germany

No Halloween would be complete without, er, Helloween. Here’s an artifact from that band’s checkered past. It may be the first ever usage of the term “death metal.” In 1984, death metal hadn’t been invented yet, so instead we get artwork of a cannibal corpse eating guts that look like caramel apples — a Halloween […]

The Divinity of Oceans (Napalm, 2009) is a remarkable album about a remarkable subject: the sinking of the American whaleship Essex in 1820. (A book about the event inspired Moby Dick, which inspired Ahab‘s first album, The Call of the Wretched Sea, as well as Mastodon’s Leviathan.) After a whale rammed the ship and sank […]

Frank Mullen gets Wired According to Suffocation frontman Frank Mullen, the Summer Slaughter tour was this year’s “death metal stimulus package.” 2009’s lineup featured around a dozen bands. On this first date of a two-night stand in New York City, the lineup slimmed down. The tour’s metalcore/deathcore bands, all with three-word names (Winds of Plague, […]

Happy 20th birthday, Agent Orange. Evidently, it is the best-selling German thrash record ever. In Germany alone, it shifted over 100,000 copies. 99% of metal albums now don’t put up those kinds of numbers worldwide! Agent Orange‘s secret weapon was guitarist Frank Blackfire. He made it and its predecessor Persecution Mania unstoppable thrashing machines. (In […]

This post is really just an excuse to show the cover art. But what art it is! Click on it to enlarge it. There is so much to absorb. Top: Pac-Man font. Bottom: “conscious hip-hop” font. Middle: Full-on rave action. Glowsticks are forming in my hands. My pants are growing phatter. I think I’m peaking. […]

You may now put away your playlists. Turn “shuffle” off. Stop buying iPhone apps. Stop Twittering. Start making a difference. Start with your life. Go here. Download Seamount‘s debut, ntodrm (Merciless, 2008) for free. Phil Swanson sounds a little like Ozzy. How this Yank hooked up with German doomsters is beyond me. Maybe he spricht […]

’90s rock group The Presidents of the United States of America have introduced a $2.99 iPhone app that allows users to stream the band’s entire catalogue. (See story here.) The app also contains links to buy MP3’s from iTunes. Until now, I hadn’t seriously considered streaming music. In its current state, I hate it. Some […]

Hordes of Chaos (SPV, 2009) has the same ingredients as Kreator‘s post-’90s, return-to-thrash records: politically correct (and fairly awful) lyrics, some melody, slick production. But while later Kreator albums typically have a few bangers and loads of filler (I spy a “greatest hits” disc ahead), Hordes is compelling throughout. Here is a band whose t-shirts […]

by Cosmo Lee When I saw Animosity play in Berlin last year, I ran into Drumcorps (aka Aaron Spectre). He told me that Animosity had commissioned him to remix songs from their latest record, Animal (Metal Blade, 2007). This excited me to no end. Animosity is one of my favorite bands, and Drumcorps is the […]

by Cosmo Lee In doom metal, the usual words tossed around pertain to size – “lumbering,” “massive,” etc. While Germany’s Black Shape of Nexus are certainly those things – they tune down to a bowel-shaking B flat – they exhibit surprising nuance. Amid the requisitive tiiiiiimestretching riffs are melodic curlicues and percussive details that demand […]