The back half of 2023 has provided me with a pretty hefty load of really heavy albums. I don’t mean, like, bone-crushing, headbanging heavy – I mean like, they’ve given me a lot to think about. Really full, robust listening experiences that take a lot of time and focus to really dissect, really understand. Some […]

It stand to reason that with each new album an artist creates, the goal is to showcase the best, most authentic version of themselves. Make no mistake, that doesn’t mean that we, the listeners, have to like the output; but even in those cases where a new album may fall flat on the ears of […]

OK, so look. I’ve made my love for the whole old school Blackened Thrash thing very well-apparent to this point. Give me a group of dudes wailing away on some nasty riffs, tortured vocals about demons and Satan and shit, package it up with some more raw, stripped-down production, and you’ve basically got me hook, […]

OK, so we all have particular tastes and preferences that we can’t help or do anything about, right? To that end, when it comes to music, I think we all have certain kinds sounds we’re just absolute suckers for. You hear something in that wheelhouse, and it hits you like a friggin’ Mack track driven […]

One of the things I love most about music, and this especially applies to the wide-ranging world of metal, is that there are all kinds of ways a band can grab you by the throat and force you to give them your attention. It’s not a one-size-fits-all, one-formula-for-all situation. You can dazzle with an all-out […]