Celtic Frost

I cite Celtic Frost's love-it-or-hate-it 1987 experimental album Into The Pandemonium as the inspiration for post-black metal, as it employs nearly all its main building blocks, namely exotic instrumentation (violins, cellos, French horns, sampling), layered harsh and clean vocals (of particular note is the female operatic singer, belting it out in French no less) unconventional or seemingly non-existent song structures, flirtations with pop and dance music, and an overwhelmingly flippant disregard for the usual sensibilities of your average metalhead. Read More

Author Ian Glasper 's latest book ' Trapped in a Scene ' is just out, and completes his trilogy of Eighties UK Punk. 'Trapped charters the latter part of the decade and, like it's predecessors 'Burning Britain' (early Eighties) and "The Day the Country Died' (Anarcho-Punk) is extremely well researched and as definitive a piece of writing you are going to find on an era that, for the most part, was a strictly subterranean phenomenon, that existed off the radar of the mainstream, but thrived none the less. Read More

Dan Lilker is, to use a technical term, a badass motherfucker. Read More

In a deliciously cheeky blow to the sanctimony surrounding alt.rock's holy martyr, the virtual Cobain not only sings "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Lithium" but once unlocked can also be used to play such towering monuments to rock'n'roll liberation and anti-corporatism as "You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Play That Funky Music" . Read More

One more dose of aural filth to close out the week! (see also here and here ) Obliteration are a relatively young band from Norway with one album under their belt on Nocturnal Culto 's Tyrant Syndicate label and a new one on the way at the end of the month from Fysisk Format, so that alone should already give you a decent idea of what they sound like. Read More

Southern Lord are regarded as choice tastemakers in the metal realm. Read More