features

Now, I have seen some guitar shredding in my life. I’ve been to a Necrophagist show. I’ve seen Trey Azagthoth play live, up close. I’ve owned Steve Vai’s Alien Love Secrets video. I grew up when Guitar One magazine was called Guitar for the Practicing Musician. But nothing – and I mean nothing – comes […]

EW.com has a cheeky photo quiz up – “Name that hair metal band.” I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I got a perfect score. I guess all that time spent reading Circus and Hit Parader in grocery stores as a child wasn’t for nothing.

From the Dead to This World camp comes this missive: Following the departure of Mord and Goatpromoter Lava (ed. note: what a name!) due to other commitments, Norwegian black metallers Dead to This World have announced that Kvitrafn (Jotunspor, ex-Gorgoroth) would be taking over drumming duties for the recording of the new album. Dead to […]

Hacride At Metal Injection, I’ve reviewed Hacride, whose Amoeba is the first metal album this year that drives me to evangelical fervor. It’s like Gojira…but with acoustic guitar…and one song, “Zambra,” with a Spanish flamenco group! Strange, thrilling, futuristic. Also up are my review of Facedown band Means and an interview with Dying Fetus. Hacride […]

Melechesh If you were wondering where Andy from No One Here Is Asking and Jason from Sonic Corpse Glide went (and you will know them by their trail of dead blogs), they’ve joined forces in the blog merger of the year. Now they’re at Clocked In – Punched Out, which is off to a running […]

Phazm New review is up at Stylus of French black ‘n’ death ‘n’ roll outfit Phazm. Up at Metal Injection are reviews of ex-Megadeth shredder Marty Friedman and Equal Vision artists Hot Cross. Phazm – Black ‘n’ RollHot Cross – Silence Is Failure

Still from “Happiness in Slavery” “Crush my soul, make me feel” definitely applied to Bob Flanagan. He was a BDSM performance artist; Wikipedia says BDSM stands for “bondage & discipline,” “dominination & submission,” and “sadism & masochism.” I know virtually nothing about these things, and what little I’ve seen of Flanagan’s work makes me wince. […]

RIP, Brad Delp [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BoG7xOZJk]

Dying Fetus New reviews are up at Metal Injection of Seattle sludgesters Iamthethorn, featuring Himsa’s John Pettibone on vocals, and the infamous Dying Fetus. For some reason, Cannibal Corpse, Necrophagist, and Aborted seem like sensible metal band names to me, but I still get self-conscious when I tell people I like Dying Fetus. At Stylus, […]

Speaking of Sabbath, Professor Nicola Masciandaro of Brooklyn College-CUNY has published a gloss (.pdf file) on the song “Black Sabbath.” In this case, “gloss” does not mean “a brief, often shitty explanation,” but “a long-ass philosophical commentary.” It’s 18 pages, more than one for each line in the song! Honestly, most of it goes over […]