Category: Metal

  • interview by Michael McCarthy Recently Century Media Records sent me Otherwise’s new record, Peace At All Costs. As I listened to it, loving every minute of it, I could not figure out just what genre or sub-genre of metal they were. I remember going to bed thinking I’d just call them post nu metal in…

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  • At the time Century Media Records started promoting this new album by psychedelic black metallers Nachtmystium (meaning: Encompassing Darkness), word was that the band’s mastermind, Blake Judd, had decided to break up the band. According to Wiki, he made this decision prior to going away for drug rehabilitation, and they also quote him as more…

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  • ENTOMBED A.D.: BACK TO THE FRONT Thrash music has been pretty lame as of late, if you ask me.  But perhaps listening to so much black metal and death metal has made thrash feel a bit too safe, too tame and too accessible.  Likewise, there are far too many death metal acts out there who…

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  • #9. Not many bands reach that number of albums. Even the best bands seem to break up or otherwise call it quits after number five or six. Not so with Chicago’s Novembers Doom, however. They’re a wicked beast that refuses to die, thrashing away at anything that gets in their way, thus painting their portraits…

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  • Fozzy has a backstory almost as weird as Spinal Tap’s. The funny thing here, however, is that their backstory started out entirely fictional when they released their debut album nearly a decade and a half ago with the band saying they went to Japan with a record deal, destined to become huge rock stars, but…

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  • Interview by Michael McCarthy Recently, I was introduced to the music of Monuments, a genre-defying band who are often mislabeled as various genres and subgenres, as you’re about to read below.  Their music was like a sonic equivalent of a rich, complex roast of coffee…  Sometimes I daydream about Starbucks using their Italian roast to…

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  • If Styx and Iron Maiden had a love child, Sweden’s The Dagger would be it. You can hear classic ’70’s rock in this as well as vintage ’80’s Iron Maiden. You also hear hints of Rainbow, Foreigner, Deep Purple and so many other renowned bands. But the way The Dagger mesh all of these things…

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  • “They wanted to make to make it ugly and bitter,” states the press release that arrived at our office (read: E-mail) with this one. And I’ll come right out and say it: they did exactly what they set out to do. Trap Them’s backstory: Ryan McKenney (former vocalist of Backstabbers Incorporated) and Brian Izzi (guitarist…

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  • War Eternal is the first album by death metal legends Arch Enemy to feature new vocalist Alissa White-Gluz, former vocalist of the Canadian band The Agonist.  Angela Gossow, who joined the band in 2000, has stepped down from the spotlight in order to focus on being the band’s manager.  Meanwhile, Chris Amott has presumably retired…

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  • Metal fans here in the States have long wondered whatever happened to the amazing guitarist Marty Friedman. The short version? He was fluent in Japanese and wanted to crack the Japanese market, so after he left Megadeth he moved there and started releasing solo albums there, which were hugely successful. So much so that he…

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  • Looking for a monstrous new metal track to brighten your day? Well, look no further. Monuments’ “I, The Creator” is a sharp metal blade ready to pierce your ears wide open while it fills your head with images of dragons rising from cracks in the ground following a horrifying earthquake. Actually, we’re not entirely sure…

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  • Unholy fucking shit, does this one rule. And I do mean rule. As in, it’s easily the year’s best metal release thus far and I doubt there will be anything as earth-shattering throughout the rest of the year. A bit pre-mature to be making such a statement? Sure. But give this one a spin and…

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  • Back in March I reviewed Lacuna Coil’s superb new album, Broken Crown Halo, but I didn’t say much about this song, “I Forgive (But I Won’t Forget Your Name),” for the simple reason that I’d already written so much about other songs on the album that first caught my ear. But that doesn’t mean that…

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  • There are an awful lot of bands calling themselves “melodic death metal” these days, but in most cases the vocals are still raw and growled throughout their albums, only the guitars having a more melodic vibe than you’d get with your standard death metal. Not the case with Insomnium, however. On the contrary, roughly half…

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  • It seems like most rock fans gave up on Saliva when vocalist Josey Scott left the band. But I was actually kind of glad he left. While I’d loved the first couple of Saliva albums, nothing they’d done since had really grabbed me. Somehow a hair band element had crept into the band and replaced…

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