“After vocalist and guitarist, songwriter and mastermind Nate Garrett arranged the merch and order some fish tacos, he was kind enough to sit down for a chat on everything from doom in Arizona to his time in the Arkansas scene and his love and respect for Jimi Hendrix and Sanford Parker. With the help of my partner-in-crime, Grymm, I bring you a special night with one of this year’s most popular dudes in metal.” Spirits were had.
“For years, I thought something was wrong with me when I got in the mood for some simple, catchy rock/groove. I mean, there is something wrong with me when I get the urge to listen to Volbeat over Mercyful Fate. But, sometimes, one needs a palette cleansing. And that’s exactly why I feel no guilt when listening to bands like Darkhaus, Ghoultown, A Life Divided, and Diablo Blvd. Week after week of listening to constant doom, black, heavy, thrash (and everything between) can make your brain mush. Not to mention, trying to find the words for the couple selected for review while meeting writing deadlines for a textbook, teaching classes, etc. So, detoxing is necessary.” Cleanse my wounded palette.
“Eating, or looking for things to eat. Boning down, or looking for people to bone down with. Shitting, or looking for music to shit on. The angry metal life devotes countless hours to these simple activities. How Rogga Johansson makes time for even one of these is a mystery. Metal Archives lists The Darkside, the debut of Stass, his project of the month with Crematory’s Felix Stass, as his 11th release of 2017.” No rest for the Rogga.
“Sadness. A quintessentially unpleasant emotion we go out of our way to avoid in this brief, meaningless slog we call life. Why then is it such an essential element in music, you ask? Because as intrinsically flawed creatures, humans love to revel in melancholy and pain. We do it when already saddled with crippling plights, and we seek it out even when times are good. We just get an undeniable and perverse pleasure from diving into the darkness for short periods of miserable introspection. Germany’s End of Green has been serving the depression tourism market since 1996, and Void Estate is their ninth platter of uber-sadboy goth metal.” Get your void on.
“In the royal chamber of overrated albums, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon sits atop a burnished throne that has cradled its posterior for many decades. I’ve tried countless times to love DSotM, bouncing between the CD, the SACD remaster, and an 180g vinyl pressing in desperation to discover what it is about this album that has resonated with so many people. Alas, illumination eluded me, and while I found portions of the record appealing, I struggled to generate more than a shrug when consuming the album as a whole. Not everyone shares my ambivalence, least of all Kyle Shutt, who has decided to honor the 50 year anniversary of DSoTM with the self-titled Doom Side of the Moon.'” Commence to fightin’.
“Someone asked me recently what the difference was between rock and metal. It seems an easy question, but although most of us will be able to distinguish between rock and metal quite intuitively, drawing the line in the sand is a more complicated endeavor.” The line must be drawn…here!
“I’ve always found gothic metal to be, much like viking or pagan metal, a phrase that is more evocative of a specific feel rather than a genre with finite boundaries. It’s one of those styles that manages to fit a deceptively diverse array of bands under its umbrella; Type O Negative, Moonspell, and The Vision Bleak differ greatly from a purely mechanical standpoint, yet the thick, gloomy atmosphere is ever present.” Ready for a graveyard romance?
“After years of meandering through the comments section as your friendly neighborhood bone-saw (and before as another beloved reader), I’ve had the pleasure of sparing with many of you, upsetting the tight-ass AMG HR department, and making fun of Diabolus for his bad taste in music. Somewhere in the last couple years, one of you recommended Root to me and forever changed my life.” Report to HR to get your life re-changed.
“Naming your doom metal band Heavydeath is like naming your cat “Whiskers McPussyface,” but somehow this Swedish trio manages to pull it off. In early 2015 these former Runemagick members quite impressed me with debut Eternal Sleepwalker, at least enough that I actually bothered to check out a few of the motherfucking 16 demos, EPs, and compilations the band released since forming just three years ago.” Slowprolific.
“It should be fairly apparent by now that I loves me some doom. As of late, I’ve been on an almost exclusively doom-rich diet: death-doom, blackened doom, even “esoteric doom.” I’m beginning to think it might be high time to cut down; after all, a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. But, as always, I’m suckered in by that one last bite… This particular tender morsel comes to me in the form of Americans Cardinal Wyrm and their third release Cast Away Souls, and as it happens, it’s deceptively filling.” Commence the doom shaming.
