Finland’s Hexvessel bill themselves as “Psychedelic Forest Folk Rock”, which, while a mouthful, does a pretty good job of describing the type of music you’re in for when you listen to one of their albums. Blending neo-folk with psychedelic rock is not a new thing, but Hexvessel do it with an ease that belies their (relative) youth as a band, having been around for only about eight years. Their debut,…
The staying power of Holy Roar Records’ current roster has only been amplified by the furious metallic hardcore of Ithaca. As you might have you seen from our review of their stunning LP The Language Of Injury, these young and boisterous noisemakers make heartache heavier than ever; their picks for…
For those who missed our last installment, We post bi-weekly updates covering what the staff at Heavy Blog have been spinning. Given the amount of time we spend on the site telling you about music that doesn’t fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as no…
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…
Demos are an odd thing; on one hand, they represent a potential source of new music just there for the taking, as a metric ton of new bands release new, raw music, often brimming with potential. On the other hand, demos are by definition not a finished product. Sometimes, this means that production is not up to par. In other cases, some tracks which make up the bigger picture aren’t even recorded yet. In yet others, the tracks which you do have aren’t in their finalized version, to be tweaked and changed as the full release draws near. Despite all…
There’s a lot happening in the music world, and we here at Heavy Blog try our very best to keep…
If you were to list off the first few countries that came to mind when discussing the development of metal…
Sometimes, it’s perfectly clear that an album was produced by a group of seasoned genre veterans. Once you’ve spent enough time with a certain style of music, you can pick out exactly what defines a refined approach; namely, a heightened focus on composition over instrumental flash. In my experience, this is especially true with post-punk. Countless young bands spring up each year with a singular goal of being as brash and moody as possible, often times at the expense of crafting well-conceived ideas. On the other hand, we have bands like Walking Bicycles, who are entering their 15th year as…
Heavy Pod Is Heavy Cast!
We’re back after the break, and we’ve got a lot new music to complain about! Namely Periphery, Numenorean, Shokran, In Flames, Fallujah, East of the Wall and Aenimus! Also this cool like Mastodon live show with Scott Kelly, then cool people time with Apostle, Punisher Season 2, Star Trek Discovery Season 2, The Bureau, and Apex Legends. Enjoy!
Ah, the warm embrace of cold political hardcore punk-influenced thrash. Very few things in the world are as musically aggressive…
If you go to Cân Bardd’s Bandcamp page, you might notice two things. The first would probably be that the band released their debut album only last year, yet here we are reviewing their sophomore effort in 2019. The second might, and should, be the incredibly endearing and self-secure description that they added to this sophomore release: “We put our heart and all the means we had at our disposal to create an album that suited our vision of the atmospheric black metal and we succeeded”. Before hearing this album, that last part my grate a little; testifying as to…
Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to our Editors’ Picks column: Friday release days open…
t’s not often that we put our cart before the horse with our Editor’s Picks and run a pick before we’ve had a chance to go more in-depth in a review, but SPOILERS: British rock act Bring Me The Horizon’s latest record amo (sixth overall) wound up as my pick for January 2019, and as we never received a promo copy, we haven’t had much of a chance to dissect it and let its diverse sounds sink in at the point of publication in order to dedicate a formal review. At the time, I just knew that I liked it. A lot. Now, going on two weeks since release and the album spinning nearly nonstop, it has had the opportunity to sink its hooks in deeper.
Australia’s Progfest has been steadily gaining in size and popularity, in the decade since its inception. Just three years ago the touring festival consisted entirely of local acts. However, 2018 saw the bill expand to include Norway’s Leprous as international headliners, and the festival managed triple that number this year—drafting an impressive set of international headliners, in the form of Indian/American collective Skyharbor, The UK’s Monuments and German progressive/post metal titans The Ocean. The overall line-up itself also nearly doubled in size—expanding to a roster twenty bands—and relocated from Richmond’s cramped Corner Hotel to Northcote’s more accommodating Croxton Bandroom. Although…
