One look at the cover of Southern Apocalypse – a grainy shot of a bathroom, a suicide victim with a gun, a confederate flag – and you know just what you’re in for: brutal, tortured southern sludge. Comparisons to Eyehategod are inevitable, but I’d go so far as to say that Beaten Back to Pure […]

With 27 tracks spanning six studio releases (along with a few live numbers and a demo gem), Torn from the Grave is the definitive Autopsy collection, and fans of the ye olde school of death metal need look no further for moronic, blood-soaked, brain-bashing fun. The CD itself is a beautiful digipack, featuring four fold […]

When a fan of The Swans and Merzbow calls an album dense, you know they ain’t kidding. Kill.Crush.Destroy is a product of two different recording sections, and its first four tracks are so layered and thick that you can barely discern the guitar notes. After listening to the CD’s second half, you realize that the […]

Artimus Pyle was the drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd (I believe), though apparently that has nothing to do with this band. This Artimus Pyle plays a blazing crust-punk hardcore style, augmented with more than occasional nods to early Neurosis and the Melvins. Guitars are dingy and super dense – piled on power chords and quick changes. […]

Rising from the ashes of Minneapolis’ Disembodied comes Martyr AD. Although Martyr continues in a similar vein of heavy hardcore, this is clearly a new band. Naturally, traces of the deceased unit still surface (mostly in the form of dissonant guitar shrieks and pounding palm-muting), but Martyr is faster, smarter, better, and (believe it or […]