“I have many friends that share my exquisite taste in music. If this were not the case, I would not have stumbled across Spellcaster and their newest release, Night Hides the World. Suggested to me by a member of War Curse, Spellcaster is a purveyor of the simple and the accessible. Fusing six-string details with strong vocals, these Portlanders combine Iron Maiden-esque hooks with Ghost-ish melody.” Metal friends beat Super Friends any day.
“Despite picking up plenty of positive press for their debut Produces Reason a couple of years ago (including a glowing review from yours truly), Sleep of Monsters don’t seem to have penetrated far into the metal public’s collective consciousness. Comprising former members of underrated Finnish goth rockers Babylon Whores, overrated Finnish goth rockers HIM, and a host of other decorated musicians, Sleep of Monsters go beyond the narrow confines inhabited by the aforementioned acts, incorporating all manner of different musical ideas into their remarkably coherent overall sound.” Don’t sleep on these monsters.
As a dumb 16 year-old I turned away from bands when the glass-shattering high notes that were a trademark of many vocalists went the way of the dinosaur, either by design or age inducing the testicles to drop. As a dumb 35 year-old, Alan Tecchio raved to me about Flotsam and Jetsam’s then new album, 2010’s The Cold. As one of my favorite metal vocalists (Hades, Non-Fiction), Alan’s word was bond, James Bond, so I picked it up. At first listen it made me turn my Fruit of the Looms into a fudge factory.” Enter the Age of Incontinence!
“I would be a goddamned liar if I said I were a longtime fan of Canadian thrashers, Mortillery—and those who commented on last year’s Unleash the Archers review can contest to this. However, after diving deep into the band’s back catalog, I can wholeheartedly admit that, in a single week’s time, I am a diehard fan of this band. And for the first time in awhile, I will not be sent to the AMG basement for my poor taste in metal or forced outside to scrape the dead armadillo carcasses hanging from the grilles of the staff’s Prius’.” We’ve actually moved your desk down there.
This post has been removed because it promoted Nazi or Nazi-adjacent metal bands or musicians. We apologize.
“Brutality came along at the first death knell of a genre that has outlasted just about every musical trend that has come and gone. They released some thrashy death metal demos, one of which (Dimension Demented) I reviewed in the print version of Unchain the Underground back in 1992.” Mr. Kikuras has long running ties to brutal endeavors.
“I chose Shotgun Justice randomly without knowing anything about them or their sound, the only connection being they shared their moniker with one of my favorite thrash metal albums (see the Razor retrospective Druhm and I shat out in 2014). Do these Krauts live up to that thrashtastic standard?” Standards are made to be broken.
“In recent months, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend of bands putting out hours worth of new music as one album. While Iron Maiden has already been notorious for giving you your money’s worth since the creation of the compact disc, other acts are taking that idea and running wild with it. I’ve always been a proponent of the idea that less is more [How can that be? – Yngwie]. Apparently, Brazil’s Bode Preto (or “Black Goat” in Portuguese) believes in the same philosophy. Mystic Massacre, their second album, is a hair shy of thirty minutes long. A little goes a long way… or is Mr. Malmsteen right?”
Twenty-fifteen has been a hell of a ride. It’s been one of my favorite years for music in quite a long time, and I’ve been struggling to prune this list down to 10(ish) records that I really love. But in some ways, the top 5 has never been easier for me to choose. What I find most fascinating about this list is how completely out of step I feel with what I see as being touted as the coolest parts of the underground. I seem to be pretty far afield while everyone else seems to be fawning over the latest ’70s retro doom phenomenon, hope drones, or the latest example of black metal kids missing that intensity not 15 minute songs was the cool part of black metal. This is what it feels like to have been left behind by a scene; to have lived long enough to be that old guy shaking his fist at new trends in metal.
“Back in 2011, the ever-insightful Steel Druhm penned an excellent piece on being an older metalhead. It’s a very well-written, short essay on what it’s like to be a mature metalhead when many of your peers and colleagues have since moved away from our hallowed music genre of choice. As someone who is just a little over a year away from hitting 40, I’m going to expand on this subject a little.” Metalize the geezers!
