The One True Mayhem. Courtesy photo. Hot off the release of their well-received sixth album, Daemon, Norwegian black metal godfathers Mayhem were ready to take the world by storm—until the coronavirus hit. The band suddenly had to get out of town. “We had two days of pre-production before we figured…

Bassist Liam Wilson, formerly of The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Extol luminaries Christer Espevoll (drums) and David Husvik (guitar) had already put Azusa over with prog metal fans. But then you hear Eleni Zafiriadou’s voice, which bridges the gap between old-school screamo and Kate-Bush-style melody, effectively pushing this band…

For shred legend Joe Satriani, 2018’s What Happens Next only lived up to its name until it dropped. The guitarist now had to find the new next thing. Two years after an electrifying, no-frills rock and roll romp, Satriani looks to his versatility for inspiration. For a guitarist so…

Clockwise from top left: Deerhoof, Xibalba, Brutus, AWOLNATION with Alice Merton, Soft Plastics and The Seshen. Every week, there’s a plethora of new music at our fingertips. Artists on platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp are plentiful, and the radio offers a steady deluge of new singles, but who has…

The post-grunge and nu-metal crossover popularized by the likes of Staind in the ‘90s and Breaking Benjamin in the 2000s proved palatable for Christian audiences. A wave of religious rockers like Skillet, Disciple and Pillar crashed over the early and mid 2000s. Results varied, but none came close to…

One does not simply ask what genre Igorrr plays. Multi-instrumentalist Gautier Serre transformed his breakcore and avant-metal project into one France’s weirdest exports. Everything from Balkan music to industrial dance found its place on 2017’s full-length album Savage Sinusoid. While faultless in execution, Igorrr’s approach has a natural tendency toward overindulgence.…

Considering that his second album ever was an avant-garde electronica concept about the Chinese zodiac, anyone who categorizes Sufjan Stevens as a typical singer songwriter isn’t paying attention. After releasing The Decalogue, the impressionist piano ballet score he composed for Timo Andres, he now collaborates once again with his…

The term “Americana Metal” might seem outlandish, but Chicago’s Huntsmen find the middle ground between alt-country and stoner rock through the two genres’ common ground in storytelling. On this 85-minute double album, the band pushes itself as musicians and narrators. Driven by a musical conflation of prog, sludge and stoner…

Like any supergroup, it’s impossible to mention Human Impact without also mentioning its members’ credentials. With Unsane’s Chris Spencer on vocals and guitar, Chris Pravdica of Xiu Xiu and Swans on bass, Jim Coleman of Cop Shoot Cop handling electronics and Phil Puleo of Swans and Cop Shoot Cop…

At the very least, no one can say Pennsylvania’s Code Orange hasn’t earned its success. Since forming 12 years ago as Code Orange Kids, the band rose from basement shows to Grammy nominations, which has coincided with daring stylistic shifts. I Am King (2014) brutalized the band’s sound for the This Is Hardcore crowd,…