Author: Sean Palmerston

  • Edguy: F**king With Fire-Live

    German power metal band Edguy returns with their second live album. Recorded live in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2006 in front of 5,000 Edguy maniacs on the Rocket Ride tour, this fourteen track two cd set displays the full impact of this band.

  • Leeches Of Lore: s/t

    Fitting eleven tracks into 52 minutes, Leeches of Lore is quite the mixed bag. It goes from fast-paced neo-thrash/NWOBHM riffing to heavy rock a la Big Business to mellow proggy noodling and Johnny Cash-era country music—and that’s just within the first three songs!

  • Megadeth: Endgame

    While previous efforts have been mired in attempts at being grandiose, Endgame strips away pretense…for the most-part. Omitting a few questionable moments, it still rages closer to the band’s early-’90s output than they have in years. No, it’s not an outright thrash metal masterpiece but Endgame still assures us that the important aspects of Megadeth’s…

  • Interview with Phil Freeman, Author of Sound Levels: Profiles In American Music, 2002-2009

    “Metal is hard,” says Freeman. “It’s difficult, rigorous music but it’s not treated as such. These are guys who are on the level as symphony players on their respective instruments. These are guys who went into their bedrooms at age 10 and didn’t come out until age 20, but because they have long hair and…

  • Construcdead: Endless Echo

    Endless echo contains a brand of energetic, melodic thrash that is just a complete aggressive metal listen; tracks like “No exit,” “My Haven” and “Spiritual shift” are both very fast and very intense. Rage is the best word to describe the reaction I had after listening to this CD. It got me all fired up.

  • Hellbound Radio: July 26th Playlist

    Here is the playlist for Sunday night’s version of Hellbound Radio. The show was hosted by Albert Mansour, Kevin Stewart-Panko and Sean Palmerston.

  • Anaal Nathrakh: In the Constellation of the Black Widow

    It takes just a few seconds for In the Constellation of the Black Widow to erupt into a blistering frenzy, and the bombastic chaos drives through to the end with few interruptions. The U.K. duo has produced a hurricane of sound, with a whole spectrum of throat-wrenching vocal eviscerations, thundering blasts, grinding riffs, and lightning-speed…

  • Anaal Nathrakh: In the Constellation of the Black Widow

    In The Constellation of the Black Widow begins with a head-first charge into the listener’s gut. England-based Anaal Nathrakh’s latest album is just over half an hour of black metal-tinged grindcore that barely stops to take a breather, and it ends just as chaotically as it begins.

  • Howl: Howl

    At barely 15 minutes, it’s an all-too brief preview, but that’s all it takes to instantly establish Howl as a band to watch for in late-’09 and 2010.

  • Book Review: To Live Is To Die: The Life And Death Of Metallica’s Cliff Burton by Joel McIver

    To think that it took 23 years for someone to come up with this brilliant notion of paying respects to Cliff Burton, the true backbone of Metallica, by providing a biography of his life is quite shocking. Seeing as metallians around the world have been mourning his passing—and the requisite downward spiral of the quartet…