Normally I try to avoid unofficial releases of actual albums. I’m fine with picking up a live Led Zep record from a show in the in 1970s, but I wouldn’t buy some bootleg copy of Houses of the Holy. The former gives me access to something that the band themselves never put out. The latter […]
Tag: Black Metal
Mayhem – “Dawn Of The Black Hearts” (1995 / 2023)
TRIGGER WARNING! Some parts of the Mayhem story are just plain awful. So here’s your chance to opt out. The story of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem has been widely told, including being turned into a film called Lords of Chaos (starring Macaulay Culkin’s brother Rory, and Val Kilmer’s son Jack). The film was […]
Destruction – “Sentence of Death” (1984)
Destruction are considered part of the “Big Four” of German thrash bands, alongside Kreator, Sodom, and Tankard. I of course did not know this when I picked up Sentence of Death at Rough Trade during our visit to New York City a few months ago. What I did know, however, is these guys look like […]
Vafurlogi – “Í Vökulli Áþján” (2024)
I seem to have a lot of black metal albums for someone who doesn’t profess to be a black metal fan. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t dislike the genre. It’s just that in my experience people who are into black metal are into black metal in a serious way. So it feels a […]
Plaguefever – “Crude Implements” (2021)
“I got a Plaguefever, and the only prescription is more Crude Implements.“— Producer Bruce Dickinson Plaguefever are a metal band from Virginia. Sometime earlier this year one of the band members found his way to Iceland and dropped off a few copies of their 2021 record Crude Implements at Lucky Records, one of which then […]