When I took over the Headbang blog at MSN Music in August 2011, I was thinking of ways I could set it apart from the rest of the metal blogs out there. Everyone seems to only list the new releases every week, so why don’t I review as many as I can? It seemed easy…

Leah Sottile already made the obvious Smiths joke in her post on these guys back in 2011, which totally ruins my planned lazy intro. So fine. Meek Is Murder are super into Botch and other music that makes your ears hurt, which is always a good thing. Of course, that’s only appropriate, considering that, in…

Professor Pizza of AXESLASHER fame stops in this morning to give us four reasons why attending Denver Black Sky is a moral imperative… By Metalheads, For Metalheads Denver Black Sky was masterminded by Skinless vocalist Sherwood Webber. From the start, his goal was to give a collection of hand-selected bands a full professional production and…

Longtime readers are well aware that the editor in chief of this magazine is a Phillies lifer, whereas the managing editor (yours truly) is a Mets masochist. This year, both our beloved clubs gobbled bags of dicks, so we’re 100% backing the (yet again) ingeniously assembled Oakland A’s through October. For our annual baseball preview…

Okay, so this week’s big metal in the movies news has been dominated by former thrashers turned FM rock-metal conglomerate Metallica, who have roped in the wee creepy guy from Chronicle to star as a citizen roadie on a mission across town during a miscellaneously apocalyptic event. Taking its title from one of the many…

** My interview with Dan Swanö appeared in Decibel, but decided the long-form version of my chat with the omnipresent Swanö would best read out in its entirety. Why am I talking to Swanö? He’s the lead man (well, half) of new project Witherscape. The group’s new album is The Inheritance, which is available now…

Muscular, mournful prog metal, anyone? In the Silence are a pretty new find for me, but they don’t fit the Frickin’ Label Hack pattern because they’re sittin’ pretty with a label already.  Initially self-released, the band’s A Fair Dream Gone Mad saw a release through Sensory Records a few months back.  That’s cool, though.  I…

Given the opportunity to write about craft beer every month in Decibel has been eye-opening. The idea that our “Brewtal Truth” column would have lasted more than four years (and counting) and even spawn a book—The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers, out in November—is pretty amazing. Now it’s time to bring a little “Brewtal…

It would appear that amongst the many names I get lovingly and not-so-lovingly referred to as, the ether has added “fest guy” to the list. Have a fest to promote or chat up and I’ve become yer go-to-man. Not that I have a problem with this, jus’ sayin’ is all so you’re not surprised and/or…

In our September cover story, Erik Danielsson told J. Bennett that “it will be interesting to see people’s reaction to [The Wild Hunt].” Those comments were made shortly before Century Media hosted a pre-release private listening party, but Watain‘s frontman could have easily been talking about public reception, particularly now that his band’s fifth full-length…