I like to think I’m the kind of guy willing to give almost any music endeavor a fair shake, whether it falls in one of metal’s incalculable and ever-growing catalog of subgenres, or, really, whatever the hell else happens to invade my ear canals! But we all have our go-to comfort zones, right? To the […]

I have an ex-girlfriend who had a favorite phrase of “I can do it myself” when I would try to help her. She was half joking. Maybe. Cut to us in my kitchen at the time, this phrase came about when I offered to help her with grabbing her drink while cooking, it fell on […]

Meshuggah is a juggernaut of a band, maybe the heaviest band on the planet. Immutable being their 9th proper studio album – by now you love what Meshuggah does or you can leave them, because their music can be tough to absorb. The band is a machine, that is the best way of describing their […]

I am not overly familiar with Iceland’s music scene.  I know some quality death metal bands and maybe 1 or 2 black metal bands, but for the most part that country is not swarming with a gigantic scene, as far as I know.  As for power metal, unless I saw Power Paladin were from Iceland, […]

I had no idea that Nuclear Blast Records founder Markus Staiger had a split with his label last year and had formed a new label, the not so subtly named Atomic Fire Records, with some of his former Nuclear Blast folks. Not only that, they have pulled over some serious heavyweights over with them like […]

A well-respected colleague of mine once advised me that it was a bad idea to stay with a job or company for more than 10 years – and even that long was pushing it. The idea being, after a certain amount of time in the same setting, you begin to lose your passion for the […]