Like many I suspect I was drawn to old school death merchants Bloodbath via their connection to Mikael Åkerfeldt. Since debuting with the classic EP Breeding Death the band have gone through a myriad of tweaks and changes to both personnel and sound, coming out the other side with perhaps their strongest lineup and album in The Arrow of Satan is Drawn. Harkening back to the early classic Swedish death metal formula without being slave to it, the album drips with a nasty, nauseating vibe that reinforces the band as much more than a “supergroup.” Continue reading
anders nystrom
Retrospective: Katatonia – “Night is the New Day”
We all have our guilty pleasures. For example, I’m sure there’s a metalhead out there somewhere getting into his sticker-covered automobile, yet pumping Counting Crows’ August and Everything After. That’s why, for this week’s Retrospective, I chose to write about Katatonia and their mournful, pop-inspired classic Night is the New Day—an album so great that it fulfills the desire for guilty pleasure music while still maintaining all your credibility as a metalhead. So move over Hanson and America, make room for Mattias and Fredrik Norrman. Continue reading