There’s often a lot of emphasis on the best death metal being progressive or technical – especially around these parts; And often the best death metal is the most progressive and/or technical. Yet, also often, it’s easy to loose sight of what made death metal so appealing in the…
Guess who’s back in the house (of straw)! Bury Your Dead might not have much of a profile these days, but they were easily one of the most acts of the early 2000s. The Boston hardcore crew are as much to thank/blame as The Acacia Strain, for the bouncy, beatdown-focussed…
The question of what exactly makes post-rock what it is is a hotly debated one. But, as with all forms of discourse, there are usually a few “points of truth” on which everyone (more or less) tends to agree. For post-rock, some of these include the lack of vocals (although…
Collaborations are the ultimate musical wild card, offering up either a pleasant surprise or unfulfilled potential. Fortunately for us, both Justin Broadrick (Godflesh and Jesu) and Kevin Martin (The Bug) have made it their mission to form some of the most intriguing super-duos over the past decade. Broadrick has worked…
I don’t know exactly why, but metal is so ripe for parody sometimes. Maybe it’s because it’s pretty easy to make fun of metal at times, and there’s such a uniform style that it’s just easy to ape. It can also be so chaotic that the bands themselves are just…
Surely everyone who has ever picked up a guitar, microphone, or drumstick has fantasised about creating an album revered as a bona fide, epoch-defining classic. The dream of having a collection of songs that are still spoken about in hushed, reverent tones more than two decades after their release is…
Deafheaven’s Sunbather may have blown up the post-black metal sound to a wider audience in 2013, but it was France’s Alcest — lead by prolific black metal musician Stephane “Niege” Pault — that is perhaps ultimately responsible for the wash of reverberating tremolo picks, blastbeats, and emphasis on melodic and…
If there’s anything you should have learned by now about Clipping. it’s that they are seriously attuned to the importance of the body as a site of meaning, politics, and knowledge. In that sense, they are perhaps among the most “post-modern” rap/hip-hop/noise acts out there (though Pharmakon and her nightmarish…
There’s nothing much better than turns on a theme. Sure, it’s fun when a band takes a hard line on sticking in a certain box. It’s nice to hear those records as they feel comforting. It’s like wearing an old t-shirt: it fits just right and you know it’s good.…
Burlington, VT is a small town. For those who are familiar with the name because of Phish or Ben and Jerry’s or Bernie Sanders or some other such local claim to fame, there may be reason to believe otherwise, especially since it’s basically the only town in the state with…
