// Category Archive for: Metal

Music Review: Tombs, All Empires Fall

By Tim Murr

While it may be an EP that’s only 24 minutes long, Tombs’ All Empires Fall is still one of the better black metal albums I’ve ever heard.

Black metal is a genre that I’ve rarely been able to connect with, but does include some bands that are truly innovative and exciting. All Empires Fall is the first Tombs recording with new keyboardist Fade Kainer and while I can’t claim any depth of knowledge about earlier recordings from the band, he’s a welcome addition here.

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Music Review: Graves At Sea, The Curse That Is

By Tim Murr

There was a photo that accompanied the press release of Graves At Sea’s debut full-length album, The Curse That Is, and I love it. The picture of the four members (Nathan Misterek on vocals, Nick Phit on guitar, Bryan Sours on drums, and Sketchy Jeff on bass) shows a group of guys who won’t be having any of your shit. Not now, not later. These are some tough-looking, sick-of-it-all dudes and their faces match the music perfectly.

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Retro Review: Sepultura’s Roots 20 Years On

By Tim Murr

By the 1990s Sepultura had built quite a reputation for themselves. Formed in 1984 by Max and Igor Cavalera after hearing Black Sabbath’s Volume 4, they soon made a name for themselves playing black metal inspired by bands like Venom and Celtic Frost and in 1985 recorded their debut Bestial Devastation, a split EP with Overdose, followed by the full-length Morbid Visions in 1986. Sepultura hailed from Brazil and their reputation made their albums sought after items in both America and Europe.

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Album Review: Northless, Cold Migration

By Tim Murr

What better album to crank up and get lost in on a cold, snowy day than the new three-song EP, Cold Migration, from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin band, Northless? It clocks in at less than 25 minutes, but feels as meaty, strong, and satisfying as a full-length LP. Northless evokes the desolation and loneliness of an endless winter’s journey.

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Music Review: Voivod, Post Society EP

By Tim Murr

Formed in Quebec in 1983, the prog-metal masters Voivod have shifted and mutated, thrilling fans across 13 studio albums. Their 1984 debut album, War and Pain, was a paint-peeling thrash classic. It was to metal what The Road Warrior was to cinema; a line in the sand for others to dash across. With each album up to Angel Rat, when the band started to splinter, Voivod progressed and evolved their sci-fi Rush-meets-Motorhead approach.

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Music Review: Lycus, Chasms

By Tim Murr

I don’t know if “beautifully arranged” is a phrase often applied to funereal doom metal, but it certainly applies to the new album from Lycus, Chasms. The four long tracks that make up Chasms play like a four-part symphony of despair at the death of the world.

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Music Review: I Am Thor (Original Soundtrack)

By Tim Murr

Welcome to my fourth Thor review in the last year! I’ve been on a quite a journey of discovery with Jon Mikl Thor. When I reviewed the re-release of his landmark 1983 album, Unchained, my memory of Thor the frontman, was fuzzier than my memory of Thor the guy that was in that Adam West zombie movie.

Since then I’ve reviewed his newest release, Metal Avenger (2015), an album that contained some of his strongest material to date. Then, there was the fantastic documentary, I Am Thor. Rock documentaries are pretty common and usually just a boring fan letter to the subject. Sometimes not even including any of the artist’s music due to rights issues. I Am Thor delivers by being a compelling documentary, chock-full of music from Thor’s entire career and featuring great interviews with many people from Thor’s life.

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Blu-Ray Review: I Am Thor

By Tim Murr

There is no good reason Thor weren’t bigger than KISS. Oh, sure, there were reasons, but not good ones. Starting out in the body building world before moving on to rock and roll, Jon Mikl Thor made a name for himself with feats of strength and great stage presence. His first serious foray into rock as Thor was a glam classic (Keep The Dogs Away, 1977). It should have been huge. It was not.

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Today In Pop Culture: Eat Fresh With Ozzy Osbourne

By Jeffery X Martin

Modern-day 21st century heavy metal is boring. Yeah, I said it. Boring. There’s no flair, no theatricality, no sense of something greater than itself. Bland long-haired boys with guttural voices and quadruple-kick drums, honking and snorting their way through what they loosely refer to as “songs” while the audience punches each other and waits for the breakdown.

The Eighties, though? That was the time. That was the Golden Age of Heavy Metal. Bands were real bands, and wore codpieces without shame or cause. There were pyrotechnics and crazy visual effects. The stage was a giant Satanic playground, with pentagrams flying like boomerangs everywhere. It was goofy and joyous, and sometimes it went a little too far.

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