Home » Posts tagged with » California (Page 2)
California \ Carbonized Records \ grindcore \ San Jose \ Stephen Bower
Well this was surprisingly enjoyable for an album that first appears to be a rip off of some Teitanblood shit, but not nearly as long. In fact it’s not even half of that or so. Albums that deliver in such a short span of time are amazing to me when they work. Most bands […]
California \ Gothic death metal \ Transcending Obscurity Records \ Zé Burnay
At first I thought there was something wrong with this promo. Two tracks of “death metal”, WTF? That’s practically single length, barely an EP in my books. But okay it’s an EP I guess. So here’s the thing about EPs. You have to prove yourself fast and hard or it’s all over. You hear […]
California \ hardcore punk \ Los Angeles \ Southern Lord Recordings
I typically review punk submissions when I get them unless they’re absolutely awful, so even the average I’ll give a shot just because it’s so rare I receive anything from the genre that doesn’t reek of stagnancy. When I saw the quintessential post-punk look to the cover of this I figured it would be […]
California \ Neil Scrivin \ post-punkwave \ Santa Cruz \ Starfield Music \ synthwave
It always annoys me so listen up you guys. Send me more promos like this. Gawsh why do bands of this type seem to be so poorly promoted? Maybe it’s the focus we used to have on metal all the time, I don’t know. Seeing our metal focus long ago they say “oh that’s […]
AD&D \ beholder shit \ blackened death metal \ Blood Harvest Records \ California \ one-dude metal \ role-playing metal lol wut \ RPG \ United States
Is it a thing that bands starting with “Xa” are one dude? Total exaggeration on my part, because only Xasthur comes to mind, but now there’s Xantam. Maybe I’m on to something… Anyway, so clearly there’s an AD&D obsession here, because one, dude’s got a beholder on both of his releases (this and a […]
California \ classic metal \ hair metal \ heavy metal \ Marc Schoenbach \ not pussy \ Pounder \ Sadist Art Designs
I can’t remember the last time I reviewed heavy metal. Unlike thrash, which you still feel totally badass for listening to, heavy metal can lack that effect outside of its original context, that is, the olden times. It has a tendency to feel more dated than Satanic imagery in metal at large. Oh shit […]
20 Buck Spin \ California \ HP Lovecraft \ Ian Miller \ Jesus fucking Lovecraft AGAIN \ Lovecraftian bullshit \ post-black metal \ post-death metal \ post-metal
Now here’s a good one, musically speaking… Thematically it almost killed me with redundancy, which I’ll explain, but these guys are so skilled at what they do I could ignore it, mainly because I didn’t know what any of it was about until after I listened about 10 times. California’s Ulthar are true masters […]
black metal \ California \ death metal \ experimental death metal \ Leviathan \ Los Angeles \ Our Place of Worship is Silence \ Translation Loss Records \ we're so elite \ Wrest
You know when the band’s name and album title have taken up nearly your entire post title and take more than a minute to write it’s not going to be good. It just reeks of that sticky, foul kind of pretentiousness that ruins far too many bands. Note to those who dare tread this path, if […]
baby sacrifice \ California \ death metal \ Marald van Haasteren \ Necrot \ Tankcrimes
I guess since the 1980s set the standard with baby slaying imagery, we need to keep that going so anyone just getting into death metal knows what it is. It doesn’t bother me, no, I just sometimes would prefer deathers come up with new themes, because I pretty much chose this one for the aesthetics […]
California \ cassette \ dark industrial \ death industrial \ Fetters \ Goth \ noise \ skeletons rule \ Sol Y Nieve
Ah, how long it’s been since I heard some death industrial that did my body bad. But I’m running out of analogies, and also ways of self-deprecating as a form of humor and not-so-clever criticism, because I’ve said that too. So how can this be any different? How can a band making reference to binding […]