Deftones - 'Gore' Review
How does an act get tagged ‘the metal Radiohead’? Innovate and challenge at every turn? Inspire a generation with songs that appear to have been given their titles by a cat walking across a caps-locked...
View ArticleVisigoth trying to turn their fantasy-themed metal into reality on the road
Swords, sorcery, battles and epic journeys are at the helm of Salt Lake-based heavy metal band Visigoth’s music. The five-piece got its start seven years ago when lead singer/songwriter Jake Rogers and...
View Article‘Grizzly Bear’ Mauls the Alternative Music Scene
By Peter Soucy Multimedia Editor Never afraid of layering tracks or complex instrumentation, Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear has once again crafted a masterpiece with “Painted Ruins,” the long awaited...
View ArticleKyle Schutt - Doom Side Of The Moon
I have been a fan of Kyle Schutt since the first album by The Sword – a guitarist who is more capable than most of the doom metal brigade and a vocalist who actually sings lyrics rather than screaming...
View ArticleMetallica's Top 10 Greatest Songs: Critic's Picks
In a little more than a month, Metallica’s Hardwired… To Self Destruct will hit stores. It’s been a while since we heard from the legends -- eight years, in fact, since they released Death Magnetic,...
View ArticleTrigram - Trigram
“I'll keep digging/Till I feel something”. The perplexed yet resolute battle-cry of Generation Y, the brood of seekers who propagated a new renaissance of transmuted hippyism in their own jaded...
View ArticleMetallica's 'Master of Puppets': Metal Musicians Reflect on the Band's...
Released on March 3, 1986, Metallica’s Master of Puppets was the album that cracked the 1980s in half for metal. The mad thrashing sound that emerged from the San Francisco Bay Area in the early '80s...
View ArticleMetallica's Top 10 Greatest Riffs: 'Enter Sandman,' 'Master of Puppets' & Beyond
Let’s give thanks for Metallica this Thanksgiving, because today -- Black Friday -- is now “Blackened Friday.” Rising to the occasion by helping small businesses during the biggest shopping day of the...
View ArticleShania Twain's New Album 'Now': Track-by-Track Guide
When Shania Twain took a break from the music industry more than a dozen years ago, she exited as a country-pop queen. Her songs were ubiquitous on both sides of the Atlantic, with Come On Over – her...
View ArticleCementing their reputation
If there is one band rock and metal fans can trust, it is Deftones. The American alternative metal band have always managed to make their fans rejoice with every release, for delivering the kind of...
View ArticleThe 10 Most Underrated Depeche Mode Singles: Critic's Take
Alt-rock icons Depeche Mode are undoubtedly one of the best singles bands of the last 40 years, with a uniformly strong catalog that dates back to the vivacious, synth-soaked new wave of 1981's...
View ArticleAlbum Of The Week: Worm Ouroboros What Graceless Dawn
Underground metal is a funny thing. These days, it feels less like a genre and more like a loose constellation of vaguely connected mini-scenes. Case in point: Our picks for Album Of The Week, both...
View Article36 Essential ’80s Pop Metal Tracks
The biggest difference between the heavy metal of today and heavy metal during the glory days of the 1980s is that today it is rife with division. Mainstream versus underground. “Extreme” versus...
View ArticleA Female-Fronted Japanese Metal Band Just Took Over Colbert, and They Won’t...
The J-pop band Babymetal might be ready for American mainstream; on Wednesday they appeared on The Late Show, a trio of chipper, hyper-choreographed Japanese girls harmonizing and talk-singing about...
View ArticleJudas Priest – 10 of the best
From mid-70s eclecticism to the definition of early-80s metal, and a latter-day reformation with singer Rob Halford, the band is a scream...
View ArticleDead Kennedys – 10 of the best
From a song about a failed sexual escapade to a 20-second mini-masterpiece, here’s our pick of tracks by the California punk tearaways...
View ArticleHear Kvelertak Fuse Black Metal, Cock Rock on Eclectic New Album
Kvelertak are the rare metal band that seem to succeed at trusting their intuition. The Norwegian group goes freeform where more traditional headbangers often question and belabor even the most...
View ArticleBest Metal Records of 2016 So Far
Two of the biggest and best metal releases of 2016 come from veterans. Deftones' atmospheric and lunging Gore is the band's first album since the death of bassist Chi Cheng and finest since "Change (in...
View Article"The Black Album' a turning point for Metallica, rock music
Aug. 12 marks the 25th year since the release Metallica by Metallica — also known as The Black Album. At the time of the release, the album, the band’s fifth, got mixed reviews from die-hard Metallica...
View ArticleThe Black Market: The Month In Metal – July 2016
If you look up “dog days of summer,” you might be surprised to find that it has a technical definition. It’s the period of the summer during which the star Sirius rises around the same time that the...
View ArticleREVIEW: Magu's debut EP "Change of Heart" cinematically tackles love and...
For the better part of this decade, Omaha multi-instrumentalist David McInnis has backed bands like Centerpiece, Timecat and Congruency on the drums, showing a knack for adapting to those bands’...
View ArticleA&E staff pick: Best albums of 2017
Ellis Clopton Album: “Woodstock” Artist: Portugal. The Man Why: I’ve been keeping up with Portugal. The Man since their last album, “Evil Friends,” and “Woodstock” is the first album they’ve released...
View ArticleDarkher – Realms: Album Stream
Realms is the eagerly anticipated debut album from Darkher (AKA Jayn H. Wissenberg) a dark fairytale meditation on life, death and what lies beyond. Like Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle before her,...
View ArticleTomorrow's Eve - Mirror Of Creation III - Project Ikaros
Admittedly, the first thought that comes to mind within a split second of hearing German progressive metal band Tomorrow's Eve was “When did Iron Maiden get so good?!?” The immediate correlation...
View ArticleDouble Take: Ty Segall’s ‘Freedom’s Goblin’ takes him past garage-rock sounds
Double Take: Ty Segall’s ‘Freedom’s Goblin’ takes him past garage-rock sounds Ty Segall finds himself exploring more genres than his typical garage-rock on his new album “Freedom’s Goblin.” Two Emerald...
View ArticleCD review: DevilDriver return in brutal form with Trust No One
California death-groove thrashers, DevilDriver, return this month with perhaps the band’s strongest effort since 2009’s Pray for Villains. Trust No One is the group’s seventh studio effort, and the...
View ArticleZeal & Ardor – Devil is Fine: Album Stream
There is a gross falsehood proliferated by those whose horizons stretch no further than the end of their nose. The fallacy is that all modern music is simply repetitions of ideas and concepts from...
View ArticleThe Black Market: The Month In Metal – October 2016
As usual, we’ve got an avalanche of worthy metal to discuss this month. Before we get to it, I want to take a crack at addressing one of the most frequent questions/complaints we get from readers: “I...
View ArticleThe Deftones sell out the Cotillion in Wichita
On May 25th, 2016, Code Orange warmed up the crowd at Wichita's Cotillion. Code Orange formed in Pennsylvania in 2008. Their sound is a doom style hardcore American punk. The hard core steady beat of...
View ArticleOpinion | Metal for non-metalheads
Deafheaven meshes the dark sounds of extreme metal with the euphoric brightness of shoe-gaze Would a black metal band pick a quote from a Graham Greene novel for the title of their album? Well, if that...
View ArticleListen to Zeal & Ardor's 'Devil Is Fine' Album: Exclusive
Gospel has roots in the spirituals that North American slaves sang while they toiled on plantations and as they escaped along the Underground Railroad. Although the relationship between Christianity...
View ArticleREVIEW: ‘Legend of the Seagullmen’ sends listeners on psychedelic pirate...
Supergroup Legend of the Seagullmen released their self-titled debut album on Feb. 9, and the expectations were high. The supergroup is made up of highly experienced musicians and artists like Brent...
View ArticleGojira Tease Emotional New LP With Disturbing 'Stranded' Video
French progressive-metal veterans Gojira plunge into a cult-like atmosphere with their disturbing video for "Stranded." The dynamic single highlights the quartet's new LP, Magma, out June 17th via...
View ArticleHeavy Metal Could Use a Few More Acts Like BABYMETAL
Heavy Metal Could Use a Few More Acts Like BABYMETAL Cory Garcia | May 14, 2018 | 6:43am Facebook Twitter email Print Article AA BABYMETAL, Skyharbor Revention Music Center May 13, 2K18 This show...
View ArticleConjurer – Mire: Exclusive Album Stream
Conjurer have been whipping up a frenzy in venues up and down the UK with their intoxicating brew of extreme metal styles since February 2015. Their 2016 EP I was an incredibly promising amalgam of...
View ArticleAlbum Reviews: The Center State, Moosebite
Two local bands recently have released new work. Here’s a look. The Center State “Wilderness” There’s a choice when it comes to follow-ups in folk music — either continue making well-crafted, acoustic...
View ArticleSOUND 'ROUND: In celebration of the dark arts
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS — GOTHS (MERGE) Unless your name is Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking or Paul Allen, odds are John Darnille is smarter than you. Like the good English major he was at an...
View ArticleThe Black Market: The Month In Metal – May 2017
We usually kick off the Black Market with one of my standard 8,000-word screeds about whatever happened to irritate me during the preceding four weeks, but here’s the deal: I got totally reamed by...
View ArticleHARTMAN: ‘Freedom’s Goblin’ is long, worth the listen
Prolific 30-year-old California garage rock singer-songwriter Ty Segall released his 10th studio album, “Freedom’s Goblin,” on Jan. 26. The album boasts a daunting 19 tracks, all of which are unique in...
View ArticleToner Rock’s Vanguard wakes up after two decades
‘The Sciences’ is another masterpiece from Sleep. The six songs on the album last 53 minutes; but, more important, it’s an album you can like instantly even without the aid of a bong For a second or...
View ArticleMorbid Angel's 'Covenant': How the Band's Major Label Debut Raised the Bar...
In 1992, music-industry legend Irving Azoff went out for ice cream with Gunter Ford, manager of the Florida death-metal band Morbid Angel, to discuss a possible signing. "The actual negotiations took...
View ArticleAlbum Of The Week: Jesus Piece Only Self
Hardcore, as originally conceived, was a singles genre. Bands wrote songs short enough that they could fit six or eight of them on one 7″, compressing their ideas into tiny and potent bursts of rage....
View ArticleMastodon, Gojira review: Wild, woolly and very loud
first published at 2:03pm Mastodon/Gojira Luna Park Big Top, March 26 ★★★½ Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds. The Church of Metal is a broad one, and there are some shared themes between touring partners...
View ArticleLiving up to their metal
When you’re Gojira, one of the metal world’s most revered bands for their unsparing brutal brand of death, groove and experimental metal, there’s certainly a lot of pressure to prove yourself. The band...
View ArticleZeal and Ardor: meet the black metal bluesman who brands his fans
The musician’s merch table is, to most people, the place where you buy T-shirts, albums and ephemera. At a big arena show there might be grotesquely overpriced satin jackets, or other such tat. The...
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