Thy Catafalque – Naiv

Scott Murphy
Reviews
Since this is my first review of the year, it's a good time to mention one of my annual music resolutions. I try to evolve my listening habits with a new focus come Jan. 1, with this year's theme being to cut ... Read More...

Hey! Listen to Område!

Scott Murphy
Listen To This!
"Avant-garde" is arguably the most misused genre descriptor in modern metal. Whether in blog posts or comment sections, there's always someone that's heard a slightly off-kilter metal album and immediately slapped on the old "A-G" tag. That said, I'm not going to use Område as an example to parse out the differences between avant-garde, experimental and progressive metal (an article worth writing by someone who actually wants that to be their hill to die on). I'm actually here because of the French duo's invigorating take on avant-garde metal—an approach that captures the essence of the genre in gorgeous, meticulous detail. Whereas bands like maudlin of the Well and Pan.Thy.Monium found success by thrusting death metal into avant-garde territory, Område excel by nailing down the core of avant-garde metal and renovating it's structure with intricate furnishings and vibrant coats of paint. There may be no shortage of high-quality albums to recommend to metal fans flirting withe the avant-garde, but there are a sparse few that rival Nåde's marriage of accessibility and bold artistry.

Heavy Blog Staff’s Top Ten Albums of 2016

Heavy Blog
Lists!
With our general list for 2016 out of the way, we can now shift the focus from our aggregate opinion to individual ones. Both outlooks have their own merit; the former provides us with an overview of our year in music. However, the latter shines a light on something we're extremely proud of and that's the varied and eclectic nature of our staff these days. We used to have a very certain type of music associated with Heavy Blog and while we still have a long way to go, we feel like we've done a good job at expanding our palettes and the representation of different kinds of music and metal in our staff. The lists below reflect that; you'll find black metal, avant-garde, technical thrash metal, hip hop, rap, noise, ambiance, post metal and rock, melodic death metal and much more throughout these lists.