Lantern – Dimensions
There comes a time in every band's career where they either get it or they don't. A lucky few find their footing right away and hit the ground running, becoming either a fondly remembered flash in the pan or a... Read More...
Hey! Listen to Mindforce!
When asked to name classic heavy metal bands, the ones that come to mind are Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Cirith Ungol, Mercyful Fate and Mindforce right? Wait, Mindforce the hardcore band? Ok, maybe not in the... Read More...
Bestialord – Black Mass Wedding
As a contributor to Heavy Blog, I’ve found that the most
satisfying thing to do is to follow a band from their beginning. You get to see
how artists can evolve and learn from their mistakes or just figure out ... Read More...
Halshug – Drøm
Copenhagen's hardcore and metal scenes are one of the hottest around Europe right now - maybe even the world's. Leaving Mercyful Fate, Volbeat, and Aqua to the normies, the city is home to a slew of acts from t... Read More...
Black Anvil – Miles
If there was anything to learn from 2017’s As Was, it was that Black Anvil’s refined handle of melody and attention to dark psychedelic atmospheres were honed as sharp as their enlightened take on black metal.... Read More...
The Anatomy Of: Sacral Rage
In celebration of their fantastic second album, Beyond Celestial Echoes, we caught up with the members of the Greek four-piece Sacral Rage to delve a bit deeper into the albums that changed their lives and whic... Read More...
Bestialord – Law of the Burning
Horror and heavy metal seem to be forever intertwined. The music evolved from the genre. At this point in pop culture, one represents the other. So why not make that your sound? That seems to be the MO for Best... Read More...
Portrait – Burn the World
While death and black metal are seeing amazing leaps forward in talent, production, and ability for the denizens of the traditional metal world what we’re seeing from bands such as Enforcer, dawnbringer, Sumerlands, Eternal Champion, and Striker must seem like manna from heaven… or hell, depending upon your preference. One band that has been plugging away at this style, beginning as a bit of a Mercyful Fate worship act and evolving with each new release is Sweden’s Portrait (the band name derives from Diamond’s first solo album, Fatal Portrait). On their latest offering, Burn the World, we see a band who is getting comfortable with their own take on the venerable speed riffs, blazing solos, and soaring vocals of trad metal creating an addictive blend for fans.
The Year of the Beast: How Iron Maiden Heralded the Metal Explosion
The story of metal is not linear. We didn’t arrive at the mayhem lurking in our Spotify playlists through a measured progression of technique, style, and genre. Rather, the evolution came in leaps and bounds, with dead ends and bursts of growth and pockets of innovation. To continue the evolutionary metaphor: the Cambrian Explosion of metal shot off in the mid 1980’s, as subgenres and geniuses and success combined into a specimen closely resembling much of modern metal. But the growth, although frantic, wasn’t instantaneous; rather, it seemed to expand exponentially from a single source, a catalyst in a chain reaction. That incipient band, the patient zero of metal as we know it today, is Iron Maiden. More precisely, the stratospheric success of The Number of the Beast, with it’s intricate compositions, transgressive lyrics, and trailblazing progressivity, diverged metal from hard rock completely and legitimized metal as a commercial viability, heralding the eruption of metal in the years to follow.
The Devil’s Roots: Satanism in Black Metal
The umbrella of metal encompasses a myriad of sub-genres, and the majority of them have some devil in their DNA, but in the case of black metal Satanism is the essence of its very spirit. Anti-Christian values ... Read More...