Dan Swanö. The man. The myth. The machine. The dude’s got more bands, projects, one-offs, production credits, and engineering nods than anyone in the so-called ‘biz.’ Well, he’s returned, with buddy and guitarist extraordinaire Ragnar Widerberg in tow, on new outfit Witherscape. Those in the Swanö Swanclub have known about Witherscape for a day or…

Window display at Sonic Boom in Toronto: trying to pelt the glare into submission with invisible oranges. ***As chronicled by Alia O’Brien, singer/flutist/organist for Canada’s finest occult rockers, from their recently completed tour with Kylesa, White Hills, and Lazer/Wulf. Order their phenomenal new LP, The Eldritch Dark, here As we drove away from Calgary, missing…

Yesterday was Canada Day! In order to celebrate that entirely meaningless (to us US-based folk) event, we are pleased to bring you an exclusive full album stream of Toronto-based swamp metal soldiers Pyres’ debut Year of Sleep, courtesy of Granite House Records. Proof positive that you don’t have to be from warm climes to ooze…

We asked Toronto’s premiere purveyors of “true, unadulterated heavy metal” Cauldron to keep tabs on the havoc and devastation left behind in the wake of the band’s epic America’s Lost tour and dudes did not disappoint. (See earlier posts here and here.) We couldn’t resist beginning the third diary entry at Orion Fest before going…

Demon Lung‘s debut LP, The Hundredth Name, is a doom album constructed around a grand concept. Yes, it is a doom LP that incorporates some of the genre fundamentals and takes its cues from Candlemass and Coven’s ceremonial sense of theater, but lyrically it follows a tantalizing narrative wherein (loosely speaking) Satan’s long-lost kid is…

By Joseph Michael (White Wizzard) 5. Savatage’s Edge of Thorns (1993) This is one of my favorite albums to listen to on LSD. Great vocals, guitars, and songs. RIP Criss Oliva. The solo on “Edge of Thorns” is worth the price of the album alone. 4. Marty Friedman’s Dragon’s Kiss (1988) This is the guitar…

The masters of the macabre are back, and finally getting their due. AUTOPSY are dropping the utterly filthy The Headless Ritual. To be honest, they aren’t breaking any new ground here, but this is a pecking cool record. If you’re a fan of these guys, you will not be disappointed. If you’re not a fan,…

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. Because metal is about not giving a shit and waking your own personal storm. Because music is universal, expression is boundless, and even indie labels (whatever that means these days)…

Sanktuary originally hail from Whitehorse, the capital city of Canada’s Yukon Territory. Look it up on a map and you’ll see why, for that fact alone, we wanted to track them down for a chinwag. To say that the Yukon is a little out of the way is like saying it probably gets a little…

To continue our celebration of the recent release of Construct, we asked Dark Tranquillity vocalist Mikael Stanne–that’s him in front–to a pick a non-DT record that related in some way to each of his band’s ten full-length records (plus one hand-picked EP). Last week, Mikael’s entries took us from 1992′s A Moonclad Reflection EP up…