Brendan Hesse

King dude is the fucking man. The solo project of TJ Cowgill, frontman for Seattle death metal outfits Book of Black Earth and Cross, as well as the owner and designer of the Actual Pain clothes line, King Dude is a mix of apocalyptic blues and American folk music steeped in...

Autumn is the most beautiful of seasons; The leaves are changing, dying, falling to earth. Shadows become long, and barren branches reach out towards marbled skies of grey and white clouds, floating atop winds of crisp, cool air, carrying the petrichor of freshly fallen rain...

Instrumental music can be hard to get into sometimes. The lack of vocal hooks or traditional song structure makes the style of music difficult for some to take in. The irony is that the absence of such elements allows for bands to create interesting and creative music. UK ma...

No two Enslaved records sound exactly alike. Beginning their 21-year long career as one of Norway’s first black metal bands (and one of the first to focus on Viking and Nordic themes), Enslaved quickly and rapidly began to incorporate more and more prog elements into t...

Despite featuring a fetching, nude dame on the cover, the music on DaCast's debut LP Dédale is anything but beautiful. Drawing heavily from the same creative wells as bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Number 12 Looks Like You, and Converge, DaCast...

Nettlecarrier are a Norwegian black metal band evoking the hey-day of bands like Mayhem and Dakrthrone, but cutting out all the bullshit to create the perfect example of modern black metal.   Nettlecarrier shares members with fellow Norwegian band Djevel, as well as fea...

Deathspell Omega are the very definition of "inaccessible" music; they don't play live shows, their lyrics deal primarily with Orthodox Satanism, they never do photo shoots, rarely do interviews, but most of all, their music is insane. Inkeeping with that tradition, DSO...

As an American, I’ve always felt our black metal bands lacked the history and emotion that the Scandinavian scene was founded on. Black metal from America seemed like an oxymoron; as a nation, we’re not privy to the centuries-worth of religious and political stri...