JACKYL Rocks And Rolls In Lexington, Kentucky [Photo Gallery]

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On this December evening I find myself heading north to Lexington, Kentucky to see what Jesse James Dupree and Jackyl have in store for the Manchester Music Hall. Along the way north I picked up a friend who was looking forward to seeing Roman Glick (Jackyl’s Bass player) he’s been a fan since Roman’s days in Brother Cane several years ago. The plan was to listen to some very loud music during the two hour drive to Lexington but this being basketball season in Kentucky it was a basketball game instead. The rocking and rolling had to wait for the trip home. Continue reading →

Review: HARM’S WAY – ‘Posthuman’ [Song Stream]

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Harm’s Way is a band that some may find difficult to categorize. Originally formed in Chicago, Illinois in 2006 as a casual side project playing fast-paced powerviolence and hardcore punk; the band has since gone through several metamorphoses, and over the years, have slowed down their pace and leaned more toward a down-tuned “metal” sound. We can throw around labels all day such as hardcore, metalcore, death metal, nu-metal, industrial, thrash metal, groove metal, sludge, and the list goes on and on. Certainly, influences of all these genres can be heard in their music. At the end of the day, from what I can tell though, these guys are just simply evolving their style to become the heaviest, most brutal, powerful, in-your-face sounding music they can come up with. There’s no frills or gimmicks; no wank-off guitar solos or whiney ballads; It’s – Just. Plain. Heavy. Whatever you decide to classify them as, Harm’s Way’s latest full-length studio album, ‘Posthuman,’ is the sonic equivalent of a brutally violent ass-beating by a ten-ton sledgehammer. Continue reading →

Review: NORTHWIND WOLVES – ‘Dark Cold Grim’ [Album Stream]

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NorthWind Wolves is a black metal band originating from sunny Los Angeles, California with a sound that feels deceivingly like something conjured from the iciest, deepest regions of Scandinavia. Their aptly-titled, second full-length studio album ‘Dark… Cold… Grim…,’ released on Sweden-based, Black Lion Records in 2017, is precisely as advertised – dark, cold, and grim. What first draws you in to the record is the excellent cover artwork consisting of a mist-engulfed, moonlit, gothic castle which effectively serves to immerse you, as the listener, into this world. The musical style is symphonic or folkish at times, gritty and nasty others, but overall is firmly rooted in an old-school, melodic black metal sound. Continue reading →

Review of “Dark Matter” By Auditory Armory

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Auditory Armory is:

April Rose – Vocals and Guitar
Oscar Garcia – Drums
Dennis Burns – Guitar
Justice Maynard – Bass

Dark Matter

Auditory Armory is a female fronted Alternative Metal band that manages to take the best of Hard Rock, Metal, Progressive Rock and even some Jazz and cleanly distills them into a sound that can only be identified as theirs. This is the advantage of taking on music with wide, curious and wandering eyes instead of within the confines of what is and what should be for any certain genre/sub-genre of music and the die-hard fans that constantly in-fight these categorizations to death. This has always been a pet peeve. Categories should be used simply as a way of describing a sound to someone that has not heard of the band, not as some confining boundary of what music should sound like. Imagine, if you will, a musical landscape where Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Gershwin, Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, The Beatles, Elvis, Hendrix, Yes, Rush, Michael Hedges, Pink Floyd, Eddie Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Judus Priest, The Big 4, Chuck Schuldiner, Pantera, Cannibal Corpse and Venom chose not to think outside of the box. Got it worked out? Not a pretty picture, huh? This is precisely the reason I actively search out and share bands that throw the whole “writing within a box” thing to the wind. Auditory Armory is, obviously, one such band that fits the mold of not fitting in one.

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Robb Flynn “How Nobody [Everybody] Missed This Gigantic Rap Influence On Our Band I’ll Never Understand”

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The man really needs no introduction, Machine Head’s guitarist and vocalist Robb Flynn. Machine Head first came on the scene in 1991 and released their debut album ‘Burn My Eyes’ which has been a staple of American groove and thrash lovers catalog. The band has went on to release 9 studio albums their most recent of which is titled ‘Catharsis’ that comes out January 26th via Nuclear Blast Records. The album is the long awaited follow up to 2004’s ‘Bloodstone and Diamonds’. Machine Head has already released the title track and “Beyond The Pale” from ‘Catharsis’ and with a total of 15 tracks on the album we can’t wait to hear what each and every track has to offer. Make sure to pick up the album at any music retailer on January 26th.  Continue reading →

Plague’s Top 10 Albums Of 2017

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2018 is finally here! I don’t know about you, but after all the terrible shit that happened in the world this past year I’m definitely glad there was a heaping mound of great metal album releases to fall back on when things got rough. I think we can all agree that good music is more than just luxury we enjoy, but to many of us, a necessity, an escape from the tumultuous clamor of our increasingly difficult realities. When you’re a person who loves heavy music more than you love most people sifting through all of the stellar releases 2017 has given us can become a daunting task, but after some time for reflection I’ve compiled my ten favorites, and I’m excited to share them with you. Continue reading →

THROUGH FIRE’S Grant Kendrick On Fans At EdgeFest “They Couldn’t Wait To Sing It And Catch Eyes With Me”

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2017 was a big year for Through Fire. The band released their deluxe edition of ‘Breathe’ which included some new acoustic tracks and an amazing cover of “Jar Of Hearts” by Christina Perri. Their original song “Where You Lie” really hit home with fans both musically and emotionally. ‘Breathe’ dropped last year and charted very well in the US for a debut rock artist’s release. Their song “Stronger” played a large part in this. It stayed atop Sirius XM Octane’s “Big Uns” list for many weeks. 2017’s Louder Than Life was the band’s second Danny Wimmer Presents festival. They opened up the inaugural Chicago Open Air festival last year right as their record was released in 2016.  Continue reading →

CATATONIC PROFANATION Releases ‘Euphoric Dismemberment’ On January 4th!

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After the late 2017 release of ‘Parasitic Devourment’ came out I was instantly hooked with the oh so brutal waves which Catatonic Profanation brings but after hearing his up and coming record ‘Euphoric Dismemberment’ I was totally stunned. Check out why!

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Wessel’s Top Ten Albums Of 2017!

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2017 has been a crazy year for me personally but there were always 10 records that kept me going and those are the 9 above excluding ‘Wrong One To Fuck With’ by death metal machine Dying Fetus. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

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