I have no qualms admitting that along with Halo of Flies and Deepsend Records, Michigan’s Saw Her Ghost Records, despite their relatively unprolific schedule is one of my favorite truly independent record labels. However, their 2010 roster―that included odd releases by the likes of Hellas Mounds and Lost Coves―didn’t really tickle my fancy per se, […]

What is the Beast in the Field? Is it a cow? A ravenous wolf, drawing the torches and pitchforks of an angry mob? Or is it the field itself – a craggy, lumbering juggernaut formed from the earth and rock, wrenching itself up from its slumber to rumble across the countryside? That’s the image that […]

I’ve never really been too into instrumental music, with a passing, fleeting interest in the likes of Tides, Pelican, Red Sparowes and such. The last instrumental album I really got into was The Autumn Project’s The Burning Light, on Deepsend Records. Ironically, this album was supposed to be released on Deepsend Records, but instead got […]

Across Tundras‘ name is a bit misleading – you might expect this to be another band of corpsepainted warriors, howling about the frozen north and the cold, cold, cold. It’s mournful and somber alright, but their inspiration is rooted much further south, in the American Southwest. Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Across Tundras plays a psychedelic […]

There is not much about modern contemporary modern hardcore that excites me any more, as I’m pretty much just holding my breath for the impending Killing The Dream release. Then along comes a slew of releases from the quiet of late Saw Her Ghost Records (Empires, Across Tundras, Beast in the Field), and included is […]

There’s nothing wrong with the fourth release from Michigan’s relatively veteran hardcore act Today I Wait, but there’s nothing that completely enamors me either. Basically culling from every big name in hardcore and metalcore, TID’s mix of intense, burly metallic hardcore and a few melodic metalcore elements and even a hint of more death metal […]

Every year there is an album that I get too late to submit to my various journalistic outlets as one of the best albums of the year. This year, that honor falls to Minnesota’s Battlefields, who despite their blackened moniker and album title, manage to somehow mix the ambient soundscapes of Pelican, Isis and even […]