A Gift to Artwork, taken from the Caligula’s Horse song “A Gift to Afterthought”, breaks down and analyses your favourite album artwork. The first time an album’s name appears, it will link to a large and (where possible) high-resolution image of the cover so that you can take a closer…
2018 was a big year for progressive death metal, with outstanding releases coming from the likes of Rivers of Nihil, Alkaloid, Slugdge, Obscura and Beyond Creation – just to name a few. However, those bands also all already established and lauded acts. While there were a couple of head-turning debuts…
Like Unique Leader before them, The Artisan Era is fast becoming the go-to label for all things prog and tech death, cultivating a roster of “who’s who” among up-and-coming names in the genre such as Warforged and Inanimate Existence while simultaneously attracting longstanding names in the genre by pressing releases for acts like Augury and Spawn of Possession. Chances are, if there’s a new band wearing The Faceless and Necrophagist influences on their sleeves and they’re worth the time and attention, The Artisan Era is backing them, their logo becoming a seal of quality.
As is the case every year we do this, the exact makeup and composition of the fine (and not so fine) people who build our ranks here at Heavy Blog shifts and changes with every passing year. In a way it’s inevitable that over time you might see the general…
Welcome back to Genre Genesis. For newcomers, here’s a brief overview of how this works. Four of the other editors – Nick, Scott, Jonathan, and Eden – have partners who are, shall we say, not nearly as invested in heavier music as we tend to be, and so their knowledge…
It’s hard to write these intros without spoiling other posts from our end of year content; after all, this intro is focused on 2018 and what it has been and that’s addressed in multiple upcoming posts as well. However, it still needs to be done and this post is, nominally…
Friends. Ingrates. Gutter rats. Welcome once more to Death’s Door. Wipe your feet on the mat and pull up a bone throne. The gore runneth over, and there seems no end to it. How has 2018 been this damn good for death metal? The sheer volume of quality records in…
A quick scroll through this month’s picks will tell you that this is probably the most diverse edition of Editors’ Picks in a while. There’s no grand narrative at operation here; we didn’t go out of our way to include albums from as many genres as possible. It’s just a…
Heavy Pod Is Heavy Cast!
A bunch of industry news this week! Spotify uniting with Distrokid, revenue shares of services, and ranting about monopolies versus fragmentation. Then some bummer news – Oli from All That Remains passed away, the Ghost members lost their lawsuit, and The Faceless are embarking on a 10th anniversary tour for Planetary Duality. Then some new music! Babymetal, Soilwork, Fractal Cypher, and Beyond Creation. Then cool people time! I gush about The Return of the Obra Dinn, and Eden gushes about Maniac. Enjoy!
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…
