Category: Gruesome Greg

  • Serpents of Secrecy – Ave Vindicta

    Serpents of Secrecy – Ave Vindicta

    While Ave Vindicta is the band’s first album, Serpents of Secrecy are no strangers to the Maryland doom scene, featuring members of Sixty Watt Shaman, Borracho, King Giant and the late Jim Forrester, who was callously murdered in Baltimore in 2017. After his death, these tunes understandably sat on the shelf for a while, before…

  • Caskets Open – Concrete Realms of Pain

    Caskets Open – Concrete Realms of Pain

    As one of Finland’s most legendary bands once sang, we really do have Doom Over the World nowadays. What started off with outfits like Trouble, Candlemass and Saint Vitus inhabiting their own little corners of the earth is now so widespread that a band like Caskets Open can be around for 13 years and release…

  • Forming the Void – Reverie

    Forming the Void – Reverie

    In some ways, Forming the Void got lucky. Their tour with Church of Misery ended in early March, about a week before the world went to Coronavirus hell. And by releasing Reverie, their third full-length album, one week into May (assuming the release date doesn’t get pushed back), one might say they’ll be filling a…

  • Tyrant – Hereafter

    Tyrant – Hereafter

    Now, there are a lot of Tyrants in the metal world – this outfit isn’t even the only Tyrant from California. But, other than the Tyrant that changed its name to Saint Vitus or the other Tyrant that changed its name to Jag Panzer, these guys are probably the most well known Tyrant, as their…

  • Volcanova – Radical Waves

    Volcanova – Radical Waves

    I guess it’s maybe not so unusual to come across a stoner rock band from Iceland – after all, nearby Sweden has done just about as much for the subgenre as California.  And kudos to Volcanova for coming up with a sufficiently stonerfied name that still reflects where they’re from. Hey, there might not be…

  • 16 – Dream Squasher

    16 – Dream Squasher

    It’s almost hard to believe that sludge metal is roughly 30 years old now, but as SoCal outfit 16, which put out its first record in ’91, is now releasing its eighth album (plus countless splits, EPs, etc), it really speaks to the longevity of the genre. And sludge at 30 is still not music…

  • Pale Divine – Consequence of Time

    Pale Divine – Consequence of Time

    In some ways, Beelzefuzz’s loss was Pale Divine’s gain. The two outfits already shared three (out of four) members before the latter played its last gig at last year’s Maryland Doom Fest. And while Pale Divine previously had more of a straightforward, traditional doom sound, the proggier influences of the now-defunct Beelzefuzz are much more…

  • AMATEUR CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY HOUR: CULT OF LUNA/Emma Ruth Rundle/Intronaut @ The Opera House, March 3, 2020

    AMATEUR CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY HOUR: CULT OF LUNA/Emma Ruth Rundle/Intronaut @ The Opera House, March 3, 2020

    Now, I don’t listen to Cult of Luna very often, but the last time they came to town with Julie Christmas, it was an epic experience — albeit a somewhat abbreviated one…

  • AMATEUR CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY HOUR: CHURCH OF MISERY/Black Wizard/Forming the Void @ The Garrison, February 18, 2020

    AMATEUR CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY HOUR: CHURCH OF MISERY/Black Wizard/Forming the Void @ The Garrison, February 18, 2020

    For many Canadian fans, the wait to see Church of Misery was very long. Their last set of scheduled Canadian dates were cancelled by the U.S. government shutdown back in 2013, and no attempt had been made to return to our country…until now.

  • GRUESOME GREG’S TOP 15 CONCERTS OF 2019

    GRUESOME GREG’S TOP 15 CONCERTS OF 2019

    Gruesome Greg looks back on some of the best shows he shot in 2019.