By Avinash Mittur

The Bay Area seems to just about have it all when it comes to quality modern heavy metal. Strangely enough though, with the exception of San Jose’s Sleep, classic stoner rock and doom metal seems to have evaded the local scenes. Luckily for us that can’t get enough of the Almighty Riff though, Orchid from San Francisco have been able to nicely fill that gap in recent years. With barely any promotion and very rare live performances, Orchid have been one of the Bay Area’s best kept secrets until now. That’s truly a shame, because I’ll be damned if Orchid aren’t one of the most likable and downright cool acts coming out of the weird little town of San Francisco right now. In the two years since their first full length, Capricorn, Orchid have been rapidly gaining a following, thanks to a pair of killer EPs released in the last year and a small number of near-legendary shows at home. The band’s new record, The Mouths of Madness, is better than any fan could have hoped for though. It’s a loving tribute to the classic heavy music of old and it’s one of the best rock and roll albums anyone will hear all summer. Continue reading →

By Avinash Mittur

As most of you all know, as of May 2013 the music world has two bands calling themselves Queensrÿche. The version led by vocalist Geoff Tate has been touring the nation performing the original lineup’s classic Operation: Mindcrime album, but not before spending about six weeks in the studio putting together a new effort, Frequency Unknown. Many amazingly talented musicians got the chance to throw an ingredient into this musical gumbo, including a handful of the best the Bay Area has to offer. Sadly, the resulting record is a fundamentally mediocre hard rock album. While Frequency Unknown is extremely far removed from the sound that Queensrÿche established its legacy on, this album isn’t the trainwreck that many were expecting it to be. Continue reading →

By Avinash Mittur

Calling Sodom the German Motorhead is a mistake too many journalists make these days. Motorhead have undergone basically no musical evolution in their thirty odd years as a band, while Sodom have flirted with the likes of black metal, death metal, hardcore punk and of course, classic thrash. Calling Tom Angelripper the German Lemmy would be a bit more accurate though. Why does that analogy work a bit better? Both Lemmy and Angelripper give no fucks. The two men have always done what they want, when they want, and the results have been uniformly stunning for decades. With their new album, Epitome Of Torture, Sodom have refused to buck their admirable trend of writing some of the most brutal thrash metal around. There isn’t anything too different here, and frankly Sodom fans probably wouldn’t want it any other way. Continue reading →

By Avinash Mittur

A little over thirty years ago, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal changed the landscape of heavy metal entirely. The movement was the direct precursor to thrash, and from that of course evolved into what we now call ‘extreme metal’. Everyone knows the common names from this era: Iron Maiden, Saxon, Angel Witch etc, but the NWOBHM’s supply of killer bands is practically endless. One of the quicker acts on the market was Newcastle’s Satan. With a name that was bound to cause trouble and a late entry into the declining scene, Satan just missed out on heavy metal immortality. The band’s debut record, Court in the Act, remains a gem from the era but a pile of name changes and inconsistent material led to Satan fizzling out near the end of the ‘80s. Thirty years later, Satan’s original lineup have reunited and released Life Sentence, an album that proudly lives up to the legacy of their debut. There’s nothing on here that hasn’t been done before, but on Life Sentence the band does classic, traditional heavy metal better than most of their peers and just about all of the retro-minded bands around today. This album is a wonderful throwback to one of the coolest periods in metal history, and a fine slab of classic heavy metal in its own right.  Continue reading →

By Avinash Mittur

Don’t call VHOL a supergroup. The members of this special band have been friends and peers for years- to them, this is more than likely just a fun long-term project. For the rest of the world looking in though, it’s hard to see this band of truly remarkable individuals as anything but a ‘supergroup’. Guitarist John Cobbett managed to write one of the greatest American black metal albums ever, The Tenant by Ludicra, and a near-masterwork of modern progressive metal in Hammers of Misfortune’s 17th Street. Every musician even halfway serious about their craft wishes they had the skill, passion and discipline of bassist Sigrid Sheie- a university professor from 9 to 5, and a bassist/keyboardist/vocalist/flautist for a handful of great acts whenever she pleases. Aesop Dekker needs no introduction; the man was the drumming powerhouse behind Ludicra and has been ably propelling Portland, OR’s Agalloch since their breakthrough release, Marrow of the Spirit. Continue reading →