woman with a top-notch sneer. Evil CallingMy Heart […]

by Anthony Abboreno At the end of 2009, I find myself older, fatter, and poorer: a flabby member of a short-lived species in a dying empire. Metal, on the other hand, is doing fine. Yes, depending on who you listen to, the best metal albums of the decade are actually hardcore albums. I care, but […]

by Anthony Abboreno Wielding imagery of Victorian occultism and ’20s pulp, The Lamp of Thoth are an eccentric doom band. The cover of their latest EP, Sing as You Slay (Miskatonic Foundation, 2009), looks like the label for a bottle of 19th century medicine (“Do not ingest! May Cause Death!”). Their riffs are also hardly […]

by Anthony Abboreno Slugathor’s Echoes from Beneath (Drakkar, 2009) is death metal you glimpse in darkness. Grinding riffs coalesce, pummel you, then vanish into the murk. Seasick guitar leads writhe. The main vocals gurgle in a fleshy lower register, but are often doubled by a phantasmal scream. This is my favorite way for death metal […]

by Anthony Abboreno Sinister Realm‘s Alex Kristof is one of the best metal vocalists I’ve heard. His voice is rough and expressive. He’s operatic but not histrionic. When he growls, it’s menacing. When he’s sorrowful or tragic, it’s heartbreaking. His bandmates are no slouches, either. Drummer Darin McCloskey and bassist John Gaffney previously played in […]

by Anthony Abboreno I’ve got an uncle who’s a tremendous Scotch drinker. He once commented on a bottle of Laphroaig somebody had given me as a gift. “That’s good Scotch,” he said, “but the peat flavor isn’t as strong as I like. I like Scotch that tastes like iodine.” It’s not surprising that a Scotch […]