Cemetery picnickers Encoffination rise again next month with their third full-length album, called III – Hear Me, O’ Death (Sing Thou Wretched Choirs).  Says vocalist/string-scather Ghoat of the forthcoming set of grueling, buzzing doom:  “The concept of this record is the glorification of death: an offering to the embodiment of death’s creation, and to sing the…

So, I was in Winnipeg a couple weeks ago and boy-howdy was it already cold as shit! When I was there in early November last year, there was already a disconcerting and disheartening layer of frost covering the city the morning I rolled into town and I recall snow pelting me one day when I…

Did you guys enjoy the heavily NFL-promoted premiere of Madam Secretary, starring Tea Leoni, as much as I did? Beng Your Pan Last winter, I played a gig in Columbus, OH, at Carabar and struck up a football conversation with the club’s owner, Ron. He’s a HUGE Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I guess a Steelers fan…

“This album is a schizophrenic array of heaviness,” says the Pharaoh dudes from their hometown of Somerville, New Jersey. “Musically and lyrically it gathers from a lot of our separate influences as a band yet each song is its own. We have definitely showcased growth and way more of what we can do as a…

Instead of rambling on about how great the new Winterfylleth album is and coming up with some clever way to introduce what Chris Naughton decided to cover in his playlist (spoiler alert: it’s one of my favorites), we’ll just let the guitarist/vocalist handle the intro himself: “Considering topics that would make for an interesting playlist…

Dark, depressing death metal in the vein of Immolation, Incantation and Deathspell Omega? Yes, please. Montreal-based Phobocosm have been around since 2008 but a full-length album has been elusive, even if they’ve played with Ross Dolan and co. at festivals before. They finally made it to the studio and the resulting music is beyond heavy;…

There were around 60 new metal releases last week, but this week we’re scraping the barrel. This silly industry is weird that way. In my digging I realized that the new Divider album is terrific, well worth investigating, but aside from that, it’s as bleak as it gets. Next week though; hoo, boy. Aside from…

When a band names itself after a straight to video 1995 Stuart Gordon fright flick, you can rightfully expect some lo-fi death metal goodness, most likely with samples from horror movies. Castle Freak don’t disappoint. Menacing, evil, and poorly recorded, this is some seriously quality old-school death. Their latest EP, Still Rotting, is even coming…

We’re big fans of Philly grind-punkers/Decibel tour vets Die Choking around these parts

Glenn Danzig’s fame has never waned. But in today’s constantly connected world he’s stayed famous for the wrong reasons: getting very publicly knocked out after a backstage argument in 2004; suing his former bandmates and buying cat litter at the wrong place. It’s easy to forget why people cared in the first place: Danzig wrote…