FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
A little bit of background information: the record is a collaborative project between two Mikes — Mike Mare and Mike Gallager (of Isis fame). Amigos is a 40-plus minute single-track of ambient guitar textures and carefully pieced-together layers of sound that, just as they are on the verge of overstaying their welcome, shifts gears so as to keep things from getting too boring.
In my opinion Doro is the best female heavy metal vocalist of all time; it was a real gift just to catch her for the first time back in June 2007 – that show was amazing but seeing her for the second time was like winning the metal lottery.
Albert Mansour reviews the recent Toronto performance by German metal goddess Doro.
Forget all of your cardboard cutout third division skidthrash bands that have been popping up all over the place in the last few years, Sacrifice has returned to show how it is done, period. These Canadian thrash icons have come back after sixteen years of hibernation to create what is possibly the best work of their career.
Rob Kachluba reviews the brand new, long-awaited return album by Canadian thrash legends Sacrifice.
Ok, I admit when I offered to review this CD I didn’t realize it was a reissue. Since I had never heard of the band before I couldn’t possibly know they had a discography and haven’t been together in ten years. On a good note, if I hadn’t actually looked at the date and saw this was recorded in 1997 I wouldn’t have thought the album sounded dated.
Music has been incorporated into fashion since, well, forever.
The band t-shirt is a common article of clothing and music edition sneakers are a great way to support your favourite artist in style.
I’ve lost count of every time someone has questioned the indecipherable logo sprawled across my shirt: “Ola, what the hell does that say?” I simply reply “Oh this? Well, it’s Emperor”.
eta: new rules!!! Like to win things? Yeah, us too! Well, courtesy of the fine folks over at Metal Blade we have two (2) copies of the brand new BLACK DAHLIA MURDER Deflorate album to give away. And if that in itself wasn’t good enough, these are the limited edition CD/DVD versions of the album and it comes fully autographed by the members of the band.
The lack of visual stimulation didn’t stop the audience from listing with rapt attention to the audio stimulation. They played what I believe was three songs (sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when it’s an almost constant barrage of noise). I was pleasantly surprised how well the music translated into the live setting as I always wonder with this type of music, as on occasion it doesn’t work.
Apparently it’s pretty cold in Murmansk. Less chilly is Death Nord Kult, the latest release from Old Wainds. They hail from northern Russia, and thus it’s not overly surprising that their brand of black metal is all about darkness, the arctic, and geographical isolation.
Culted’s MySpace biography makes much of the fact that the band’s impressive first full-length album is a “truly collaborative effort across international lines.” One can only hope for more musical cooperation in the future from the jointly Canadian/Swedish band.
For me, anything that Massacre/Denial Fiend vocalist Kam Lee is involved with gets me excited and I am very happy to report that this new Bone Gnawer project is no exception. In fact, it is possibly some of his finest work.