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. 

Unmetal Monday – 6/26/2017

Jonathan Adams
Unmetal Monthly
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 different style in each square. While we have occasionally covered non-metal topics in past blog posts, we decided that a dedicated column was once again warranted in order to more completely recommend all of the music that we have been listening to. Unmetal Monday is a weekly column which covers noteworthy news, tracks and albums from outside the metal universe, and we encourage you all to share your favorite non-metal picks from the week in the comments. This week, we'll be highlighting several albums that struck our fancy over the past few weeks. Head past the jump to dial down the distortion:

A Guide to Record Store Day’s Most Notable Releases

Scott Murphy
Lists!
Record Store Day is less than a month away, and vinyl fanatics like myself have been stoking our anticipation with the massive list of special releases being featured this year. Of course, it truly is a massive list, and since lines at record stores will almost certainly be even bigger, it'll behoove all of us to have a game plan prior to fluffing our sleeping bags to camp out at the door. That's why I decided to sit down - with input from Eden - and list what we believe to be the essential release from this year's RSD; records that truly capture the essence of that "special release" vibe that the pseudo-holiday has built its reputation upon. This won't be a comprehensive list by any means, and I encourage everyone to comment with the releases that you're most looking forward to snagging next month. That being said, head past the jump to see the vinyl nerd in me gush about what RSD 2016 has to offer.