Simon Handmaker – Heavy Blog Is Heavy

Delving into delving: An Interview with delving/Elder’s Nick DiSalvo

June 14, 2021

Those keyed into modern progressive rock, heavy psych, or doom metal should instantly recognize Nick Disalvo’s name from Elder. On their five LPs released across the past decade and change, the Berlin- née New... Read More...

Lunar Shadow – Wish to Leave

Simon Handmaker

April 5, 2021

Reviews

When songwriters are capable, determined, and well-measured in their craft, genre is little more than a choice of canvas upon which to employ the techniques and philosophies they’ve developed through their mus... Read More...

Reaching Enlightenment: A Conversation with Spirit Adrift’s Nate Garrett

Simon Handmaker

October 5, 2020

Interviews

Spirit Adrift are one of the leaders of a cadre of bands currently pushing the sound of American heavy metal back to the forefront of the headbanger’s consciousness. Across three albums in four years - 2016’s ... Read More...

Atramentus – Stygian

Simon Handmaker

September 2, 2020

Reviews

In a recent interview with Invisible Oranges, Atramentus mastermind Phil Tougas (a metalhead’s metalhead by any account, as he also plays in Chthe’ilist, First Fragment, Cosmic Atrophy, Funebrarum, and Eternit... Read More...

Expander – Neuropunk Boostergang

Simon Handmaker

August 14, 2020

Reviews

Metal bands who excel are often those who are most masterful at drawing us as the audience into the depths of their aesthetic, at submerging us in the world they’ve created for as long as we can hear the sound... Read More...

THÆTAS – Shrines to Absurdity

Simon Handmaker

June 30, 2020

Reviews

Like 2019 and 2018 before it, 2020 is A Year of Death Metal. Obviously death metal isn’t the only metal subgenre seeing great releases at the moment - a cursory look at our Best-Of lists from the past couple ... Read More...

Elder – Omens

Simon Handmaker

April 21, 2020

Reviews

A new release from a beloved band is a chance to once again reconsider the question of identity. Like any artistic endeavor, an album is, on many levels, an expression of personality and a many-pronged stateme... Read More...

Spectral Lore & Mare Cognitum – Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine

Simon Handmaker

March 20, 2020

Reviews

When I was in my senior year of high school, I was really Going Through It. Due to a combination of factors - a couple years' worth of personal events with peers that I still don't really talk about much, seei... Read More...

Nightfear – Apocalypse

Simon Handmaker

March 4, 2020

Reviews

Recently, I've been handed a term by a friend and I've found myself using it a lot. That term is "Pringles metal," which they used to describe death metal stalwarts Cannibal Corpse, who have built a 30-year ca... Read More...

Fluisteraars – Bloem

Simon Handmaker

March 2, 2020

Reviews

It's been unseasonably warm and bright in Chicago recently. Not every day, of course, but over the past few weeks we've had a surprising amount of sunshine for a city that's accustomed to going a week at a tim... Read More...

Author Simon Handmaker