Southern Lord

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Live May 8, 2012

Converge/ Burning Love/ Loma Prieta/ Vilipend @ the Mod Club, Toronto ON, April 6th 2012

“Converge are an overwhelming band to see live, vicious, visceral and breathtaking. The set quickly settled into a hard, driving rhythm, and the entire audience was carried along by it, compelled, possessed – taken. It can be difficult to talk about music and sexuality in a way that isn’t sensationalizing or reductive, but there is no question that the sheer aural force of Converge is an intense experience that borders on the erotic.”

Natalie Zed reviews the April 6th Toronto performance by Converge, Burning Love, Loma Prieta and Vilipend

Articles, Blogs, Features, Headline, Jonathan Smith October 11, 2011

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM: The Hellbound Interview

“It’s really not our place to tell anyone how to do anything, or to make any sort of suggestion about how people should live. That’s something that we’ve never wanted to do and we never will do. That’s something that happens in a lot of music. A lot of punk music in particular has a political agenda of trying to convince someone of something. We’ve always been against that, and we’ve never wanted to appear that we’re sitting on a high horse trying to lead people. As you mentioned, living like we do is not an option for most people. It’s appropriate for us, but it’s just for us.”

Jonathan Smith in conversation with Aaron Weaver of Wolves In The Throne Room

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio October 3, 2011

Black Cobra – Invernal

Don’t get me wrong, I like my sludge metal, but I’m more into bands that bring something palatable to the table. If I were to liken the genre to a Mexican restaurant—I also like me some Mexican food—Black Cobra would be the basket of plain tortilla chips they put out before the main course.

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Vinyl June 8, 2011

Baptists—s/t 7-inch

Captured by Stuart McKillop and Jesse Carr at The Hive Creative Labs, Baptists have arrived hitting fast and hard. It’s a little cruel that four songs are all we get, but as a way of documenting the band’s formidable power at this early stage, the 7-inch is the perfect delivery method.

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio April 28, 2011

Winter – Into Darkness

I can see how this would’ve blown some minds back in 1990, but it really hasn’t aged all that well. Other bands have since taken the torch and left Winter sputtering behind with this lo-fi, depressing slog of an album that has more in common with the “gothic doom” of My Dying Bride than the true masters of the genre.