Horror and metal. Metal and horror. One couldn’t quit the other even if it wanted to. Which, as anyone who has attended either a horror con or metal show recently can attest, neither does. Except maybe those djent dudes whose non-role-playing-game media consumption is limited mostly to scouring Nova physics + math specials for potential…

Any fan of majestic extreme doom should make (geological) time to get familiar with Russian label Solitude Productions.  If you like four-minute songs just fine, but your salivary glands kick into overdrive for tracks that leave the eleven-minute mark in the dust, you’re the target market.  It’s easy to get lost in to celestial movements…

Earlier this month, I re-introduced you to Graham Williams, the man essentially responsible for procuring the across-the-board talent for FunFunFunFest, the annual party that’s taken place in Austin each year of the past eight. Not only is Williams a prolific promoter/booker with a seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of what the hell is going on in every…

Favorite Horror Movie: The Haunted Mask II Favorite Horror Movie Actor: The kid from The Haunted Mask II Lions for Lambs As we sat in the backstage area of Chicago’s Cobra Lounge this past Friday, Steve Colca, lead singer/guitarist of Austin, Texas’ Destroyer of Light, gave me an overview of their treacherous tour schedule. They’re…

Few projects are as ambitious as Project Rogue – TITANS. Featuring 25 artists from Fear Factory (ex), System of a Down, Lamb of God, Cannibal Corpse, Cynic, Revocation, Napalm Death, Obituary, Static X, Charred Walls of the Damned, and many more, Project Rogue – TITANS aims to bridge the many metals into one sonic force…

We have a lot of love for Bastard Feast around these parts. Adrien Begrand lauded the band’s latest album, Osculum Infame, in his Sucker for Punishment column, Dan Lake interviewed the quintet earlier this summer and the Oregonians snagged a local spot opening for Carcass and company on this year’s Decibel tour. Now with the…

Alice Cooper famously refuses to even broach the idea of maybe someday retiring and if there’s one thing the ridiculously epic mash-up of career-spanning fist-in-the-air anthems and grandiose dark carnival theatrics so exquisitely captured on Raise The Dead — Live From Wacken makes clear it’s that there’s abso-fucking-lutely no reason on earth he should pull…

In early 2013, Thou vocalist Bryan Funck sent us wonderful responses on the writing and recording of Thou’s 2014 album Heathen. The issue: we only had enough space for our customary studio report and had to cherry pick details. As people begin to consider their best-of lists Heathen will doubtless be one of the albums…

As music writers learn when they hit their late 30s and head into their 40s, nostalgia is very powerful, to the point of being irresistible. Whenever a revered artist or band returns from a very long absence with a record that’s been hyped to the nines, you’re going to have certain critics whose attachment to…

The buzz, my friends, is justified. Metalhead, the “dark, intense drama of loss, faith, redemption, and heavy metal” from acclaimed Icelandic director Ragnar Bragason, is a gorgeous, harrowing, touching, and, despite its black metal grim moments, ultimately, uplifting piece of tour de force filmmaking with a soundtrack that previously only existed in the dreams of…