reviews

It’s a minor miracle that I’m writing about this demo. I picked it up at an Animosity show in SF earlier this year. The CD was free off a spindle, with no sleeve or case. All it said was “Remorseless Demo 2006.” No track names, no contact info, not the best first impression. I listened […]

Drumcorps is Aaron Spectre, an artist in Berlin who makes what could loosely be called breakcore. Now, I’m generally not a fan of breakcore. To me, it seems like the worst result of letting white people near black music. Breakbeats lose their funk, grooves lose their soul, and sounds bunch up at unpleasant frequencies. But […]

Also on Cock Rock Disco is Next Life, who sound like if Zombi and Fantomas got together to score Zelda. With this Norwegian duo, you get the cinematic synths of the former and the ADD of the latter. Songs burst into bloom with proggy odd meters and power chords, only to jump cut to the […]

For picking up girls, Lecherous Nocturne isn’t the best band name. It does have a selling point, though – Nile guitarist Dallas Toler-Wade played drums on debut album Adoration of the Blade (on Deepsend). Toler-Wade recently left to concentrate full-time on Nile, and current Nile touring bassist Joe Payne did time in the band as […]

When I heard that members of Knut and legendary Swiss tech-grinders Nostromo had formed a new band called Mumakil, I knew I had to hear them. And when their label, Overcome, posted clips on its site that scared the shit out of me every time I visited, I had to track them down. And track […]

Nostromo was a Swiss band that formed in the late ’90s and called it quits around 2004. With its odd meters and polyrhythms, the group sounded like if Meshuggah played grindcore. It put out an EP and three full-lengths, including an all-acoustic (!) CD/DVD called Hysteron Proteron. Ecce Lex (on Overcome) came out in 2002 […]

Today marks five years since the passing of Chuck Schuldiner, so I’d like to revisit my favorite Death album, Individual Thought Patterns. ITP came out in 1993, an amazing time for Florida death metal; Cynic’s Focus, Atheist’s Elements, Pestilence’s Spheres, and Morbid Angel’s Covenant all came out that year. Scott Burns produced the album, Death’s […]

I’ve seen “funeral,” “doom,” “depressive,” and “suicidal” (and in various combinations thereof) used to describe the black metal of Elysian Blaze. Such labels don’t particularly interest me, although this interview with this Australian one-man act is provocative with regards to that last label. What interests me is what comes from the speakers, and on Levitating […]

CD reissues are a mixed bag. Sometimes you get true labors of love, with good remastered sound, expanded liner notes, and fancy packaging. Other times you get horribly brickwalled sound, worthless “extras” (screensavers, anyone?), or blatant cash-ins released a year after the original with maybe a bonus track tacked on. I’m not naming any names, […]

Few female vocalists approach Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow in brutality. However, Sufferage’s Jasmin Fleiner does, and then some. Without knowing her identity, I would have sworn that the vocals on Bloodspawn (on Remission) came from a man. In real life, that would be bad, but in metal, that’s awesome. Her voice is no joke; I […]