New York’s Suffocation is one of a select few bands who sounds like itself. …Of The Dark Light, the act’s latest release, upholds the band’s mission of sonic destruction. This is a band who figured out it’s deadly sonic recipe early in it’s career, stuck with that formula, and is …

California’s Pintsize was an absolutely brilliant flash in the power pop, pop-punk, hard rock, and heavy metal cauldron. Thankfully, the cadre’s music has been immortalized on this 14 track disc, titled Five Feet…No Inches. Here, the fearsome foursome pulls listeners into a confrontational, hedonistic, and thoroughly entertaining musical joyride. The …

Tilberi, the three song EP by Iceland’s Solstafir, starts out slowly, almost melancholic, and highly melodic. As with it’s contemporaries in the sonic land of atmospheric post-metal, Tilberi‘s tracks quickly evolve into something deeper, compelling one to listen further. Tilberi‘s mix is raw, retaining an almost ‘demo’ quality muddiness in …

Brand new extreme metal band Sinsaenum has a knack for high speed creep. In yet another musical mixing of creative forces, this act is made possible through the ideas of veteran artists who know sonically exactly what they want, when it comes to death metal. The band is the brainchild …

Politics can be a breeding ground of anger, discontent, fear, hatred, and lies: tangents and emotions that punk rock and heavy metal channel oh so well. As we’re aware of by now, the USA just held an election for its 45th President. While the candidate who won was voted into …

Here are an evil Lucky 13 metal bands, representing a variety of genres, for you to listen to, plus learn the Wikipedia versions of their name origins. The rules: Only metal is included; no rock, blues, or punk feature in this round. No origin stories from anywhere but Wikipedia are …

During his 30th anniversary year as a professional recording artist, American guitar virtuoso Paul Gilbert (Racer X, Mr. Big) will bring his all-star band and traditional, mind-bending live show to Continental and UK audiences this autumn. This latest round of dates celebrates and highlights his latest worldwide release for earMusic …

Brutal death metal was the name of the game here for a while, an the subgenre remains strong. Like apple pie and McDonald’s, here, American is taken to mean “made in the USA”. While there’s plenty of brutal death metal from across the globe, the sound was truly perfected in …

Like most music subgenres, Swedish death metal is fairly homogenous. It’s one of the finest kinds of intragroup similarity though: adequate musicianship, fueled by supremely aggressive guitar tones bolstered by the rest of the band, not overpowered by it. This list is meant to bring that sound in your ears. …

Danish and American hard rock band Volbeat has returned with Seal The Deal & Let’s Boogie, its sixth full length studio album, produced by Jacob Hansen. The disc is thirteen songs of tight, clear, hard rock glory, built on and expanded from the successes gleaned from 2013’s Outlaw Gentlemen and …

PlanetMosh’s latest ‘playlist guest artist’ is California’s own (in)famous Nick Oliveri. At various times, as an integral member of Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, Mondo Generator, Dwarves, Bl’ast!, and as a solo artist with The Uncontrollable, bassist and multi-instrumentalist Oliveri has been at the forefront of desert rock, hardcore …

American guitarist Paul Gilbert‘s latest studio effort, I Can Destroy, is a fun, uptempo rock album. The record’s 12 core songs (and one bonus track) are a treat to listen to. Jam-packed with good notes, for the legion guitarists anticipating the disc in hopes of busting their chops, it delivers …

Less then 14 days after announcing its formation and a new single, “Violescent”, USA-based heavy rock band Gone Is Gone has made its live debut. Featuring Troy Sanders (Mastodon), Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens of the Stone Age, A Perfect Circle, Sweethead), Tony Hajjar (At The Drive In), and multi-instrumentalist Mike …

Many of us are familiar with the endangered “physical media” known as CDs, cassette tapes, and vinyl records. Something all physical media bought at retail has in common is that it is contained. This containment is called packaging, and is ubiquitous. Standalone, loose physical media were not reviewed because they’re …

Yearn to Burn: Shred Guitar Insanity What is shred, anyway? It’s a stringed instrument (primarily guitar) playing style that evolved naturally, morphing into it’s own niche. Fast, ostentatious, virtuoso playing, using a variety of techniques, was not invented in the 1980s nor by Eddie Van Halen. That decade and that particular …

While Post Pop Depression has been billed as a collaboration, it’s Iggy Pop‘s name on the album’s marquee and spine. Producer, multi-instrumentalist, and co-writer Joshua Homme and Pop are both revered musicians and celebrated collaborators in their own realms. Homme worked with John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl in Them …

With the ten-track Dead Dawn, Sweden’s death metal behemoth Entombed A.D has returned to a scene the members helped to form, offering its second album under this moniker. Two closely related questions in most fan’s minds seem to be ‘where does Dead Dawn hit stride, and does it measure up …

Classic thrash metal stalwart act Lich King was formed in 2004 by vocalist Tom Martin. The Massachusetts-based band has released several albums, with the most recent being the Do-Over EP, a full re-recording of Lich King’s “one man band” early material. Influenced by classic thrash bands like Vio-lence, S.O.D., and …

It is said that for British pop music to be successful, it has to be imported back into the USA. The same is said for American pop music: it must be exported back to the UK to find success. The cross cultural exchange, a hybrid vigor or novelty factor of …

Germany’s Obscura has released Akroasis (which means “hearing” or “listening” in Greek), a modern, technical death metal disc with plenty of progressive overtones. Firmly rooted in darkness, overall, the sound has a distinctly European flair, invoking early Behemoth to mid-period Vader or later Centurian with blasts of speed, precision, and …