Author: Sean Palmerston

  • Pelican – What We All Come To Need

    What We All Come To Need isn’t new news by this point, but it’s a real recommend for anyone looking for a heavy album that trims away most of the muscular excesses of progressive and noise metal while still that retaining their heavy-hitting skeletons.

  • Iron Maiden @ GM Place, Vancouver BC, June 24, 2010

    Iron Maiden live is more than just a concert — it’s an event. In the days and hours prior to the show, the host city girds its loins in preparation for a pilgrimage of epic proportions. Because the fans aren’t just fans — they’re an army.

  • Inter Arma – Sundown

    Gather ‘round, ye of the underground, for here is a band of Richmond dudes who combine touches of all manner of metal, from doom and thrash to black and traditional to sludge and psychedelic, and do so with a gritty, dirt-under-the-working-man’s-fingernails sound lacking show and polish

  • Hellbound Handshake Clip of the Week: TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION live at MDF 2010

    Here is installment #2 of the Hellbound Handshake Clip of The Week! This week it is TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION Live at Maryland Deathfest 2010, as captured by Handshake Inc.

  • Book Review: From The Graveyard Of The Arousal Industry By Justin Pearson

    From The Graveyard Of The Arousal Industry isn’t a perfect book, but it’s a very good one. Metal and punk fans often greet the world with a raised middle finger and a grimace; this book is about how a wry smile and a good joke will take you much further.

  • Hellbound does NXNE 2010

    Since NXNE decided to do some cool free shows at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Sqaure we thought we’d go check out the most metal of the ones that happened. Actually, they weren’t very metal at all, but here are reviews of the three bands that any open-minded metal head would definitely enjoy… Natalie Zed and Sean Palmerston…

  • Sabbath Assembly – Restored to One

    For those who listen to a lot of metal, Satanic shtick is commonplace, but rarely does such a theme pack as big a wallop as it does on Restored to One.

  • Destruction – Savage Symphony

    Savage Symphony is an excellent commemoration of a band still in its prime 25 years on. The DVD is a terrific piece of history for Destruction fans and for fans of heavy music period

  • Rimfrost – Veraldar Nagli

    As the album grows significantly colder, it is evident that Rimfrost are able to maintain a distinct black metal sound that isn’t too cliché. Their sound infiltrates each ear because of its varied elements and sub-genre qualities that intertwine with each other.

  • Parkway Drive – Deep Blue

    Fans of the hardcore spectrum yet consistently pegged as metalcore, Parkway Drive have never been considered an outright metal band. However, with latest endeavour Deep Blue, they just might be responsible for blurring that thin, thin line to an incredibly indiscernible extent.