Southern Cross: Down Below
They might be called Southern Cross, but don’t let the name fool you. This ain’t no southern rock band.
Shrinebuilder: Shrinebuilder
With a roster of talent that is hard to match, Shrinebuilder’s Shrinebuilder is an impressive debut.
Axxis: Utopia
Incredibly upbeat and dominant despite the overuse of operatics and keyboards—they still sound stuck somewhere between Diary Of A Madman and The Neverending Story soundtrack—Utopia is an indelibly catchy affair even if it refuses to advance the state of metal.
Bacon, Eggs and Sacrilege: Toronto’s Most Blasphemous Brunch
What do you get when you mix home-style, hearty cooking with extreme music? Kensington Market’s very own Black Metal Brunch; your weekly serving of bacon, eggs, and a side of Venom’s Welcome To Hell.
Ola Mazzuca’s newest entry into the Blasphemous Blog goes into her love for Toronto’s best Sunday brunch, the long-standing Black Metal Brunch at Graffiti’s in Kensington Market.
Rodrigo y Gabriela: 11:11
Rodrigo y Gabriela’s new album 11.11 challenges a lot of preconceptions of metal heads and metal music. While the instrumental, largely acoustic album cannot be traditionally considered as a ‘metal,’ the duo of Rodrigo Sánchez (lead guitar) and Gabriela Quintero, (rhythm) definitely has roots in classic and thrash metal. They started perfoming together after they both left a thrash metal band in Mexico, and while the music they do now is has a foundation of Spanish-influenced traditional folk, their faster and at times, gritter rhythms and rapid time changes serve as an homage to their metal foundation.
Ancestors: Of Sound Mind
Ancestors can’t decide whether to join the noodly prog rock or stoner doom circles, and has left a foot in both camps, coming off like Dream Theater on ditch weed.
Current Playlist: Bruce Franklin of Trouble
Trouble’s guitarist Bruce Franklin’s runs down his current playlist.
Trouble: Nowhere Near Endtime
“We’ve heard some people ask why did you pick Kory Clarke, because he’s not a doom metal singer or he doesn’t sound anything like Eric, but we weren’t particularly looking for someone to sound just like Eric, and we weren’t necessarily looking for someone who was just a doom metal singer either. And we were thinking that maybe we could branch out and do something – a few little twists of things that maybe we’ve never done before with it, with a kind of vocalist like this.”
Laura Wiebe Taylor speaks with Trouble guitarist Bruce Franklin about the current status of the band, their three new North American releases, progress for their next studio album and what the future holds for the legendary Chicago doom metal outfit.
A Storm of Light: Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Forgive Us Our Trespasses is not only a lumbering, crushing sonic tour of a world without us, it’s also a cutting and unsubtle condemnation of humanity’s indifference to its own habitats.
Alice In Chains: Black Gives Way To Blue
To put more flesh on that connective tissue, great care seems to have been taken by Cantrell & co. to draw a hard line connecting the AIC of old with that of Black Gives Way To Blue.