January didn’t have an edition of Grind My Gears because yours truly was up to his nuts in boring, boring life bullshit. There’s little point in fixating on it – that wouldn’t be very grindcore, after all – so we’re slamming back into reality with a journey through the halls…
In trying to find explanations for how so many things in our world are unique and yet able to be categorized by our minds – such as, for instance, how two chairs could share practically no traits in common and yet still both be recognized as chairs – Plato created…
There are very few bands in extreme metal that can be rightly considered significant influencers in the formation and development of multiple subgenres. Napalm Death are one of them. From their inception in Birmingham, England in 1981 through their most recent full-length output in 2015, the band have explored the…
Welcome to Death’s Door, nerds. We’re freshly past Our Lord and Infernal Master’s designated holiday, and I’m so hopped up on candy and the blood of the non-believers that I can’t even function. Despite my shot adrenal glands and ever-expanding waistline, there’s a whole lot of premium death metal to cover, as has been the custom in this most nefarious year of 2017. Praise be. October is typically a fantastic month for premier releases, especially in the world of metal. In that regard, this October did not disappoint. Melodic death metal in particular saw a glut of fantastic releases, while death-doom and progressive death metal both unleashed releases that are poised to transform the way we think about death metal as a whole. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, 2017 is one of the finest years for death metal of nearly every shape and type in recent memory. This is legitimately the second golden age of death metal, and I hope and pray it continues in perpetuity. Regardless, let’s celebrate the health of the music we love while it continues to fester and rot in new and unexpected ways. Our picks this month pull from many different sectors of the death metal world. Post your picks in the comments and let us know what you loved/what we missed. Let’s do this.
Ever been in a real fight? A knock-down, drag-out brawl where chairs are launched, punches are thrown, and elbows are swung? Yeah, me either. Let’s be real, when a bunch of drunk dudes decide they want to start a fight for no reason whatsoever my first reaction is typically “check, please…”. There’s a part of me that wants to get into the thick of it, though. That primal, untapped portion of my psyche that not-so-secretly desires to feel the force of a fist slamming into my jaw, and my own bone-splintering retort. But I generally like my face (and most others’ faces as well), so seeing my handsome visage brutally disfigured over a disagreement regarding whose football team is the unequivocal and absolute best seems a bit silly. Thanks to our infernal overlords that we have grindcore and death metal to give wannabe brawlers such as myself a much less painful and infinitely more enjoyable release! Expulsion is the latest death/grind band to cross my ears and allay those violent urges, and with their debut album Nightmare Future they create a violent dystopia harsh and brutal enough to slake even the most fervent extreme metal fan’s bloodlust.
The following article is a collaboration between editors Jonathan Adams and Scott Murphy. Before we dive in, let’s make one thing clear—we and Decibel (“America’s only monthly extreme music magazine”) agree that 2017 has been an exceptional year for death metal. Jonathan has highlighted countless fantastic death metal albums this…
Crust, as a genre, is one that thrives off of imitation, and has never been ashamed about it. After all, the most notable of all the musical forms of crust is d-beat crust, a genre so dedicated to acknowledging it’s predecessor that the genre itself is named after them (d-beat,…
Arguably the premier extreme metal magazine in North America, the folks over at Decibel began a tour tradition in 2012 that has become an annual must-attend event. Each year’s installment has thus far shown a keen selection of representatives from all of extreme metal’s facets that include seasoned veterans as…
Grincer connaisseurs Cretin recently popped their heads up when they were on the Decibel Magazine Tour last year, but other than that, they’ve been relatively quiet for quite some time. Eight years, to be exact, because that’s when they released their debut album, Freakery. These guys have been long overdue for a new…
It’s been about a month since we peeked behind the curtains to see what the Heavy Blog staff is (really) listening to. We start our three-part update after the jump. It’s true for all of us, there’s the music you SAY you’re listening to and then there’s the music you’re…
