Rainbows in the Dark:  Dorthia Cottrell — “Death Folk Country”

Conjuring images of golden hour illuminated pine forests and vast tall grass fields in rural Virginia, Dorthia Cottrell explores her hometown and her own heart in this deeply personal release Death Folk Country.  The album title perfectly captures the sound exuded within.  Her rustic and melancholy vocals rise above simple acoustic guitar melodies, cymbal crescendos and decrescendos, organ tones, and strings.  This curated sound draws listeners in to focus on the hypnotizing echoing vocal harmonies and poetic lyrics.  Exploring themes of home and the mixed memories associated with it, this emotive album takes on a unique darkness and beauty that is not only heard but felt in each and every note. 

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Initial Descent: April 16 – 22, 2023

Birdflesh

Some of y’all’s responses to 72 Seasons have been hilarious. The funniest are these: “man I only listened to a minute and a half or so and had to turn it off.” I mean, for real?! LOL me off my chair. While I will admit that it would benefit from some trimming, this is the best version of Metallica we’ve had in…a while. But, whatever, just go back to your latest Jester Race clone and keep lapping that up. Anyway, we got another new list of metal and other things on the heavy spectrum for you and grind captains Birdflesh kick us off this week. Next up are Margarita Witch Cult (bad ass band name alert) with an all in but the kitchen sink approach to psychedelics, Grave Pleasures are back to prove why they are holding down the best goth band tag, and Dorthia Cottrell gives a damn class on how to do vary dark americana / folk / country / etc. And, as always, there’s many more in the list that follows these four. Happy hunting…

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CANTO: Immortal, Ne Obliviscaris, Marianas Rest, and More


My to-do list is getting aggressive, yet here I am doing hobby things.

“Ein Bier… bitte.”
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Concert Review: Sleep and Windhand (June 22, 2016)

Sleep

Sleep has been doing a few select tour dates this year with direct support from Virginia’s new doom legends, Windhand. I had the privilege of attending the sold out show at Mr. Small’s Theatre in Millvale, Pennsylvania. There were no locals on the show as Windhand and Sleep together had sets long enough to fill the 3 hour show time. Attendees had packed in early as not to miss a moment of either band. Continue reading

Best of 2015: Schuler’s Top 10 Cave-Dwellers

Best 2015

This past year’s been a good one for me as far as music writing goes. Following the early 2015 demise of a site I wrote for with some friends, I wormed my way into regular contributor gigs at three online metal blogs/pubs, all of which I was already a fan. It’s been a good year for metal, too. I’m not gonna lie and say 2015 blew my dick off the way 2014 did… because it just didn’t. But that’s not to say I didn’t hear some killer new shit this year, as well as find out about a handful of new, promising acts with which I wasn’t yet familiar. Continue reading