Moon Tooth came swinging out of the gate in 2016 with their debut full-length Chromaparagon. It presents the listener with a variety of different musical styles that are as colorful as the album title itself. One moment you’re rocking out to stoner with mild-psych touches, the next you’re headbanging to progressive metal, there’s even a devilish fusion of these with blues at one point! It’s a record with a…
Oh boy, do we have a fiery fifty-five seconds of grindcore for you today. The City of Angels is the home of March’s noisiest musical offering, one being delivered by the brutes who go by Skullsmasher. Pairing with Polish extreme darling Selfmadegod Records, Skullsmasher are just about ready to let…
Sometimes, an album/band reach out and just grab you by the heart. Why should that be the case? Every time it’s different; sometimes, it might be the cover art which speaks to you. Other times it might be a single note or a refrain. Perhaps track names? Oftentimes it’s all…
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…
OK, this one is going to be hard to review so I’m just going to start like this: Elizabeth Color Wheel’s Nocebo is one of the more earnest records I’ve heard in a long time. Forget the musicality of it for a second; it’s just extremely honest. You can hear each musician’s heart laid bare on this album, highly emotional and visceral in its delivery, whether it’s hitting hard or droning softly to itself. The passion which drives it is very close to the surface and “sells” the album regardless (and in support of, of course) of anything going on…
There are more than enough bands in this month’s Grind My Gears to keep you satiated for, let’s say at…
Last week, a few of us at Heavy Blog geeked at the announcement of a new Lo-Pan record. It’s exciting…
As with many other folks, I love metal because of the sweet emotional releases it gives me. Despite the loud and chaotic nature of the genre, I feel a great catharsis after a good metal song. Even scientific studies have shown that metal fans feel the release of tension, anger, and a host of negative emotions after listening to metal music. For me, I find that the angrier the sound, the better I feel after a good track. This goes particularly for anything with political or sociological themes in the lyrics, especially if it’s an issue I feel strongly about…
This is one of those posts that I’m going to remember writing based on the merit of the music alone.…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: watching artists challenge themselves is one of the best things in…
What’s worse than the deja vu horror of reliving the same tired mistakes time and time again with no end in sight? No, I’m not talking about listening to your umpteenth atmospheric post-black metal album of the year, I’m talking about that Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or kind of shit. The inconsequential decision-making, the futile attempts at change, and the existential misery that come with a cyclical loop of time. Or worse, the meaninglessness of an unchanging world or the regressive reset that swiftly defies any kind of progress like a real-life game over. It’s hard to imagine what…
It’s a good practice to stagger your releases a bit in order to keep your music and name fresh in…
There are few, if any, labels in the metal world that can match the unique hot-streak of Indian juggernaut Transcending…
Major lineup changes, particularly from the replacement of a member fundamental to the band’s sound like a founding vocalist, can cause a clear divide in not only a band’s fanbase, but the narrative of the band’s discography into distinct eras. Bay Area progressive death metal act Fallujah have just entered their own new era of music following the departure of vocalist and keyboard player Alex Hoffman in 2017.
