Blast Rites
Blast Rites: Dead Heat’s Crossover Heater Strikes Right on Time
Welcome to Blast Rites, SPIN’s monthly metal column! In this month’s edition, we’ve got catastrophically ripping thrash that’s an AOTY candidate, Florida death metal disciples joined by one of the genre’s early players, and new tracks from Darkthrone, Skepticism, and Deafheaven. (Our interview format will return next month. As punishment, Andy has to list everything from Agathocles’ discography in order, so as to spare his life. Harsh, but fair. Word is he’s only a third of the way there. How did he have the time to write this?) Dead Heat – World At War (Triple-B) Oxnard, California’s Dead Heat keep home close for inspiration, paying homage to Southern California crossover legends like Suicidal Tendencies, Dr. Know and Excel – punks who got metallized, essentially – while bringing their ow...
Ghastly’s Trippy Death Metal Dives Deep Into Madness
Death metal and psychedelic rock may seem worlds apart, but the two are actually riding the same psychic wavelength more often than not. In fact, I’d argue death metal has carried the mantle for psych for well over three decades. Both push guitar music to induce cerebral intoxication and overdrive – aided by copious volume – which can seem suffocating and freeing all at once. Psych’s trippy visions of boundless cosmos elicit the same heady pleasure of death metal’s visual fortes: dripping, melted skin, godly beings crushed into dust, endless wars begetting endless wars. No band embodies this connection like Finland’s Ghastly, whose latest album Mercurial Passages, out on May 28th through 20 Buck Spin, is as mind-bending as it is brutal. The trio, comprised of chief instrumentalist Ian J. D...
Spectral Lore’s Black Metal: A Light Against Fascism
This year’s most dynamic black metal album is Spectral Lore’s Ετερόφωτος, which comes out Friday through I, Voidhanger Records. The sole province of Greek musician Ayloss, he weaves through a battery that sounds heroic and adventurous minus the arrogance, some of the most serene 2010s post-black metal more prevalent in his other work (“Ατραπός”), dissonant chaos (the aptly named “Apocalypse”), and ambient stretches that blur the line between destruction and renewal (closer “Terean”), bursting through once again with a singular work. I first came to Spectral Lore through his 2015 EP Gnosis and was struck by its doomy mysticism; Ετερόφωτος sounds markedly different yet retains that mystical air. Ultimately, it’s a record about honoring your roots and learning to transcend them all the same....
Blast Rites: March 2021’s Hottest Metal
Welcome to Blast Rites, SPIN’s monthly metal column! In this edition, we’ll celebrate the return of one of experimental metal’s most celebrated bands, queer doom from Boston, London’s noisy metalcore sensation, and two new rippers from the Bay Area. Genghis Tron — Dream Weapon (Relapse) A lot was taken from us in the past year, yet renowned electronic-experimental metal group Genghis Tron got back together. Consider it a wash. With everything as fucked up as it now and Sumac drumming phenom Nick Yacyshyn joining the band, Dream Weapon should sound like layers upon layers of uncontrolled demolitions, right? Weapon is their least metallic, least chaotic, most synth-forward, most uncompromising record. Aggression hasn’t totally seeped out in hibernation — “Pyrocene” mixes rumbling synth bass ...
Blast Rites: February 2021’s Hottest Metal
Welcome to Blast Rites, SPIN’s monthly metal column! In this edition, we’ll dive headfirst into Blut Aus Nord visionary Vindsval returning to his roots, pummeling SoCal sludge, new heat from future Texas legends, a blackened RPG adventure, and a double dose of nasty grindcore. Read previous editions of Blast Rites here. Forhist — Forhist (Debemur Morti) 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 omnidirectiona...
Blast Rites: December 2020’s Hottest Metal
Welcome to Blast Rites, SPIN’s monthly metal column! Every month we’ll dig up the heaviest metal out there, stylistic boundaries be damned. Hot albums, hot tracks, hot whatever — we’ll bring only the most hellish heat. This month, we’ll bust open operatic black metal, filthy Danish death metal, and a split featuring Houston grindcore legends and Australia’s burliest bruisers, as well as remembering Cynic bassist Sean Malone. Folterkammer – Die Lederpredigt (Gilead Media) Not since Reed St. Mark joining Celtic Frost for their landmark LP To Mega Therion has such a formidable Swiss-American metal alliance emerged: Folterkammer, with their debut Die Lederpredigt, bring together Imperial Triumphant guitarist Zachary Ezrin and Swiss vocalist Andromeda Anarchia for black metal with operatic voca...
Blast Rites: November 2020’s Hottest Metal
Welcome to the first edition of Blast rites! Every month, we’ll find the shreddest, the grimmest, the doomiest, the thrashiest, the most wacked out, the most metal metal out there. Hot albums, hot tracks, hot whatever – we only bring the most hellish heat. Eternal Champion — Ravening Iron (No Remorse/Sword Worship) The first thing you hear on Ravening Iron, the second record from Eternal Champion, is vocalist Jason Tarpey banging hammer to anvil, kicking off “A Face in the Glare.” Literal metal on metal. And when he hits that Tom G. Warrior “OOGH!” moments later, part-time play-warriors throw their plastic swords into their Kia Souls and disperse defeated. If you ain’t banging, you ain’t hanging. And you gotta bang or else: Eternal Champion have really tightened up, delivering sharp,...
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