Not only does Rotten Sound have a new EP coming out later this month, but the Finnish quartet is also celebrating its vicennial. So when bassist Kristian Toivainen suggested putting together a playlist with picks from a certain year, it took us back to a feature we used to have in the magazine. Back in…

Since the New Year is the time of self-reimagination (or big promises that aren’t kept) it’s a good day to look back into the storied skeleton closet. While metal took over the planet in the 1980s via Metallica and Iron Maiden (after Black Sabbath set the stage for a decade) pop ruled the charts. You…

Often, there is a lot of left over content that doesn’t quite fit the narrative or direction of a story. Case in point #1: Converge for dB #96. Case in point #2: Throughout the interview process, the members of Converge had rad stories to tell, but somehow the quotes never quite made the cut. So,…

Anthrax main-man Scott Ian isn’t about to quit metal and hit the after-dinner speaking circuit or anything, at least not just yet. But following a successful one-off spoken word show in London last November he has booked a 16-date spoken word tour of the UK. He’s calling it Speaking Words, because a spoken word tour…

It is time to celebrate the death of 2012 with the Top 5 Funeral Doom Songs (of all time, perhaps). There is no rhyme or reason to this list, actually. Just five songs that always find their way home during the long cold nights of winter. If it’s not snowing or cold as a medieval…

Well boys and girls, we’ve survived the apocalypse, and there’s not much coming out soon, so I’ll review my best of this year. In case you missed my expertly honed reviews, you should check these out. I will put a caveat that these are in no particular order. Napalm Death, Utilitarian Grind, grind and more…

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)…

Chances are you know about Scion’s involvement in the world of extreme music (as well as garage rock and electronic music scenes). Chances are some of you have even gone on online to whine about a huge corporation like Scion/Toyota digging their claws and worming their tentacles into our sacred little world… after picking up…

To celebrate the Mayan apocalypse, last week Ancestors shared the first half of its end of the world playlist. Doomsday or not, we automatically scheduled the second half of the Los Angeles quintet’s picks to run this morning to help satiate this guy‘s voracious appetite for the written word. But, in the off-chance we manage…

Ah, to be a metalhead on the biggest holiday of the year. We’re imagining that you got a new fleece from Eddie Bauer instead of the rare Xasthur LP you hoped would end up under the tree. Your incontinent grandpa is still asleep on the couch. You are now hiding in your room scanning metal…