In the preface of Herman Hesse’s Faust-inspired novel Steppenwolf, an unnamed narrator (simply called the Nephew) details a series of encounters with main character Harry Haller. Haller is described as extremely intellectual and arrogant, but ultimately alienated by and disillusioned with the bourgeois-dominated society of twentieth-century Germany. Hesse’s narrative culminates in a scene in which the narrator and Haller, now friends, attend a lecture from a philosopher, one of Europe’s brightest minds. Haller gives a fleeting glance at the narrator: his expression is described as cutting thro ..read more

If you don’t know ACxDC, then what are you doing with your life? Like listening to actually good metal? Too bad for your sorry ass. The LA natives are back in black for their own highway to hell, and it’s too good to be true. For the woefully uninformed and uncultured, don’t even think alternate or direct current and Brian Johnson, you swine. It’s Antichrist Demoncore, and the peanut butter cup moniker of divine apathy is so sweet and gummy. ACxDC’s EP The Second Coming was introduced when I first got to college, and if I’d had my way, debut full-length Antichrist Demoncore would have been bla ..read more

Punk and metal have a complicated relationship, or at least we treat them like they do. As fans, we like to be something—a metalhead, a punk, a dissobro. As music seekers, we like to have genre guides—punk-born tags like crust, mathcore, grindcore, metal-born tags like doom, death, black, kissing cousins like sludge, thrash, deathcore. And the bands we value tend to play to or play with these expectations. Others eschew the norms of where they’re placed or even fight the idea of being the guitar music we’ve all come to love—but not Systemik Viølence. These Portuguese knuckleheads just wanna pl ..read more

When we think crust punk and in particular its blackened interpretations, it wouldn’t be remiss to think of acts like Young and In the Way, Ancst, or Trap Them – acts defined by violence. Berlin’s Wind in His Hair, named after Rodney A. Grant’s Lakota character in the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves, settles in violence’s wake rather than any assault of its own. Debut Future Primitives is undeniably blackened crust punk, focusing on the earth’s destruction and the marginalization of indigenous peoples throughout, common enough themes especially throughout the punk counterculture. Veganism and th ..read more

Now into their fifteenth year, German four-piece Downfall of Gaia need little introduction, particularly for longer-standing readers of this venerable blog. We didn’t cover their first two records, Epos (2010) and Suffocating in the Swarm of Cranes (2012) but since then, Downfall of Gaia has had a very good run in the hands of the normally-highly-critical Mark Z., with each of their next three albums swanning off with a coveted 4.0. While I really liked both 2014’s Aeon Unveils the Thrones of Decay and 2016’s Atrophy, the pick of the bunch for me was their last outing, 2019’s Ethic of Radical ..read more

I’m not sure what else you could say the “act of impalement” is but, I dunno, impaling? Tie in the “infernal ordinances” that your HOA brings up, and goddamn, you better keep that lawn mowed. If Bev shows up with a casserole of green Jell-O salad, you accept with a smile but dump it in the trash later. If she appears armed with a clipboard and that suit of armor? You bet your bottom dollar you’ll eat every bite and remember to bring your dumpsters in on trash day. Thank Odin that Act of Impalement ain’t your HOA because they sure know how to bring the hurt. Act of Impalement is a death/doom/bl ..read more

When one considers the state of Iowa, one is unlikely to think of black metal. Be-masked hard rock radio metal? Yes. Black metal, no. Likewise, Iowa conjures images of corn fields, wind turbines, college football Saturdays and James Tiberius Kirk. But the ocean? Not unless you’re a paleontologist. You see, the verdant rolling hills of all those Grant Wood paintings were once covered by an enormous prehistoric inland sea. As a result, the place is absolutely lousy with fossils of trilobites and giant sea scorpions. I wonder if this was at least part of the inspiration for Iowa City, Iowa’s very ..read more

It’s essentially become a heuristic in metal circles that any band following the verb-the-noun name template should be assumed to play some sort of metalcore or deathcore until proven otherwise. In fact, it’s common for “verb-the-noun” to be used as a derogatory descriptor for stereotypical bands of said style and said naming convention. The phrase conjures images of hyper-polished modern metal impregnated with breakdowns galore, and many self-respecting metalheads avoid these projects—for better or worse—like the plague.1 When I saw the name Defy the Curse while perusing the promo bin, I near ..read more

Good performances only go so far. Metal has a documented and full history book of virtuoso and wild performers alike—death metal especially enjoys living on the extremes of this spectrum of knuckle-dragging to Ph.D. scale flexing. As such, we all continue to trudge through every gore-infused, dramatically-worded, mono-palette deathfest that emerges from the festering pool of the Crypt NOUN, NOUN[space optional]rot, NOUN Tomb (or Tomb NOUN), and Blood NOUN kind. Cruz, who I’m reasonably sure isn’t named after Santa or Ted, side-steps the gruesomely embellished epithets splattered across the OSD ..read more

Having just covered the latest iteration of classic Gothenburg melodeath with The Halo Effect, it only made sense to tackle the one millionth take on buzzy, fuzzy Entombedcore, this time by way of Singapore’s Doldrey. This unsung act dropped an EP in 2019 and 2022 sees the full-length debut hit the mean streets. Billing themselves as “Deathpunk,” their style is not far removed from crusty acts like Mammoth Grinder, but more firmly tethered to the early days of the Stockholm sound. This means the HM-2s are set to ‘Brutal Stun’ and the d-beats are available for bulk purchase. Riffs will buzzsaw ..read more