The underground metal community is a small world. When I interviewed Willy Rivera of Spiral Grave earlier this summer, he talked at length about a documentary called he was involved in that spotlighted musicians’ mental health; Rivera also mentioned that the filmmaker had made a previous documentary about the (at times, contentious) relationship between Christian… Continue reading A Visual Missionary: Chatting with Bruce Moore of Brutally Delicious Productions
Author: Jessie May
Listening Lately: Cult of Sorrow, Markov Soroka, and Matt Heckler
This week’s edition of Listening Lately is ALL over the place… Opening with audio of a Satanic ritual is one way to make a statement — and that’s how the first track of Cult of Sorrow’s new album begins, with some kind of movie sample blasting into high-octane trad metal riffage. The Ohio band is… Continue reading Listening Lately: Cult of Sorrow, Markov Soroka, and Matt Heckler
AltCtrlToob Video Premiere: “Demon” by VICTUS
UK metallers Victus truly show the world their demons in the video for their new single “Demon.” According to the band, it’s “a conceptual piece that questions self worth and morals” — and it’s a dark one at that. Directed by Victus guitarist Klayton Dean, the band takes the innocent and infuses it with a… Continue reading AltCtrlToob Video Premiere: “Demon” by VICTUS
Listening Lately: The Eastern Connecticut Takeover
Throughout metal history, there have been places where the right people and the right influences came together to spark a movement. Tampa Bay, Florida. Gothenburg, Sweden. And… Norwich, Connecticut? It might not be internationally recognized yet, but give the eastern Connecticut doom scene a decade and you’ll be reading about it on Wikipedia. I first… Continue reading Listening Lately: The Eastern Connecticut Takeover
Bearing Light from Coast to Coast: An Interview with Kyle Stratton of Atala
Thanks to an introduction from my photographer bud Julya, I did an off the cuff interview with Kyle Stratton from Atala after their performance at 2019’s Maryland Doomfest. This was the eighth day of the band’s 16-day, 16-show tour; beginning in northern California (nine hours away from their hometown on the California/Arizona border), their journey… Continue reading Bearing Light from Coast to Coast: An Interview with Kyle Stratton of Atala
A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole with Dee and Willy of Spiral Grave
Photographs by Julya Brown. My trip to Maryland Doom Fest in June 2019 was a journalistic adventure as well as a musical one. A highlight was talking with members of new Maryland band Spiral Grave, who played at Guido’s Speakeasy on Friday, June 21st. Introduced to the band by photographer Julya Brown, I talked separately… Continue reading A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole with Dee and Willy of Spiral Grave
Speaking Easy with Wolf Blood at Maryland Doomfest
It was a stormy, stormy night…. Originally conceived to be a thrash band, that idea for Wolf Blood was short lived. It’s hard to pin a genre on this heavy quartet out of Minneapolis, but thrash is not one that comes to mind. I was thinking more sludge/psych/doom… But anyhow, the band just put… Continue reading Speaking Easy with Wolf Blood at Maryland Doomfest