In honor of the recent release of Kowloon Walled City’s Container Ships, last week we presented Side A of the band’s tour van mixtape. Chock full of A.M. gold, it was the perfect driving music for vocalist/guitarist Scott Evans and bassist Ian Miller (not to mention, they clearly know their shit about it). Guitarist Jon…

It looks like “occult rock” (i.e. heavier music with discernible song structures and radio potential) isn’t going away in 2013. We’re not sure if we were swayed by necromancy or the fact that there’s a naked lady on the cover (likely the latter) but we’re streaming an exclusive premiere of the track “Black Magic” by…

You’re on your 25th year, your tenth album and your fourth record label, at this point. What keeps Tiamat humming?Johan Edlund: That’s never been a problem. We’ve decided to allow ourselves complete artistic freedom. We don’t do this for the money nor for pleasing anybody else. We still love doing it because it still excites…

Man, I love Hells Headbangers. They’re one of my favorite labels. Even when I don’t like the stuff they put out, I appreciate that someone is dedicating their time to dredging up the absolute scummiest acts from metal’s deepest cesspools. They’ve been cranking out a bunch of 7″ singles lately, and while we don’t have…

Candlelight Records much-beloved Cult Series returns early next month with an unholy trinity of relentlessly brutal, crazy diverse offerings from Nine Covens, Zatokrev, and Kontinuum. All three records are available for preorder now, but for those frugal readers who would prefer a sample of the aural violence before they bring their daughters to this particular…

Fight Amp’s Birth Control is the sort of super-cool genre non-specific releases that sounds like it was written in a week tops and thrashed out and tracked in a day. It sounds 100 per cent jam room live, heaping catchy riffs on top of awkward and dissonant hardcore punk and noise-rock. If it sounds unruly,…

It ain’t often the City of Brotherly Hate produces music that isn’t A) learning disabled hip-hop B) pretentious art rock or C) hipster/horned rim glasses acoustic “singer”/”songwriter” drivel. So, when extremely extreme (r) stuff like Swarm of Arrows arrives on the barely-there scene, there’s reason to take notice. The Great Seekers Of Lesser Life, Swarm…

Welcome to Tales From the Metalnomicon, a new twice-monthly column delving into the surprisingly vast world of heavy metal-tinged/inspired literature and metalhead authors. Enjoy! And if you have suggestions for future Metalnomicon columns, feel free to make them known in the comment section… Despite the prophecy issued more than forty years ago by Black Sabbath,…

Because every day another band records another song. Because 83% of those songs are unlistenable and you can’t be bothered to sift through the dreck.