Metal mayhem
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“Black” metal is not really to my taste, but friend of this blog and brother-in-law extraordinaire Josh sent me a link to this article on Norwegian black metallers Enslaved from, of all places, the New York Times. The whole Scandanavian black metal scene has seen some pretty creepy stuff, actually. Church burnings, murder and suicide Read more
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“Gothenburg metal,” a.k.a. “melodic death metal,” takes its name from the scene originating in Gothenburg, Sweden in the 90s. Unlike traditional death metal, the Gothenburg style features “more melodic guitar riffs, melodic solos, and acoustic guitar work than death metal. It also contains more comprehensible lyrics as well as coherent singing along with traditional death Read more
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Heavy metal is the Protestantism of music: it splits into ever-smaller sects, with their devotees often anathematizing all others. You have speed, thrash, death, grind, doom, sludge, glam, goth, stoner, symphonic, prog, metalcore, grindcore, deathcore, etc. ad infinitum forever and ever Amen. But did you know there’s a sub-genre called mathcore? Mathcore, according to Wikipedia: Read more
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A while back I posted a link to a video from this band along with a few other “Christian metal” acts. This past weekend we made a pilgrimage to Target in Alexandria – the first time we’d been there since moving in back in July, so lots of household items to stock up on – Read more
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Just cause I feel like it and have been listening to this album today: Killswitch Engage, “My Last Serenade”: Read more
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Okay, metal is a bit of a stretch, but there are definitely some metal inflections (along with funk, rap, reggae, etc.). More importantly, they’re just good. “Fight The Youth” “Sunless Saturday” Read more
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If there’s any sub-genre of metal more disdained than hair metal it’s got to be late-90s “nu-metal” (also sometimes called – somewhat inaccurately – rap-metal). While generally quite terrible, there were some decent bands that came out of it. I have a soft spot for this band and actually own two of their albums (this Read more
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In case you thought ATR was the only place on the web where Christianity and heavy metal fandom intersect, the blog Metal Sucks offers a “guilty pleasure” playlist of Christian metal. I’m not crazy about any of it, though the As I Lay Dying song is ok. And yes -Stryper does make the cut. Read more
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Hair metal has become synonymous with late-80s excess and VH1 ironic nostalgia specials. Many people consider the advent of grunge as something akin to divine providence due to its role in sweeping the radio clean of the scourge of hair (a.k.a. glam) metal. Now, I’d be the last one to deny that there were some Read more
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If you like lush, operatic European power metal with foxy female singers and videos that look like outtakes from Lord of the Rings, then this one’s for you: Read more
A Thinking Reed 