25 years is a long time. Hell, over 25 years is a long time, and I’ve realized that a lot of the bands I love are coming up on that side of their longevity, which isn’t much next to the Rolling fucking Stones and we all know they’ve been doing it since the Triassic period […]

Sweden’s Mörk Gryning  (‘dark dawn’) were in a bit of a grey area coming up in the late 90s early 00s Scandinavian melodic black metal scene. Never achieving the status of say Dissection or Naglfar or the underground gem status of say Catamenia or  Vinterland years later, but delivering 5 decent albums arguably peaking with […]

Misery Index return with their 6th full-length album, Rituals of Power and for me this is the best album, thus far for 2019.  Holy Crap, Misery Index is on fire.  As much as I liked their last album, The Killing Gods, Rituals of Power is more aggressive, upping their death/grind approach to the nth degree!  […]

After locking into their sound on 2005’s I. Monarch, Erik Rutan and Hate Eternal have delivered 4 damn fine albums of American death metal that’s one of the more solid discographies of the last decade or so. And with the addition of drummer Hannes Grossman (Alkaloid, ex Necrophagist) on drums to Rutan and JJ Hrubovcak (on his […]

Ive been a big fan of Atlanta’s Withered since 2005s Stockholm meets Mastodon lurch of Memento Mori. Even the bands foray into blacker realms with 2008s Folie Circulaire and 2010s Dualitas were impressive. Even more so since I got to hang out with and drink a beer with frontman and founder Mike Thompson back in […]

In 2007, tech death pioneers Atheist announced that they would be playing some of their last shows ever, and specifically, that their appearance at Chicago Powerfest that year would be the band’s last in the Midwest.  Heavily into Atheist, I jumped at what would most likely be the only chance I’d ever have to see […]