Metal music is no stranger to scares. For many bands that’s the entire point, with perverse lyrics, gory album art, and frightening stage outfits. It’s a constant battle of one-upmanship. However, as metalheads we can become pretty desensitized to this excessive brutality, so it takes something pretty special to make a legitimately scary metal song: a perfect balance between “shocking” and “haunting.” Most metal bands that might be considered “scary” (at least by normie standards) fall on the “shocking” side, focusing on violence and gore. The most obvious example would be Cannibal Corpse, who are undoubtedly brutal with sickening lyrics and album art, but aren’t exactly ones for subtlety. Practically all brutal death metal, slam, goregrind, etc would also fall into this category. On the other extreme, some bands nail the “haunting” side of scariness with slow, lingering riffs and dark, wailing vocals, but never quite pack that punch to […]
7 Albums That Overshadow Everything Else the Band Has Released
Sometimes a band will release an album so killer they’ll be the victims of their own success and inadvertently overshadow the rest of their discography. And I’m not just talking about legacy acts who have been releasing quality records for decades, but their fans only ever want to hear their “old stuff.” Nor am I talking about bands who secured their fame with one good debut album then skated on their reputation with a bunch of mediocre to bad releases afterward (sorry, Entombed). Hell, most of the albums I’ll be naming won’t even be early in their respective bands’ discographies. The criteria for being on this list is: a) Being an excellent album from an overall excellent discography, b) Somehow overshadows the rest of its respective discography and be my constant go-to whenever I want to listen to that band, c) And although this post was inspired by this Hard […]
8 Album Covers That Look Like Memes
Memes are one of the greatest uses of the internet, hands down. Sure, the internet does a few other cool things as well, like allowing us to access a wealth of knowledge and information our ancestors couldn’t even comprehend, or giving us near instantaneous communication with the rest of the world. But what better way to communicate a broad and nuanced idea or argument than to represent it as an image macro with a few lines of text over it? Memes are the peak of human civilization. And metal is the peak of music. So it’s only appropriate when the two coincide. Here are 8 metal album covers that look like popular memes: 8. Chelsea Grin self-titled EP looks like “Me Gusta” The resemblance between these two images goes beyond their similar appearances. Sure, they are both faces whose mouths are practically the same width, but their legacies also mirror […]
They Didn’t Come Out of Nowhere: 5 Underrated Metal Scenes
Metalheads love to talk about bands they think are “underrated.” Although they might have a tenuous understanding of what that word even means (the definition is “not rated or valued highly enough”), I have discovered some pretty killer new music from YouTube videos and blog posts about underrated metal bands. However, I’m finding the entire argument over underrated and overrated metal bands itself to be an overrated conversation. While metalheads have no trouble acknowledging the Tampa death metal scene, Bay Area thrash, Norwegian black metal, etc, there are plenty other geographical areas that are home to multiple well-respected acts who go unacknowledged. Sometimes this can be attributed to the price of success: a few of the below metal scenes are already so well-known for another style of music that they get overshadowed in comparison. In other cases these scenes may have been a little late to the party, with their style […]
The Triumphant Return of the Skullet!
I made a post a while back extolling the magnificence of the skullet, the most metal hairstyle in all of existence. Unfortunately, I missed a few opportunities to post photos of musicians (or audience members) I had seen myself, so I vowed not to make that mistake again. That’s why I have been at work collecting photos of the best metal musician skullets I have seen for your viewing pleasure. I may not be much of a photographer, but even the lousiest comb-over skullet can shine through crappy photography with its undeniable brilliance. Here are the top 7 skullets I’ve had the privilege of seeing live: 7. Terry Butler of Obituary Maybe not a full skullet as of yet, but the legendary death metal bassist’s part seems to get wider every time I see him. Fitting for such a legacy, I eagerly look forward to seeing how it progresses in […]
Bands I Hope Never Get Back Together
With the news that Slayer is getting back together after a whole five years of being broken up, fans are now debating whether this reunion is just a shameless cash grab, whether their initial break up was really a hiatus with a planned return from the beginning, or if their reunion lineup is even the “real” Slayer. I will not be opining on any of those debate topics, but I will be using this as an opportunity to talk about broken up bands that I hope never get back together. Some of these are my favorite bands, some are bands I have never listened to in my entire life, but none are bands I don’t want to reunite simply because I don’t like them. I’m perfectly capable of not attending a concert I don’t think I would enjoy. However, even though many of these are bands I like, not everything […]
Five Bands Who Sound Better Than Their Logos Look
I wrote an article about great albums with awful cover art a while back, but sometimes a band can consistently release great albums and still plaster a lousy logo on every one of them. Not every band needs to have an unreadable logo that looks like this… …but considering all of the below bands have their own unique sounds, they could have at least stood to have more unique logos to match. 5. Ophis Look, I understand the obsession in metal with incorporating inverted crosses and pentagrams into your logo at every chance you get. But couldn’t Ophis have had their graphic designer do more than just that before calling it a day? Okay, I guess they turned the “S” into a snake, added a few spikes, and made sure the letters were a little jagged, but come on. This is just boring. And as someone who takes pride in […]
Every Band That Should be in the Big Four Instead of Anthrax
It’s a question as old as time: “Should X band be in the Big Four instead of Anthrax?” There are a couple popular choices for who should replace the much-maligned little brother of the Big Four, but it seems like every thrash band and their grandmothers have been posited as a more suitable replacement for Anthrax at some point or another. It has reached the extent to where the majority of times I hear the Big Four mentioned are in conjunction with “should X band be in them instead of Anthrax?” or some such variation. Some thrashers stretch this to the point of hilarity by making up their own alternative “big fours:” the Teutonic Big Four, the Canadian Big Four, the Other Big Four, etc. without the slightest trace of irony. Or realizing that their alternative “big fours” are just as made-up as the Big Four itself. Yes, despite the […]
4 Metal Album Covers That Look Like Penises
I’ve talked about good albums with terrible album art before, but I’ve lately noticed several albums covers that, while not bad art, all share the unfortunate quality of looking like a particular part of the male anatomy. By “several,” I mean four, so I can’t even call this a top 5 list, but not for lack of trying; I spent more time than I’d like to admit on the Metal Archives looking for the fifth accidental member to complete my collection, but to no avail. If you find my lack of success surprising, please keep in mind that I only considered unintentional resemblances to manhoods in the album art for this list, so you pornogrind fans can keep your album covers to yourselves, thank you very much. This is a family-friendly blog. Glam fans, the same goes for you. I don’t want your album art and its very intentional allusions […]
10 Halloween Movies for People Who Don’t Like Horror
It’s the best time of the year. The leaves are changing into an arboreal fireworks display, it’s getting a little cooler out, fresh apples are in season, and Halloween is right around the corner! That means trick-or-treating, costume parties, an unhealthy amount of sugar ingestion, carving jack-o’-lanterns, and horror movies! Alright! Let’s watch some axe-wielding psycho chop up teenagers for the nine-hundredth year in a r-what’s that? Whaddaya mean you don’t like horror movies? Don’t like being scared? Uhhhhghghg… Okay, fine. I have some other movies we can watch that don’t match the definition of “horror,” but will still get you primed for the season. I haven’t actually rewatched most of these movies recently, since I’ve been spending any free time I can get watching horror movies like a normal person, so my descriptions are all based off of my memories of whenever I last watched them, IMDB summaries, and […]