Ah, expectations! What a terrible and unavoidable burden. Expectations color pretty much everything we do; whether we like it or not, our brains are wired into creating an image of a thing before we perceive it and then measuring the actuality of that thing against it (do you hear that? As if millions of philosophers suddenly cried out in terror). With music, these expectations can doubly as potent, as they…
Sometime way back in 2015, Mirror released their self-titled debut long player on Metal Blade Records. Despite being put out by one of the biggest and most consistent and reputable labels in the biz, it flew under the radar. Featuring former Electric Wizard and Satan’s Wrath bassist Tas Danazoglou and…
We here at Heavy Blog like to ponder the big questions: Who are we? Why are we here? What’s your favourite album from 1989? You know, the big stuff. In order to better address such pressing matters, we bring you Heavy Issues: a bi-weekly column by which we plan to…
On behalf of all of us here at Heavy Blog I must apologise. In March we learned about one of 2019’s more striking and thought-provoking albums, yet you’ve had to wait until today for our coverage. Well, better late than never, for today we right that wrong and bring to…
Heavy Pod Is Heavy Cast! This week I am dialing in from an unusual location. We have a bunch of items to discuss, including Iron Maiden suing the creators of the game Ion Maiden, Metallica playing the national anthem, video of domestic abuse from the Vektor frontman surfacing, This Gift Is A Curse, Howling Sycamore, Shrek slam band The Ogre Packet Slammers, Wormed, Wait, Brand of Sacrifice, Season of Mist moving to on-demand shirt printing, and Cody’s chaotic meme playlist. Then, cool people time with Designated Survivor, Chernobyl (we go into some good discussion about nuclear energy), Surviving Mars, Killing Eve, and The Society. Enjoy!
Writing about a new Abbath album without mentioning Immortal would be tantamount to writing about Bruce Dickinson’s solo albums (The Chemical Wedding still…
Friends, I’m gonna be real with you. It’s been a busy week, and I’m writing this late at night, so…
Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to our Editors’ Picks column: Friday release days open the floodgates and unleash a seemingly endless stream of quality new music. But while some of our Editors and Contributors sit down gleefully each week to dive into this newly stocked treasure trove, others find themselves drawing a blank at the end of the month due to the breakneck pace needed to keep up to date with what’s been released. Which brings us to this Heavy Blog PSA: a weekly roundup of new albums which pares down the week’s releases to only our…
Holy return to form Batman! Ever since 2009’s outstanding It Hates You, He is Legend’s albums have yielded increasingly diminishing…
This one’s a little bit rushed, as I forgot I had a Grind My Gears to write today, so bear…
It seems like we’re entering a summer of revival and renewal for the punk scene. Coming on the heels of new and very solid efforts from the likes of Bad Religion and Bouncing Souls we have a slew of new releases from godfathers of the scene debuting now or in the not too distant future. Warped is upon us, the Fest has announced its lineup, and so has Riot Fest. There are a lot, A LOT, of reunions and old album performances in your future and if you can’t make it to the venues for the real thing, good luck…
2017’s Hatred came and went with little to no fanfare, and that itself is a crime against music. We didn’t…
Since its inception, metal has been a genre of music that never lacked a flair for the dramatic. Even Black…
Around this time last year I was lamenting the paltry state of post-rock-centric or at least post-rock-heavy festivals in the US. With Europe being covered by the likes of dunk!festival, VIVID, and ArcTangent, it’s difficult to not look inward and be jealous or frustrated. However, in that same post I mentioned a brand new festival entering the game. Post. Festival came out swinging in 2018 with the strength of the new North American post-rock/metal/math/whatever scenes and the people who have powered them behind it. It was modestly-sized compared to its European cousins, but it more than made up for that…
