Album Review: Plague

Plague Portraits of Mind Redefining Darkness/Nuclear Winter 8/10                     With so many current death metal bands borrowing heavily from the classic era of the subgenre one has to wonder, “Why would I listen to these bands when I could just listen to Autopsy, Entombed or Obituary?”. Yes, there are musicians out there taking death metal to new, strange places. But it seems a larger number of bands, fans and metal media outlets are content to stick strictly to the sounds of yore. I

Album Review: Wormhole

Wormhole The Weakest Among Us Lacerated Enemy Records 6/10           Wormhole’s style mostly stems from two micro genres of death metal: technical death (not to be confused with tech death, trust me, totally different style) and slam (A style almost entirely based off of emulating breakdowns from early Suffocation songs). This means that most of the record alternates between fast note filled flurries and slow chunky riffage, all backed by straight forward double bass and blast beats and

Album Review: Rat King

Rat King Vicious Inhumanity Within the Mind Records 8/10             Rat King’s debut full length Garbage Island was in a style very much aligned with Seattle’s early 2010s Melvins inspired heavy riff rock scene. Sure, they were always more overtly metal than, say, Sandrider or Helm’s Alee, but Rat King felt closer to the style of those bands than that of your typical Studio 7 pay to play show openers. Vicious Inhumanity, however, leans why deeper into Rat King’s metal influences as they

Captured! By Robots at Lucky Liquor 1/18/2020

The Lucky Liquor lies in the northern reaches of Tukwila, WA, within earshot of Boeing Field and right next to the Duwamish River. Its closest commercial neighbor would be the tow truck business right next door, other than that there is literally nothing on the same block. At least not under cover of night.            With its multicolored sign and vintage architecture, Lucky Liquor is an oasis, a dive bar dropped in the middle of the set of an early 80’s street gang film.