Kevin Stewart-Panko

You obviously won’t come out of this exercise knowing the usual informational nuts and bolts about Protosequence, like their history and how they formed, but hopefully this will shine some light onto the band’s creative process.

A couple months ago, with an almost devil-may-care, casual shoulder shrug, one of my all-time favourite bands in the history of forever, Italian hardcore legends Raw Power, quietly released their new album. We caught up with vocalist Mauro Codeluppi to discuss growing old, not giving a shit and the time they played with G’N’R.

Today we’re going to give you a break from sonic extremity, but still keep things hard and rocking, with a Swedish band rocking out like they’re showcasing their wares at a Fourth of July picnic and playing under a row of now-considered-politically incorrect confederate flags.

Let’s lighten the mood a little bit around here, shall we? And let’s do it without easing up on the calamitous and chaotic noise.

Progressive sludge/noise rock with comparisons to Neurosis, Old Man Gloom and Amenra? I’m sold!

The vast expanse of south central British Columbia in a town almost ironically/appropriately called Lone Butte isn’t the first place one thinks of for a female-centric metal fest. But it is.

Montreal’s MUTANK – all caps, all the time, I’ve been warned – is a crossover/thrash whose members not only love crossover thrash, but acronyms and plays on words using their moniker as the jumping off point. As the band begins/continues to make farther and wider strides, we figured it was time for an introduction via a short Q&A and a song premier.

Arkansas’ rich extreme music history isn’t exactly the richest. These days, Decibel cover stars Pallbearer are leading the charge and the past is sparsely littered with the likes of The Handshake Murders, Rwake (and various associated side projects) and Living Sacrifice. Debate amongst yourselves the merits and inclusion of Evanescence and Mutha’s Day Out.

Hailing from small town British Columbia, Slagduster is the sort of band that, through the lens of 2017, sounds like a tantalizing amalgam of genres that offer a look at where metal (or at least one strain of it) might head towards in the future.

Suffering Hour was destined to nab my attention. Today, we’re premiering some of the blackened death metal featured on their forthcoming album, In Passing Ascension.

Today, we’re showcasing Hyborian‘s video for “As Above, So Below,” an introductory interview with guitarist/vocalist Martin Bush and as rad a tour breakdown story as you’ll probably ever hear.

America’s mid-west has a long, rich history of being home to the noisiest of noise rock’s champions and kings/queens. Chicago’s War Brides mimics the sound of humanity collapsing in a heap of defeated misery.

Blood Sun Circle has a new record entitled Distorted Forms on the horizon on their newly christened label and the Gorham brothers have made some exciting improvements to their retail space.

Can we at least agree that the record’s title, Hyperakusi (a Swedish word defined as “hypersensitivity to everyday sounds”) hits the nail on the head?

You have to give it to any band that has managed to play its first shows outside of its home country on the other side of the planet.

Things have been quiet on the Rottenness front for a while, but the band is ramping up again and aiming to keep busy throughout 2017.

For this installment of That Tour Was Awesome we’re going to submit for your consideration a 1998 tour that was as awesome as it was not-so-awesome.

Hailing from Kentucky, Pissed On’s forthcoming The Hanged Man EP promises to be one of grindcore’s most jam-packed releases in 2017.

Says David Hall: “I almost died making this video….I passed out and woke up covered in beer and bong water and all the candles I had set up had been knocked over, but luckily they landed in a puddle of my urine and didn’t burn my tits off.”

More Agathocles!

Not only does Calgary’s Krepitus straddle the divide between death and thrash metal, but the quartet does so with an every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining thematic uniqueness. Sure, the world is fucked and we’re all fucked, but there’s no point in revelling in being bent over and reamed by the forces that be

Gigfly.ca is a recently launched website designed to assist working members of the music community develop and maintain a more hands-on approach to business outside the rehearsal room.

I recently discovered Into the Storm the old fashioned way: their PR representative held me hostage at gunpoint in a windowless room for three days…but it didn’t have to be that way.

Another addition to the growing number of festivals exploding out of the Western Canadian woodwork as of late is Edmonton’s Black Mourning Light, set to be held at the Rendezvous Pub in the town that Wayne Gretzky built on October 21-22.

If any band has endured and persevered through extreme music’s potential for divisive conservatism and pedantic nit-picking, it’s the Locust.

There are few things Innsbruck, Austria has going for it. Bringing up the rear of the “trambahn” are local (with some added Dutch flavour) clown kings of crossover, Insanity Alert.

And now for something from the farthest reaches of left field, if not outer space.

Justin Pearson (The Locust, Retox) is no stranger to the road. Dude has been staring at blacktop and lane dividers in the name of playing dive bars and assorted shit holes around the world for ‘round about 20 years

For the first time in western Canada in a long-ass time, and for the first time on one stage ever, hoser headbanging heavyweights…

A manga-themed progressive metal band that sounds like a cross between Ghost, Faith No More and the Mars Volta pimping an ‘80s/VHS-quality surrealistic, horror-themed video as part of the celebration of the release of their fifth album. Really?