MONARCH! – The Heavy Blog is Heavy Interview

Scott Murphy
News
Writing a standout doom metal album is a difficult task nowadays. This isn't due to an overall lack of quality within the genre's modern progenitors, but because of the antithesis; more and more excellent doom metal albums seem to enter the running for our year ends lists with each passing year. MONARCH! (Monarch from here on out) has never struggled with this  endeavor over the course of their 15-year career, particularly when it comes to their recent output with the eminent Profound Lore Records. Yet, while Sabbracadaver was certainly a doom highlight in 2014, Never Forever sees the band returning this year with their most colossal and grandiose album to date, presenting a masterful synthesis of drone metal with doom's more macabre characteristics. We sat down with the band to discuss the process of writing their latest epic, as well as a handful of other topics related to their past, present and future within the shifting landscape of modern doom. 

Premiere: No Relief in Entry’s new video for “Time Heal Me”

Bill Fetty
Premieres
Modern hardcore, in its most traditional strain, stems directly from the likes of Black Flag but exists now through a twisted evolution that people like me have attempted to label with absurd titles like emoviolence, powerviolence, and any number of “-core” affixed descriptors. However, one of the main common themes that can be found when listening to or discovering newer variants is a critical nucleus consisting of compact, ferociously brief songs that maintain a rapidfire pace just shy of grind, at least to these ears. Sometimes these include (extremely) brief breakdowns or mid-tempo breathers before flying off the handle again in a manic explosion of righteous vengeance and furious anger. One band that hits all of those elements and goes hard as fuck on their new EP is Entry out of Los Angeles, CA.

What Heavy Blog Is Really Listening To – 4/14/17

Scott Murphy
What We're Really Listening To
For those who missed our last installment, We post biweekly 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 does not fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as no surprise that many of us on staff have pretty eclectic tastes that range far outside of metal and heavy things. We can’t post about all of them at length here, but we can at least let you know what we’re actually listening to. For those that would like to participate as well (and please do) can drop a 3X3 in the comments, which can be made with tapmusic.net through your last.fm account, or create it manually with topsters.net. Also, consider these posts open threads to talk about pretty much anything music-related. We love hearing all of your thoughts on this stuff and love being able to nerd out along with all of you.

Reign in Blood: The Taxonomy of Thrash Metal

Heavy Blog
Deep Dive
Welcome back to our Taxonomy series, where we break down umbrella genres like progressive metal, post rock and doom metal and outline all of the progressions and subgenres that have matriculated over the past few decades. The dissection of thrash metal you'll find below contains a detailed dissection of the most crucial genre in extreme metal style. Thrash led to incredible innovations over the years, and in turn, a multiplicity of styles has made its way back into the genre's core traits to form some of the most forward thinking metal coming out today. Seriously, many of the bands mentioned below have released records less than a year ago, and in some cases, less than a month. There's a ton of ground to cover here, so without further ado, let's riff on some of the best thrash you can use to mosh in your bedroom.

No Heroes In New England // Week of 8/7/16

Heavy Blog
Listen To This!, News
New England: home of the Red Sox, Jack Kerouac, and some pretty damn fine hardcore. And as much as I'd love to obsess about and name celebrities that also call this place home, we have a fucking article to do! For those who are new: No Heroes is a weekly column that sheds some light on new and upcoming hardcore bands from New England. "Hardcore" in this context is a little vague, referring to not only metalcore (metallic hardcore), but hardcore punk and basically anything else using the hardcore title. Enjoy!