New Yorkers White Widows Pact show a complete lack of concern for the listener throughout the 10 burly, bull-balled face slams and turnpike jams of their destructive debut True Will.  Screaming strep-throat vocals, continent devouring rhythmic grinds, sludgy grooves, hardcore beatdowns, thrash-y malevolence and death metal technicalities collide in a violent mosh pit frenzy that […]

It is without a doubt in my mind that Pakistan’s crust/grind champions Multinational Corporations are the best new grind band of the last decade.  I’d stake my reputation, house and hell my balls on it!  Taking their name from a blistering cut off of Napalm Death’s Scum classic, the duo of Hassan (vocals/words) and Sheraz (all instruments) do it in the same old school fashion as the legends from which they culled their namesake.

Man, this is THE shit.  This is like a long lost high school reunion for my ears.  Chris Chiera swingin’ axe (he the man behind Sofa King Killer’s purely classic guitar sound), Aaron Brittain kickin’ the cans (his hard hits have been missed since the Fistula days) and bassist Adam Horwatt (So Long Albatross) keeps […]

With the shrapnel of a crushing drum beat kicking off the record and then immediately veering off the side of a mountain into a piercing, minor key guitar drone that lasts for nearly 45 breathless seconds (all music is usurped by said drone), it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt that California quintet Fell to […]

  The hallucinatory, Kyuss-ian chords that entrance “Destroyer Television,” the EP opener of Phoenix, Arizona doom lords Horse Head and their debut release The Missionary may be one of the all-time great red herrings.  Aw, what a gracious melody…so inviting, relaxing and warm that it’s like good sex meets a fifth of whiskey…and then planes […]

You’d never guess by taking a glance at the beautiful, landscape beset by sunset album cover that the UK’s William English is a shit rollin’, mud wallowing sludge hybrid band of the highest caliber.  Formed by three ex-members of the criminally overlooked A Horse Called War, this crush n’ kill quintet get on your back […]

Contra ain’t nothing to fool around with, you hear me?  This is the very definition of a POWER trio.  There’s no soft stuff or any singer getting in the way, just three men bashing their way through riff after riff of runaway heavy groove with a rhythm section tighter than a noose primed for a good sunrise hangin’.  These fellas aren’t strangers to the heavy.  Chris honed his guitar chops in the much missed Sofa King Killer, Aaron’s pummeling battery was an integral part of Fistula and several other infamous Ohio sludgers and Adam’s background is a bit of a mystery to me (though I’ll find out!)

Anymore, I do my damndest to either keep to a minimum or wholly eliminate the “I” persona from reviews when I can.  This works out most of the time, but whenever you are reviewing a band that you have maintained a long-time listening relationship with…well, it gets pretty fuckin’ tough.  Winnipeg’s KEN Mode is always […]

The second album from English groove doom heavies Prophets of Saturn practically screams, “Listen to me while high as possible, please!”  The four tracks that comprise the weedy, peer pressuring Retronauts are overloaded with groove, drippy psyche-wah solos, sleepy monotone vocals and a rhythm section that is fresh out of high school.  In terms of […]

Euro-Asia (Orwell fans will get the wordplay) piles on the tonal goodness with their latest EP release A View of the Earth.  These Floridian netherworld dwellers gravitate between the Empire State Building tall riffage and trance-y space-outs of heavy/pretty greats such as Hum, Shiner, Floor, Swervedriver and Cave In.  Not quite crushing enough to be […]

If judged on the merit of riffs alone, Texan tarnation masters Funeral Horse would be a holy grail of hard-rock.  The constant shifts from road-rage solos to dusty blues riffs to pavement cracking noise-rock/hardcore to vintage 70s hard rock backed by a walloping rhythm section will keep you guessing and ducking for cover as to […]

From Luxembourg hail some of the coldest sons of bitches you’ll ever meet.  The band in question is Plaguewielder; a doom paced, blackened affair with some of the most obnoxiously retched vocals I’ve ever heard.  This quartet is a pretty hypothermic affair aimed at leaving your carcass strung up in a meat-locker for future feasting.  […]

Lately, my wanton lust for grinding, d-beat flesh is insatiable.  It could be the nice weather, a mental illness or some other factor bringing it out of me again, but shit man, I got the bug.  Scotland’s own sewerborn hellspawn Rats of Reality are really hitting me with a ball peen hammer right between the […]

Midmourner is sick…  Like canker sores with a side of toe-fungus and blown bile ducts sick.  Their thick, surly sludge dementia is as pure as the artform gets; miring itself in wails of corrosive feedback, clinically flatlined riffage, morphine drip blues grooves, inhuman vocal spawn, a rhythm section that smells of extinction and enough anger to put the band members’ in an institution for life.  With lunatics that have served time in seminal Alabama destruction squads Molehill and Residue, Midmourner have dropped a six song doozy with their debut EP, Adorned in Fear and Error.  It’s been great catching up with vocalist Shane George lately, since our last conversation via email many, many moons ago.  Crack a beer, raid the medicine cabinet and let’s have a little Q & A intoxication! 

When James McBain the guitarist/vocalist of the excellent Rats of Reality isn’t breaking apart Pangaea with that band’s blackened, demonic d-beat, he’s at the helm of his solo project Hellripper.  He’s a veritable one man wrecking crew playing all of the instruments (aside from Mark Lerche’s lead on “Trial by Fire”) and the end result […]

Doom blues don’t get any better than the church crushing abandon of Goatsnake.  ¾ of the original line-up return sans bassist Guy Pinhas (replaced by Scott Renner), and the boys haven’t lost a step.  Jesus Christ, Greg Anderson’s riffs make me want to get down on my knees and say the lord’s prayer, vocalist Pete […]

It’s getting harder to be heavy AND original these days.  In the world of riffing it seems a template was created and thusly many are following along instead of attempting to pioneer something different.  I think I can say with certain sanctity that Palace in Thunderland are doing something different and succeeding.  These guys have been around for a long time (over a decade) and are a home to members of esteemed bands Black Pyramid, Blue Aside and Space Mushroom Fuzz.  They took a five year break, returning from the void with an exciting vision collecting together the best of 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s heavy rock.  There’s no aping, lifting, copycatting, etc.  The foursome simply calls upon their idols for inspiration, taking the asteroid handed down by the elders and crashing it into Earth.   I sit down at the edge of the universe for an interview meet n’ greet with these entheogenic lifeforms.

The UK is notorious for killer crusty sludge/doom and 9 out of 10 times what you’re going to hear is top-notch.  Let’s face it, having the ultimate doom n’ gloom band Black Sabbath in the country’s history gives them an edge on the competition.  Ghold is following in those footsteps without guitar; a drum n’ […]

I think most metal/punk folks who have spent time kicking around the underground can agree that splits and compilations are a wholesome part of our musical diet.  My collection is full of them, and I have to say that many of them introduced me to multiple badass bands all in one fell swoop.  To support […]

Don’t always trust tags that someone pulls out of their ass; always listen and decide for yourself.  The labelling of “post-rock/blackened hardcore” for Vienna auteurs of execution, Seagrave and the debut album Stabwound doesn’t even begin to do justice.  Post-rock always makes me think of something gorgeous, dreamy, hypnotic, etc.  Sure, the guitar work on […]

Man, this is evil stuff.  It’s not fast, it’s actually quite melodic but I’ll be goddamned if this shit doesn’t get by on sheer tonnage alone.  The Dead hail from Australia, a country/continent with a rich heavy scene that doesn’t always get the credit it so rightly deserves.  I’m coming into this review as an […]

I might be picking in the wrong season here.  I’m growing a crop of doom/death when the weather consistently lures me towards faster riffs, heavy groove abandon or something that will have me speeding down the highway at 100 mph and swerving between lanes.  The Ukraine’s Torrens Conscientium are not exactly band, but you know […]

New Delhi trio Toxoid take an ain’t broke, don’t fix it approach to black metal on their debut album Aurora Satanae.  They avoid shoe gazin’, there are no pop elements, over the top orchestration is left for the London Symphony and you can kiss those clean vocals goodbye.  For those who like it right in […]

A slab of brute force melancholy from Poland, Oktor’s full-length debut after a string of mini-albums is a grandstand of kiloton riffs and lighter shading.  They straddle the fence of sadness without getting too weepy for their own good and bring some of the heaviest guitar work I’ve heard in the death/doom across the eight […]

German grinders Mindflair have been around a helluva long-time.  Their dirty dozen, blast beat carnage dates back to 1994.  That’s a couple of lifetimes in grind years because only a few bands have managed to last for such a long period of time.  My only experience with these guys to date was with the ’02 […]