Author Archive for Christopher Krovatin
Review: Mastodon – The Hunter
It takes a special kind of band to put out an album whose gimmick is that it doesn’t have a grandiose cosmic concept behind it, but Mastodon do just that with The Hunter, their fifth full-length record and third major label release. But while such a claim hints at a “return to form,” it’s truly [...]
Review: Saviours – Death’s Procession
There is a type of music that is best listened to in a van. It has to be something as large and unwieldy as the vehicle itself, something that echoes well in a smoke-filled cabin, something that is only improved by an airbrushed depiction of the Grim Reaper wrestling a tiger on a Yin Yang [...]
Final Six: The Six Most Metal Serial Killers/Cereal Characters
Count Chocula is an undead pusher made of fucking chocolate. Accept no substitutes.
Review: Chthonic – Takasago Army
Chthonic rep their motherland of Taiwan. On 2005’s Seediq Bale, the band wrote an orchestral black metal concept album about the Wushe Incident, in which Taiwanese aborigines rebelled against and were massacred by Japanese colonial forces. Now, with Takasago Army, the band uses their hyperbolic brand of bombastic sonic darkness to tell the story of [...]
Interview: All Pigs Must Die Vocalist Kevin Baker On Creating Something “Nasty”
With their debut album, God Is War (Southern Lord), All Pigs Must Die have tossed a Molotov cocktail into the musical landscape. Though the band includes members of Converge, Bloodhorse, and the Hope Conspiracy, this isn’t just another supergroup, but is rather a distillation of all the things that make metal and hardcore scary. The [...]
Live Report: Summer Slaughter 2011
Chris Krovatin is the author of two young adult novels, Heavy Metal & You and Venomous. He is currently working on multiple new writing projects, as well as new material with his local New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone’s collective ass. [...]
Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J On What to Expect at the Gathering
Beginning today, the Twelfth Annual Gathering of the Juggalos goes down in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, and if its bizarre infomercials and past performances suggest anything, it will be four solid days of facepainted mayhem. We stopped Violent J on his way to Circus Magurkus whorehouse and asked him what things a newbie should know before attending [...]
All Pigs Must Die – God Is War
All Pigs Must Die aren’t in the subtlety game. Made up of members of the Hope Conspiracy, Converge, and Bloodhorse, their sound is mixture of thrash, hardcore, and proto–black metal that wears its ugliness and outrage on its sleeve. Even their name is sincere, Death in June reference though it may be: this is the [...]
Exclusive Interview: Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J: “We Are the Most Hated Band in the World!”
In anticipation of this year’s Gathering of the Juggalos, Violent J comes clean
Review: Fleshgod Apocalypse – Agony
For many years, Italy has been of questionable metal cred. Though they produce big-name goth-rock acts (Lacuna Coil), baroque power-metal wizards (Rhapsody), and the occasional filthy underdweller (Necrodeath), Italy has never yielded a truly brilliant extreme-metal band—until now. Fleshgod Apocalypse create crushing brutal death metal laced with sweeping orchestrals and pained wailing vocals, and Agony, [...]
