Shredification: Spring Metal Preview
Spring is wending its way towards San Francisco, and the improved weather will be accompanied by an array of exciting metal albums and the tours that follow in their wake. Bands both local and national will have new wares on display -- here are a few of the choicest to anticipate. Jucifer - Throned in Blood (April 6th, 2010, Nomadic Fortress Records) No matter how many times I enumerate Jucifer's essential details, they're still completely captivating. To wit, Amber Valentine and Edgar Livengood are the world's heaviest husband-and-wife team. As if that weren't quirky-cool enough, they're also officially nomadic, having [...]
Shredification: High on Fire promise sonic immolation with Snakes for the Divine
When you see Matt Pike play guitar -- snaggle-teeth glinting, baby-beer-belly inching over belt buckle, sweat dripping across numerous just-better-than-jailhouse tattoos -- you realize that he was put on the earth to be a fucking rock star. Even without hearing the inspired, arresting sounds emanating from his funky-looking, custom-made nine-string guitar, the fact is undeniable. Once the mutton-chopped visage is audibly coupled to the hair-raising Motor-Sabbath destruction of Pike's Bay Area power trio High on Fire, the slack-jawed showgoer becomes aware of something headbangingly transcendent transpiring before their very eyes. High on Fire first made waves with 2005's Blessed Black [...]
Shredification: Best Metal Albums of 2009
Merry Rotting Christmas, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the year-end installment of this column. Though other, more industrious writers have cast their vision back across the decade to craft comprehensive lists of goodness, spanning all ten years, this morsel of prose will focus solely on the dying year. Some of 2009's best offerings have already been profiled in my two previous columns, so spots are reserved in my top ten for Baroness' Blue Album , Shrinebuilder's self-titled release, and Gama Bomb's Tales from the Grave in Space. The seven discs to follow round out a ten-spot of metal mastery. [...]
My Metal Month of May
The shows cropped up fast as Memorial day approached, cascading on top of each other like the hairs of a vigorously headbanged coif. Instead of trying to keep pace, I bode my time. Now, feast on these reviews, covering the last couple weeks of heavy, condensed and combined into an omnibus post, richly suffused with the connective tissue of metaphor and theme. Black Cobra at Thee Parkside, 5/14 The beginning of a landmine marathon, the first battle in a war that my eardrums were certain to lose. Local duo Black Cobra appeared at a birthday party for Pirate [...]