Tag: groove metal
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Into the Grave Festival, August 2018
10-11 August – Leeuwarden, Holland This was the time and place to be for a weekend spiced with an exquisite selection of death, groove, black and symphonic metal. After a seven-hours drive through the typical German Friday’s traffic jams, I finally arrived at the festival location, unfortunately missing already the first two acts: the Belgians Toxic Shock…
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HELLBOUND video interview: Byzantine in San Francisco, 16 September 2017
Byzantine are on tour in North America with label mates Sacred Reich, promoting their latest album The Cicada Tree. When the tour hit San Francisco earlier this month, Hellbound’s Todd Owens sat down with Chris (OJ) Ojeda and Brian Henderson to talk touring, songwriting, influences, gear and more. Interested in which of these guys share an…
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False Flag – Nest of Vipers
False Flag‘s Nest of Vipers is an excellent EP that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Four tracks of prime groove metal. Reference points are Lamb of God, Exhorder, and of course, Pantera. What gives this its own identity is the level of musical virtuosity of the band members. There is also a genuine band dynamic and sincerity there.…
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Leave The Living – Pacifist
There is a big Pantera-shaped hole in the metal scene. The question is, what band has the chops to fill it? On the strength of Pacifist, it could well be Leave The Living! That all important groove of Pantera is there, coupled with the raging intensity of At The Gates circa Slaughter of the Soul.…
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Kataklysm – Of Gods and Ghosts
There is much speculation about what groove-metal band could fill the gap left by the sad demise of Pantera. On the strength of the splendidly titled Of Gods and Ghosts, Kataklysm could well be it. Good song-writing matched with top-notch playing prevails. Above all, there is muscle and melody, and that is what gives Kataklysm…
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Valley of the Sun – Electric Talons of the Thunderhawk
Now, you wouldn’t expect a band named Valley of the Sun, the nickname of Phoenix, Arizona, to hail from Cincinnati—a city known colloquially as Dirty Cincy. And yet, it’s an apt moniker for this outfit, a desert-rock trio that captured the attention of Swedish stoner greats Truckfighters, who subsequently signed them to their label. And…
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Crowbar – Symmetry in Black
Crowbar’s Sever the Wicked Hand was an awesome album, one of my top albums of 2011. And despite an unfortunate head-kicking incident at MDF, I was still pretty psyched to hear what the band would come up with the next time around. No boycott here—let’s just say I’m hoping this album delivers a solid blow…