SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IMMOLATION, INFERI, HELLRIPPER, BONE WEAPON, BOSSE-DE-NAGE, TEMPLE OF VOID

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 172026
 

(written by Islander)

Thinking back on the last week’s domestic and international news, it sure looks like humanity is circling the drain at an increasing rate of speed and frothiness. (Speaking of which, if you haven’t listened to the new music from Circular Ruin you should, and not just because their name so perfectly captures the current moment.)

On the other hand, the flow of new metal during the past week was more like the opposite of that, a great spinning flow surging up and out of the drain like a reverse-whirlpool of dark waters flooding out of the underground. New songs spun out from bands with prominent names but also from groups whose names are dramatically more obscure (but should becoem better known).

Even with my high waders on, I was only able to divert a small amount of the surge into this weekly column, and it’s a rarity in that all but one of the bands are from the U.S. Hopefully I’ll be able to divert more of the surge toward your attention in tomorrow’s Sunday column, but the Seahawks are in an NFL playoff game tonight and I’m not sure what kind of shape my head and heart will be in come the dawn, so who knows? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HELLRIPPER, ABYSMAL DAWN, OMEGAVORTEX, OMNIVORTEX, SOULFLY, VALLETTA, ROTGUT, LOCUSTS AND HONEY

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 252025
 

(written by Islander)

I spent more time than usual last night listening to heavy music and, unlike what often happens on Friday nights, I didn’t get destroyed (except by the music), so I felt pretty good upon awakening this Saturday. Which is why this roundup is as bulging as it is.

In my listening excursion I fell down a rabbit hole, not intending to, but that’s what falling down is about. Except this rabbit hole was like a steep and rapid descent (more jet-fueled than gravity usually powers), with a fuckload of fireworks and sharp edges on the way down, and who knew rabbits had such big teeth and vicious red eyes?

Or to put it more prosaically, there’s a ton of high-speed thrashing and vigorous battering ahead of you. At least until the end, when I indulged something very different, for people who don’t want to thrash their reproductive organs off today or otherwise get their craniums fractured and their grey matter whipped up in a centrifuge. Continue reading »

BEST OF BRITISH: GRIEF SYMPOSIUM / HELLRIPPER / MAN MUST DIE

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 142023
 

(Andy Synn waxes philosophical in this latest edition of “The Best of British”)

I’ve been accused – more than once – of “overthinking things”, especially when it comes to music… or movies… or, indeed, art of any form.

So today I’ve decided that the best thing to do is to lean into these accusations by asking some, ahem, “deep”, philosophical questions during this particular edition of “The Best of British”.

Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2020’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 5): HELLRIPPER, SPEEDKILLER, BULLETBELT, TØRONTO

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2020  2 Responses »
Jan 082021
 

 

For this fifth installment of the list I’ve decided to include four songs instead of two or three. The impulse to include all of these together was irresistible, for reasons I think you’ll understand after you’ve heard all of them.

HELLRIPPER

From humble beginnings this solo project of James McBain has moved from self-releasing its 2015 debut EP (The Manifestation of Evil) and its 2017 debut album (Coagulating Darkness) to landing on the roster of Peaceville Records, which released Hellripper’s second album The Affair of the Poisons last October. For those of us who’ve been adherents of the music since early days, this was a happy development but not a shocking one. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NON SERVIAM, MALICIOUS, HELLRIPPER, PALACE OF WORMS, DUNWICH, VALRAVNE, FLAME, ASTRAL WINTER

 SHADES OF BLACK  9 Responses »
Jun 212020
 

 

I had a big block of uninterrupted time to myself yesterday afternoon, with my spouse out of the house at a safe birthday celebration and the cats sleeping. So of course I spent the time digging through my list of new black metal(ish) music in preparation for this column. You see the results: More time means more picks.

NON SERVIAM (France)

I have Cvlt Nation to thank for this first discovery. The introduction to their premiere was brief and didn’t include much detail about the music, but the blaring headline did the job: “Listen To Non Serviam’s Salem – It’s Depraved And Sick! This Band Sounds Like NO OTHER!” I also thought the cover image was fantastic, and so decided to see what was going on with the music. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 22): MATTERHORN, HELLRIPPER, ULTRA SILVAM, MAN MUST DIE, GORGON, TYRANT GOATGALDRAKONA, EXULANSIS, BORKNAGAR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  8 Responses »
Feb 022020
 

 

As predicted at the end of yesterday’s penultimate segment of this list, I spent hours agonizing about what to include in this final Part. And in the end, despite the internal misery occasioned by having to make a final choice among so many strong remaining candidates, it’s still a largely random outcome — even though this final episode includes a LOT more songs than usual. Basically, I went with my gut, slightly aided by my brain, which thought this sequence of tracks might be a fitting conclusion. At a minimum, it’s more directly in line with the title of this list than yesterday’s choices.

The first three songs are guitar spectacles, the fourth and fifth ones keep the savage energy in the red zone in different ways, the sixth moves into malevolent brutishness (with serious risk of sore-neck syndrome), and then we shift gears into downright epic territory with the last two stirring and marvelously multi-faceted songs, which seemed the right way, in farewell, to express how glorious metal was in 2019.

MATTERHORN

I first stumbled across the Swiss band Matterhorn in the spring of 2018 when they had two songs up for streaming in advance of Iron Bonehead‘s CD release of their debut album, Crass Cleansing, and I came away very impressed. I had a tough time categorizing the music, describing it then as a stew of extremity that included elements of thrash, speed metal, punk, black metal, and death metal — and the overall impact was electrifying. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 9): KREATOR, HELLRIPPER, CONDOR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  4 Responses »
Jan 222018
 

 

I had a whirlwind out-of-town trip that consumed this past weekend, which is why I was unable to continue the roll-out of this list on Saturday and Sunday. But I’m back home in the Seattle area now, and ready to pick up where I left off on Friday.

And speaking of whirlwinds, there are three of them in this 9th installment of the list. It won’t take you much time to figure out why I grouped them together.

KREATOR

Because thrash is the core of all three songs I’m adding today, and because all three bands are so good at what they do, all three albums were loaded with hellishly catchy songs I could have picked for the list. That was certainly true of Kreator’s latest full-length, Gods of Violence. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HELLRIPPER — “DEMDIKE (IN LEAGUE WITH THE DEVIL)”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Mar 312017
 

 

Coagulating Darkness is the new album by Hellripper, a one-man band from Aberdeen, Scotland, created by James McBain. The album will be released on April 14 through the German label Barbarian Wrath and the Scottish label Granite Factory Records, and we have for you the premiere of a song from the album called “Demdike (In League with the Devil)”.

This is Hellripper’s first full-length. It follows a debut EP in 2015 (The Manifestation of Evil), a trio of splits, and a compilation released last year (Complete and Total Fucking Mayhem). As you’re about to find out, Hellripper is a name that suits the music very well — because this is black thrash and speed metal that rips hell. Continue reading »