When death and his plague exhaling horse come knocking on your front door, the last sound you’ll hear won’t be “…Baby One More Time”. It’ll be the dirge of doom expulsed by Texas/Georgia duo Encoffination. Not unlike the members’ grime-encrusted outfit Father Befouled, Encoffination’s brand of death is unpolished, guts hanging out, but ultimately dangerous….

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we rush the pearly barricades armed…

My Dying Bride have done something truly remarkable: they’ve piqued my attention, big-style. Maybe it was years of clandestine market research or a visit to some cobwebbed shaman, experimentation with psychedelics or an acupuncture/hypnosis combo, but deciding to record a 27-minute histrionic doom track about a supernatural dog is on the face of it an…

Truth be told, I spend way too much money on music. Truth be told, and considering my monthly take home, I spend waaaay too much money on music. A couple years ago, as a means of avoiding homelessness, I came up with a plan to curtail my record shopping insanity. Basically, if I’m browsing at…

Motha fuckin’ True Till Def. It’s a free event at Santos Party House, merging two genres that go together like bread and pudding: hardcore and hip-hop. I absolutely fucking loved it when Anthrax did that song with Run DMC. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? (You have to RSVP, it’s like a wedding.)…

Hey out there metal dudes! Week two of the tour blog now, we have been completely hauling ass across the south. In the week since I wrote the last blog in Anaheim, we are now clear on the other side of the country in Tampa, Florida. Been doing drives averaging 9 or 10 hours every…

If you met Riley online or at a show, you may talk about the new Wolves in the Throne Room or Primordial or Agalloch. What you’d probably skip is dietary restrictions and a jogging regimen at six in the morning. But this metalhead is trying to lose some fucking metal weight. “Being fat is dumb;…

The nature/nurture quotient breaks down, the promise of the sprawling, churning overture that launches the anthemic title track is relentlessly fulfilled. Reroute to Remain is not only In Flames most multidimensional, diverse offering, it is also the record where every previously established aspect of its game — stellar, yeomanly guitar work; a rhythm section jackhammering ever deeper into the foundation — congeals, raising the whole to hitherto unscaled heights.

By Oscar Ramirez (bass) To me these albums take me back to when I was in my high school days. Walking home with my headphones in, people looking at me weird because I’m trying to mimic the brutal vocals, just overall crushing in-your-face music. I got the privilege to see most of these bands, except…

Let us first just throw out a few numbers at you, just to give you an idea as to what the competition is like at the Great American Beer Festival, held by the Brewers Association every September in Denver. • 526 breweries from 48 states plus Puerto Rico, submitted beers • 3,930 beers vied for…