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Band of the Month: YAKUZA
When I first heard Chicago’s Yakuza way back on 2002′s Way of the Dead, I didn’t quite know what to make them. I remember thinking they seemed confused about what kind of band they wanted to be. Now...
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Interview: AVICHI
Avichi’s The Devil’s Fractal is a fierce yet seductive beast. The album is an exercise in scathing yet hypnotic orthodoxy, a musical dialogue between man and Satan. It is infused with a frightening...
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Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore (Profound Lore, 2011)
Utterly embarrassed as I am to admit it, I’m no stranger to bouts of misogyny. Prior to meeting my phenomenal wife, my romantic dealings with the opposite sex were, to put it mildly, less than stellar...
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Nachtmystium – Silencing Machine (Century Media, 2012)
Over the past several years, Chicago black metallers Nachtmystium have made a career out of throwing musical curveballs. It all started with the USBM acid trip that was 2006′s Instinct: Decay,...
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DeathCult – The Test of Time (Caligari Records, 2013)
Being a one-man project released on cassette, you’d probably be expecting DeathCult’s The Test of Time to be some kind of depressive/suicidal/ambient black metal clusterfuck. Fortunately you couldn’t...
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Broken Hope – Omen of Disease (Century Media, 2013)
In spite of kicking around the death metal scene since 1988, Chicago’s Broken Hope rarely get their due in underground circles. These wholesome, well-mannered Midwestern boys made good have often...
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Avichi – Catharsis Absolute (Profound Lore, 2014)
Chicago’s Avichi impressed the hell out of me with their 2011 release, The Devil’s Fractal, so much so that I interrogated guitarist/vocalist/mastermind Andrew Markuszewski at length about the album,...
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Murmur – s/t (Season of Mist, 2014)
Black metal is getting weirder. From Aluk Todolo’s blackened krautrock to Oranssi Pazuzu’s astral psych attack and beyond, the genre has decidedly taken a turn towards the freaky and far-out, and...
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Broken Hope @ Vaudeville Mews, 04/03/2014
Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to finally check a few bands off my old school death metal bucket list. The likes of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Grave (I sadly missed Deicide...
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Sun Splitter – Live on WFMU (Sol y Nieve, 2014)
Longtime readers of THKD know that I’m typically not big on live recordings. But, I am big on Sol y Nieve; the upstart Idaho-based label has already released two of this year’s finest slabs of black...
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Imperial Savagery – s/t (self-released, 2014)
Remember when death metal was legitimately ugly music that could scare the shit out of the average Joe? If their self-released, self-titled debut album is anything to go on, Chicago’s Imperial...
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Sons of Famine – Alcohol and Razor Blades (self-released, 2013)
Just as I’ve started to settle into life on the West Coast, along comes a band from the Midwest to remind me that my home region can kick serious ass when it wants to. That band is Chicago’s Sons of...
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