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)…

This almost didn’t happen. By ‘this,’ we mean the interview portion of our announcing the return-of-sorts of St. Louis’ Cross Examination to the world of playing crossover thrash while balancing tens of beers on their livers. The quintet, after about six years of silence, has a new 7″ out and available as of last month…

Napalm Christ lives up to its name. Need we say more? Actually, no, no we don’t. ‘Cause we’ve got the exclusive stream of the band’s upcoming catchy-yet-dark-as-fuck self-titled 12-inch streaming below. (Pre-order here.) Enjoy! A389-146 NAPALM CHRIST (Napalm Christ) 12" by A389 Recordings

Despite teases here and there, it’s now been five long years since the last Irepress record (yes, I realize this is a Lazer/Wulf playlist–I’ll get there next sentence, I promise). Given that the group is one of my favorite acts around, it’s high praise that stumbling upon Lazer/Wulf has helped satiate my craving for new…

You want music that sounds (and looks) like one of the high-octane action scenes from the classic film The Road Warrior? Well, Children of Technology embrace the post apocalypse pretty enthusiastically with their dystopic D-beat punk attack. They even dress up like members of Lord Humongous’s gang of marauders, which is way more awesome than…

A few years back super-under-appreciated Minneapolis noise rockers Hammerhead reunited for Amphetamine Reptile’s twenty-fifth anniversary bash and released an EP dubbed Memory Hole…which for a long while seemed to describe the place where the band was destined to disappear down. Happily, it is not so, and today we have your first exclusive taste of the…

I was among those critics lavishing praise on Pallbearer’s debut album Sorrow & Extinction in February 2012, marveling at its surprisingly graceful take on doom metal. However, as the year went on, I felt I had to pull back from the praise of the critical hive mind, because the more I let that record settle,…

Since their debut When All Became None was released about four years ago critics have struggled to find a moniker that fits Coffinworm. Are they blackened crust? Doom punk? Blackened death? Blackened tilapia? After a while all of these phrases begin to sound a lot like the Applebee’s menu so we’ll settle with the trustworthy…

Think you’re having a bad day/life? Well, Stephen Tanner is pretty sure he’s got your ass beat, and then some: The bassist of experimental sludge-y noise rock auteurs Harvey Milk is about to release a unsettling-yet-mesmerizing, pitch-fucking-dark concept album about his life entitled Things Haven’t Gone Well under the apt moniker Music Blues and we’ve…

To co-opt/augment Riki Rachtman’s old Headbanger’s Ball sign-off, on Written in Blood Darkness Divided has one foot in the metalcore gutter, one fist in the Between the Buried and Me/Devin Townsend-y gold. And for those who don’t reflexively hate the former, the latter will be a very welcome development indeed. Anyway, here’s your chance to…