Full of Hell, baby. You know ’em, you love ’em. We do too: they’ve appeared a handful of times on the blog this year, from our review of Weeping Choir way the hell back in May to their spot near the forefront of our Grind My Gears 2019 wrap-up last…
There’s something about niche genres that allow artists to connect with their audiences in ways that the larger beasts of the music world do not. That isn’t to say the latter aren’t inspirational for others or have aspirations of speaking their truth in earnest and honest ways that connect with…
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…
‘You ever laugh just to keep from crying/Think less about living and more about dying’. This closing line from track “Dr. Seuss”, reverberates from the pitch-shifted maw of Tierra Whack as if it’s a narration. “Who? Me?”, I imagine myself responding in my mind. “Yes, you” the deep voice confirms.…
There’s a lot happening in the music world, and we here at Heavy Blog try our very best to keep up with it! Like the vast majority of heavy music fans, our tastes are incredibly vast, with our 3X3s in each Playlist Update typically covering numerous genres and sometimes a…
Today marks around 12 months since the passing of Chester Bennington, another all too frequent day that sends shockwaves rippling through the music community. In this instance, more so than most, the sadness and anguish weren’t contained to the metal or rock communities, but the music world more broadly. Yet, as difficult as his death has been for countless people the world over, few would have felt his loss to the extent that friend and bandmate Mike Shinoda has. Our words couldn’t possibly describe how he would have been feeling, for grief is such a personal emotion, and so we won’t even try. But we can touch upon the various motivations that may have been at play when deciding to write, record and release Post Traumatic, a 16-song LP released in June.
This column will now be a monthly feature where I point the Heavy crowd to some more obscure releases that deserve to be heard. If you want more obscure and weird music recommendations, visit my website! … Current Banger: Haolin Munk – Planestasia Suite I recently found out and praised extensively the new album…
The music of Tokyo based but UK native Submerse was passed on to me by a friend recently, and I was immediately impressed by the modern take on 90’s slow jams mixed with instrumental hip-hop. His newest album, Are You Anywhere, came out last October on Project Mooncircle records, and…
Synthwave is, in many respects, a hard musical genre to nail down and many disagree as to what exactly categorizes any particular act as such beyond the simple utilization of synthesizers. While most might immediately conclude that it involves imitating the sounds of the 1980s, there are those who blur that decade divide and bring in influences from the 1990s as well. Such is the case regarding Robots With Rayguns, an act which has been in the scene for quite a number of years now, who describes themselves as being “inspired by 80s and 90s electro, breakbeat, and RnB.” Indeed, with catchy beats and a healthy dose of vocal sampling, one gets the sense that their music would have been right at home in a dance club from that era or featured quite prominently on MTV alongside La Bouche and C+C Music Factory.
It doesn’t really take a whole lot of thought to see the need for politically-charged rap in this cultural moment. Better writers than I have waxed poetic plenty on this point, so I’ll keep it short and to the point: when we live in an era where governments around the…