“Töxik Death is a band in touch with the basics. One look at Sepulchral Demons’ cover at a record store and you confidently buy it as a metalhead. One minute of listening and you’ll get exactly what the band is going for. One spin later, you’ve heard a good record and want to listen again.” Töxik when swallowed.
“It’s funny how time works. One day you’re 16 and listening to HIM’s Razorblade Romance, the next you’re in your 30s and reviewing a band called Blasphamagoatachrist. I suspect my own journey into the Extreme was similar to many others. From the day distorted guitars first graced my ears, I felt a gentle pull towards what I now know of as the Black Hole of Extremity, that invisible eternal force that constantly beckons us to seek out MORE.” Blasphemy goats and goals.
“I’ve often wondered about the importance of a band’s name. Would Death be as big, or produced the same groundbreaking music, if they’d named themselves Erotic Diarrhea Monster? Would Kreator have become the thrash legends they did if they instead called themselves Pee Wee’s Scrotal Shitstorm? The world may never know, but it certainly seems having a more common and accessible name puts pressure on a band to produce better music. Case in point: Antichrist, a Peruvian quartet originally formed in 2004 and later reactivated in 2012.” The Devil is in the details.
“From the slightly out of focus and over-exposed band photos to the chrome plated logo that wouldn’t be out of place adorning the packaging of a bootleg Thundercats toy, Vulture have gone to great lengths to make it seem like they’ve been around for decades. Even the (rather excellent) album art has been carefully rendered to deceive, with faint nicks and scratches baked in to mimic a record that’s been manhandled and left in a crate for aeons.” Faux-olde.
“Like Liam Neeson’s grizzled ex-CIA agent from Taken, Sweden’s Antichrist are possessed of a very particular set of skills, except their skills are focused on creating an authentic facsimile of the speed/thrash zeitgeist of the early eighties.” More 80s than Radio Shack!
“I love cheese. Think of all the wonderful things that wouldn’t exist without it. Pizza, cheeseburgers, nachos, quesadillas, 2003 Al Roker. Cheese is one of those things that, with rare exception, there can never be enough of. Our mission here at AMG is to be thorough and fair, so we listen to an album at minimum of a good three or six times. Since Instigator’s Bad Future EP is so short you can probably triple that.” Sure, cheese tastes good, but it will clog you up.
