Steven Wilson’s work is generally held in high esteem and for good reason. The multi-faceted musician truly made his name with Porcupine Tree, a band that has been on indefinite hiatus since 2009’s The Incident, and has also peppered his reputation with projects like Blackfield and producing Opeth over the years. However his solo work … Continue reading
Keeper’s desolate doom on the MMXIV release last year was a particular highlight for 2014. With a split out recently with Sea Bastard, guitarist and vocalist Penny Keats talks about how the band came to be, how they forged that cataclysmic sound of theirs and most importantly, what lies ahead for the California band. First … Continue reading
Finland’s reputation for black metal remains largely undisputed. A string of classic records from several bands since the early ‘90s, from Beherit to Sargeist, have ensured the country’s place in BM lore but what is perhaps most interesting is the glut of newer bands emerging from the rot at the same time, such as Devouring … Continue reading
There must be something in the water in southern Ontario as the quality of bands emerging out of Toronto and its surrounding cities and towns is reaching fever pitch over the last couple of years. While plenty of genres, namely black metal, are healthily represented, the area’s penchant for sludgier tones and hardcore are quite … Continue reading
Caïna’s career trajectory has taken them through many different aural climes. While for the most part the band, helmed by Andrew Curtis-Brignell, has centred on black metal and maintained it as a foundation, Caïna’s branches have grown into so many different gardens at this stage that keeping up with the presumably mad mind of Curtis-Brignell … Continue reading
We welcome 2015 with a moment of reflection. You might remember mention of Woman is the Earth in December as they featured on this site’s top 50 records of the year with Depths. The South Dakota black metal band’s third LP demonstrated an impressive growth and maturation for the band’s pine scented black metal, which … Continue reading
December already? That’s another year that’s pretty much flown by with just a couple of blinks, which means every blog and website is trotting out their end of year lists (as is tradition of course). If you have little to be doing with your time and have read this blog before you’ll notice that I’ve … Continue reading
When Australian prog metal band Ne Obliviscaris released their first demo, The Aurora Veil, in 2007, they quite simply blew this listener’s ears away with three sprawling oeuvres of ambitious and beautiful metal, built from a faint foundation of black metal but filtered through avenues of Opeth and Cynic’s Focus. What followed was near tragic … Continue reading
Perhaps more so than any other sub-genre, black metal conjures the most debate for a variety of reasons. The splintering of the genre since the early ‘90s has seen division and derision as black metal manifests itself is many different forms outside of the Nordics and finds new fertile ground in different climes from the … Continue reading
Stop for a second and think about this. It’s 2014 and we’re listening to a new Godflesh album, something unimaginable just a few short years ago. Even after their initial reunion for a run of live shows, the prospect of a new album wasn’t much of a reality for a few years. Of course, when … Continue reading
The Grind That Annoys 