Somewhere between death metal and grindcore is the realm that the UK entity known as Acrania inhabit. They’ve got a pretty sick logo and some cool enough-without-being-groundbreaking cover art, but their true strength lies in their riffs and general guitar sound. Seemingly programmed double kick drum workouts with plenty of cool fills set the scene for a   Read More …

You might not know it as a direct result of reading only the posts on this fine blog – though you may have still gathered as much – but Portal is probably my favorite band ever and certainly my favorite band currently operating in complex metal realms. I’ll save you the inane ramblings I reserve   Read More …

If you had told me that I’d stumble across more than one rad new metal band from Syria in the course of a couple week’s time, I would’ve told you that you were absolutely crazy – before it actually happened, anyhow. Viieden is a death metal band from Syria which features a member of a   Read More …

Absolutely incredible, mammoth, and epic black metal from Syria via the awesomely named band Abidetherein (abide therein). This single is over 13 minutes of politically charged face smashing black metal with huge death metal overtones and a bit of symphonic and eastern influence thrown in for good measure. This is a killer lyric video to   Read More …

Bandcamp is a pretty cool thing, when you get down to it. It has afforded a lot of artists the opportunity to get their sound out there to people, for sure. More importantly, though, I’ve personally discovered a ton of killer music over the last couple years as a result. When I first started traversing   Read More …

Happy Holidays, heathens. A special gift for you this season! Some months ago I was casually hit up by Phil of A Beautiful Lotus and Robo! Robotica fame about lending a hand with a compilation idea he was working on. Simultaneously getting my feet wet with the Magicore blog and crew, I felt honored he’d   Read More …

I’ve listened to this release more times in the last 24 hours than I have any other new release I can think of from the last five years. Maybe more. This is fucking spectacular in every way, period. I said pretty much the same thing of his last effort, “Plague Diagram”, as well. Recreating and re-imagining   Read More …

I saw these guys when I was still living in Fargo, ND at what proved to be the absolute perfect environment for them – a tiny, dirty, dark basement in an otherwise out of the way area of downtown. Two songs, 45 minutes, three vocalists – two of which were on guitar and the other   Read More …

This shit is TWENTY year old death metal. TWENTY YEARS AGO some dues with long hair made this album. TWENTY YEARS LATER it’s still a fucking ridiculous death metal album. No bullshit. I remember when it came out. I was just entering junior high school. There had, without question, been plenty of creepy, scary, scarring,   Read More …

Easily one of the sickest things you’ll listen to. I mean, just filthy and dirty and stanky electronic speed grind ambient dub metal core badass motherfuckery. I’ve spent several sleepless nights since this was released trying to put into words what it sounds like and how awesomely it sounds like that. But, I keep falling   Read More …