“If there is one thing you can count on in the realms of heavy metal, it’s bands creating names that fit their musical vision. Carcass definitely paints a vivid picture of death metal just nicely. And a band with a name like My Dying Bride is usually guaranteed to bring The Mope™ like few others do. So you can imagine what was going through my brain when Germany’s Goat Explosion threw their debut album, Rumors of Man, our way.” Face goat toward enemy.
“Summer is always a slow time for metal releases. I bet some stats nerd out there could run which months correlate with the end of year lists, but I’d be willing to bet that summer months don’t. This is because most bands are out hitting festivals, fans are out seeing them, and no one’s spending money on new records. Yet albums are being released, and we here at the Angriest of Metal Guys dot Coms have been slaving away over hot reviews this whole time. As a result, we’re hitting you up with the most unexpected Record(s) o’ the Month for June of 2018 ever. Not only is it vaguely on time (they’re a planned portion of the month late so that we could enjoy that Amorphis wallpaper a little longer), but no one fucking called these. Yeah, that’s right. Who’s unpredictable!? I’M UNPREDICTABLE! You’re welcome.” Loose cannon’s gonna cannon.
“Anyone who’s seen The Wire knows Baltimore can be a rough place, but on Memorial Day weekend every year, things get especially brutal. Hundreds of rabid metal fans from all over the world descend on ‘Charm City’ to participate in Maryland Deathfest, and the result is four days of moshing, headbanging, and partying like it’s 1989.” Death to all.
“Pagan black metal stalwarts, Kawir, typically wait four years between releasing albums that are decent, yet overlong and poorly produced. That all changes with their seventh LP, Exilasmos. Dropping a mere nineteen months after Father Sun Mother Moon, this record hits the road with tires spinning!” Blackened Greek salad to go.
“It’s worth remembering that the past shapes the future and every story has a takeaway, be it uplifting or perhaps more sobering. As the creative genius behind Longhouse, Joshua Cayer, uses a mixture of doom, sludge and post-metal to recount stories of the Algonquin First Nations and more specifically, of his family’s community, the Kitigan Zibi. Situated in Maniwaki, a town developed on land that once belonged to the Kitigan Zibi Reserve, Longhouse focuses on Quebec, though they hail from Ottawa, Canada.” Blackened roots.
“Well, it looks like we made it to the end of another year of music, mayhem and interweb tomfoolery! And while 2016 kicked most of our asses in unpleasant ways, it was an outstanding year for metal music. In fact, I think it was the best overall since I joined the AMG meat grinder way back in 2010.” Don’t shoot the messenger gorilla.
When Doctor Grier and El Cuervo get together, the hobo wine and illogical selections run like an ever-flowing stream. Ride the tide of opinion!
![Kroh – Altars [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kroh-Altars-album-cover-ghostcultmag-800x800-768x768.jpg)
“With acts like King Goat, Darkher and Khemmis snatching Album of the Month, I’d say this has been a good year for doom metal. Good thing, then, that this is also the year I found out how great this genre is, having mostly ignored it under the false assumption that all of it was paced like a 9-hour funeral.” Newbie re-education is an everyday struggle at AMG.
“It’s time to come clean. While I (and many of my colleagues) have been blithering on in our writings about how 2016 has been a fantastic year for — insert subgenre here — metal, I must admit that this year has been a bit underwhelming for me. Not in terms of the sheer number of quality releases, mind you, but rather in the notable dearth of legitimate surprises.” Somebody’s getting greedy….
“Reviewing is not a complicated process. We listen to a promo album the same way an average listener would, with our heart and gut, gauging our emotional state during each separate song and the album as a whole. Aside from that, we analyze from a more clinical point of view, weighing factors like originality, history, and experience of the band, the skill of individual members, and production quality. We weigh all the good against all the bad like Anubis and his feather, but every now and then an album comes along that doesn’t seem to have any flaws.” The reviewing game is not for the squeamish.
