heavy metal

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of top ten lists but my pals here at Bloody Good Horror have been doing them around this time of year for a while so I figured, "what the hell". There are rules, though. All albums must be original studio releases from the year that was 2014.

Okay, let’s get going on what worked this year.

D.M: Before this gets hijacked and turns into a discussion of Taylor Swift, let me get a couple thoughts down before we move on.  I mostly agree with your sentiment.  I would wholly agree, but I haven't heard the whole record, only the parts that mass media have made un

D.M: I guess I'll launch the first volley.

The anticipation was both palpable and unspoken.  The collective combination of hope and grief was evident on the faces on the gathered throng.  Still, it was undeniable that less human fodder had assembled to stand in front of GWAR.  Whether that was the product of a cold, snowy n

As we approach the end of another calendar year I find myself asking reflective questions... is it time to change my impossibly high standards and the inevitable disappointment that goes along with them to something more realistic? Do I expect too much from people?

2014 has summarily been both the year of the side project and the year of the industrial revolution (pardon my co-opting of the phrase,) so it seems remarkably apropos that the year should just about wrap up with Emigrate’s “Silent So Long,” the second side album from Rammstein’s Richard Kruspe.

It’s not all that often that I go deep-ending into prog records, and even less often that I’m interested in three-song re-mastered demos from seven years ago.  But it probably says something about Haken’s “Restoration” that we’re even here having this discussion.

Progressive metal is in a rough period right now. The old guard are either releasing sub-standard albums that only make it more obvious how far they have fallen, or they are drastically uncool with anyone who didn't become a fan when progressive metal was first being created.

There is usually a gaping chasm between the bands and albums that get critical acclaim, and those that get popular acclaim. Part of that stems from the way that critics think about music, which evolves into a pseudo-intellectual statement of one's own musical literacy.