It takes a special band to spend twelve-and-a-half minutes slogging through a freaky-heavy doom bum-out called simply “Darkness,” then decide there’s just more to say on the issue and tuck in for another 14 minutes and call the result “Darkness, Part 2.”  It’s like being lost in a menacing forest devoid of all large predators…

Calgary’s Throne of Vengeance was one of the bands mentioned in a recent edition of our “Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone,” the magazine’s space for demos and self-releases as curated and delivered by some half-black Canadian nerd face.

Back in early 2012, Chris Dick sung the praises of Cormorant’s Dwellings. Since the band’s recently released follow-up is yet another quality entry in its still nascent catalog, we asked Nick Cohon to tell us about some of the “darker country music” that he listens to (the guitarist is also rocking a Gov’t Mule Dose…

The Canadian/American collaboration between singer/bassist Elizabeth Blackwell and guitarist Mat Davis bowled me over three years ago with the shockingly good Blacklands album. It was a big improvement on their 2010 debut In Witch Order, a clever blend of NWOBHM influences and the classic doom sounds of Pentagram. Not unlike Witchfinder General, only highlighted by…

Trans Am have been around since the 90s, and in that time they’ve explored everything from post-rock to electronica and Krautrock. They’ve always had hard rock influences, but never more obviously than on their latest release, Volume X. As soon as we heard the stoner rock and thrash vibes of a few of the songs,…

Providence, Rhode Island-based FUCKING INVINCIBLE — featuring faces that will be familiar to fans of Daughters, Dropdead, Soul Control, Sweet Jesus, etcetera — gave themselves a lot to live up to with their chosen moniker, but, as the exclusive stream of “Ape As Man/Man As Ape” below ably demonstrates, these dudes have good reason to…

We used to love Akimbo around these parts. I say used to, not because they suddenly betrayed their clangy, mathy roots for a combination of slick radio rock and Drake covers, but because they up and broke up. So, I guess in a roundabout way, we still love Akimbo even though the band doesn’t really…

André Foisy plays guitar in Locrian and is a certified yoga instructor who teaches at Turbodog Yoga in Chicago, IL. You can find his yoga teaching schedule and more information about him on his blog. — You’re on the road and you’re late for your next show because you woke up late after partying too…

Back in 2002, Relapse had the hairy balls to reissue a relatively unknown yet cult favorite in God Macabre’s The Winterlong. This was well before labels X, Y, and Z got on the reissue bandwagon of unfurling low visibility releases like they were unmined gold. Anyway, organized with full consent of the band by ex-Relapse…

Kathmandu, Nepal’s Dying Out Flame play Vedic death metal — that is, in the words of the band’s charismatic and eloquent frontman Aabeg Gautam, “Hindu themes derived from ancient Vedic philosophy/mythology and literature, incorporating ancient sanskrit shlokas, and fusing traditional Hindu classical music to brutal death metal.” Sounds pretty esoteric and spacey, right? Well, get…