“Progress can be a hard thing to accept. Whether you’re talking about laws being made, a review being worked on, or something just as simple as changing up your daily routine, throwing any type of wrench into the gears to liven things up a bit can be met with an unreasonable amount of resistance from certain people. Case in point? Finland’s Teloch.” Progress is for posers!
“As soon as I heard note one of this thing I knew I was in for it. I’d end up falling in my 80s nostalgia hole preaching to the very small choir of 45-plus geezers who grew up on this kind of raw, simplistic proto-metal. Praising this would inevitably lead to abuse from my youthful AMG peers and readers while further cementing my rep as a metallic fossil, but what can a middle-aged Steel Druhm do?” My name is Steel and I have a metal problem.
“We here at Angry Metal Guy Industries try our damnedest to approach each album with an open mind and our full, undivided attention. We also give many, many listens to each album, grasping at as many straws as we can to formulate a 600-word review, and trying to relay our experience with said album in a way that’s both entertaining and informative. Sometimes, though, after so many listens, an album can be so thick with atmospherics and density that approaching it can feel hopelessly impossible.” But we at AMG never say”impossible.” Instead we say “I’m possible!”
“It’s comforting to know Law and Order will always be in syndication on some channel somwhere and that a Big Mac will taste the same no matter where you buy it. Likewise it’s reassuring to see the big thrash acts of the 80s steadfastly refusing to go quietly into that good night. Under Attack is Destruction’s 14th full-length of Germanic thrash and as someone who was there at their humble beginnings, it’s pretty cool to see the Mad Butchers still alive and thrashing so late into their bullet-belted old age.” Nothing’s quite as infernal as infernal overkill.
“One of the complications of writing about and conceptualizing metal in the past – well, almost a decade – has been the music’s incredible diversity and availability. With bands able to record and distribute music so easily, scenes and trends have become less important and less centralized. Sure, there’s been a huge interest in nostalgia-core – occult rock and retro-thrash albums arrive in AMG’s inbox monthly – but it’s doubtful that in 2026 we’ll think of the first half of the ‘teens as being dominated by musical throwbacks. Metal as a whole lacks a zeitgeist, and in some ways that’s frustrating, because it’s hard to keep up with such a decentralized and broad genre – but death metal, as a smaller and more manageable entity, does indeed seem to have direction.” And that direction is interesting indeed.
“Coffin Dust received quite a bit of buzz in the metal underground these last few months (well, at least from that really tiny niche populated by metalheads looking in every nook and cranny for obscure bands). The “buzz” is primarily due to the notoriety of vocalist/guitarist, Slime. Who knew a single year serving as Exhumed’s bassist was enough for a label to fuse those death/grind legends to every promotional piece that hit the web?” Those pesky PR types will do strange things.
“When you see an album adorned with a mighty eagle bearing a sword as drawn by a Venice Beach tattoo artist, you know you’re messin’ with one epic son of a bitch. Though they started life as a traditional doom act, over time Grand Magus transitioned into a kind of trve, Manowar-inspired unit, with said transition most obvious on 2014’s Triumph and Power.” Sword breaker, bird shaker, I’ve been told about you!
“Sometimes the way you first experience an album is everything. Back in 2013, after finally returning from an extended work trip where I had limited internet access (and thus, no ability to hear new metal releases), Thränenkind’s The Elk took my deprived ears by storm with its Agallochian mix of weepy post-rock and crusty post-black metal. After months of only listening to whatever -core was stored on my iPod at the time, I was captivated, and the German quintet’s debut ended up being one of my favorite albums that year. Three years later sees me in an entirely different set of circumstances.” Stop the presses!
“Try as you might, your eyes are inevitably being drawn to the album cover that sits just to the left of these words. As you read, you will involuntarily pause so as to examine in greater detail this genius work of Costin Chioreanu. Depicting what appears to be a bloody tea party between a deer, a wolf, a faceless goat boy, and the crack whores of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the artwork of Sinnery’s debut album, A Feast of Fools, is about as convoluted and mysterious as the album itself.” Sin Tea is served!
“Man, I really miss Alchemist. Much like Anacrusis, Alchemist were so far ahead of the curve with their heady blend of progressive melodies, Killing Joke-inspired riffs, and the raspy growls and otherworldly banshee shrieks of guitarist Adam Agius. The amount of times I spun Organasm and Spritech can’t even be measured, and when word got out in 2010 that the band dissolved after the sheer heft of 2007’s underrated Tripsis, yours truly was crushed. Wasting no time, Agius formed spiritual successor The Levitation Hex.” Cool name but weighty legacy to live up to.
