Blast Rites News Today

Ah, Metallica… Is there any metal band that’s more polarizing? Or any other that commands a fan base remotely as large while attracting a seemingly equal amount of haters? Metallica were my first favorite metal band, which makes me one of a legion of similar converts. I was just entering adolescence when the Black Album … Blast Rites: The Optimist’s Take on Metallica, and More of April’s Best New Metal Read More » The post Blast Rites: The Optimist’s Take on Metallica, and More of A...

Welcome back to Difficult Fun! Each month, SPIN will spotlight the best punk on the planet and discuss it here, with the ambition of challenging preconceived notions of what the four-letter word actually means and, ideally, entertaining readers in the process. Purists, piss off! Everyone else, enjoy. Difficult Fun has risen from the dead! Ya … February 2023’s Best Punk: Difficult Fun Will Never Die, But You Will Read More » The post February 2023’s Best Punk: Difficult Fun Will Never Die,...

It’s shaping up to be a huge year for live metal. The amount of stacked festivals and unmissable tours is growing by the week. Baltimore’s venerable Maryland Deathfest may be taking a year off — a breather before the event comes roaring back in 2024 — but in its place, the battle-vest-clad faithful can choose … Blast Rites: Memoriam’s Karl Willetts Returns to the Battlefield, and More of February’s Best New Metal Read More » The post Blast Rites: Memoriam’s Karl Willetts Returns...

In 1995, French black metal group Blut Aus Nord released their debut Ultima Thulée, which bandleader Vindsval composed in his mid-teens. While it resembles much of mid-’90s black metal with its bitterly cold sound and budget symphonic keyboards, it hinted at the expansive vision Vindsval would eventually wield as black metal’s dominating iconoclast. He is not a nostalgist, and even his more conventional works are made with an omnidirectional glare, never dwelling on when he was a budding ...

Smile and the World Smiles With You (Self-released) Gatecreeper isn’t the only Arizona band to unleash nastiness recently: on New Years’ Day, Phoenix trio Fluids dropped Smile and the World Smiles With You, a three-track EP that cements them as the goregrind band to beat. While Mortician is an influence du jour in the underground now, their early efforts carried a “man discovers fire” energy, stumbling upon primitive brilliance that can’t be replicated by average dudes consciously du...

Aldrig i livet (Dark Descent) Copenhagen death metal quartet Undergang continue to plunge through Autopsy’s swampy catacombs with their fifth album, Aldrig i livet. In maintaining course, they’ve further mired themselves, mutating through sheer will. Indhentet af døden, their debut, was dirty but legible — here they’ve fully given in to the filth, slathering their production in grime and indulging in unguided chaos. Undergang thrive as they’ve gone beyond the pale: “Menneskeæde...