Reviews: Godhunter/Anakim Split 7"

By: Garviel Loken

Two of Tucson's heaviest hitting bands have come together to produce a limited edition 7" vinyl that features one new track from each artist. Featuring some insanely tasteful artwork, the cover for each artist is probably worth the purchase price alone, and we haven't even gotten down to brass tacks about the actual music yet. This excellent art definitely reinforces the age old idea that whats on the cover can enhance the listening experience and provide a basis for kick starting the imagination.

Southwest Terror Fest Round Up (Freedom Assault, Conqueror Worm, Sex Prisoner, Casket Birth)

We're back with our second installment of the Southwest Terror Fest Round Up. With Tucson's annual metal party breathing down our neck, we want to take a minute to introduce you to four more bands that you might not be acquainted with quite yet. Ranging from punk to doom to power violence to black metal, you'd be hard pressed to find a better representation of what is brewing in Tucson recently. Garviel Loken scoured the nether regions of Bandcamp and beyond to bring you these four burners. Take a minute and check these bands out, then come check them out in person at The Rock in Tucson on October 10th through the 13th! Prepare your livers and bring lots of beer money!

Southwest Terror Fest Roundup (Goya, Napalm Strike, Sovereign, Sorxe)

It's almost that time of the year again, when the Southwest Terror Fest rears it's ugly head and lays waste to Tucson, Arizona on October 10th through the 13th. So since the Old Pueblo's annual metal party is going down in just a few short weeks from now, so we figured it would be a good time to do a round up of some of the new bands playing this year. Garviel Loken turned on his magical Internet Machine and scoured the nether regions of Bandcamp for some of Arizona's up and coming scumbags. Go check these bands out on their respective pages, then come check them out in person and let them fry what little hearing you have left. We guarantee you won't be disappointed. The Arizona scene is a force to be reckoned with, and these guys certainly deliver. We'll have another edition of this in a couple weeks too, but for now, let's get to the bands...

Reviews: AM.ARE.IS "Amorous"

By: Garviel Loken

On their debut album, Tucson's Am.Are.Is bring listeners a different experience that doesn't conform to a set musical formula. The twelve tracks of "amorous" are a virtual musical melting pot that churn together elements of punk, alternative, and a healthy dose of melody. The end result is a solid, unique album that emphatically places this band on the Arizona music scene map.

Driving Force: Travis Fry (inFEST Tucson, Freedom Assault, Resisting Arrest AZ)

In this edition of Driving Force, we tracked down the illustrious and mysterious Travis Fry, main man behind Resisting Arrest AZ, Freedom Assault and the annual spectacle of punk that is inFEST Tucson. In between being in a band and running the Resisting Arrest empire, Travis still finds time to put together inFEST each year, which focuses the spotlight directly on Arizona's amazing punk scene for one weekend every year. Travis is also a long time collector of Russian nesting dolls, and continues to write his first Broadway musical in his spare time. He's also been known to count the grains of sand on random beaches across the country. Essentially, Travis is a punk rock Rain Man, and is ultimately cooler than you will ever hope to be. We cornered him outside the local 7/11 where he was trading inFEST tickets to kids for their free Slushees and asked him a few pertinent questions.

Reviews: T.O.A.D. "Endless Night"

By: Salvia Hex

Milos is a semi-retired porn star and lives with his wife Marija and six-year-old son, Petar... 

"Now just hold up there one minute, how can you be semi-retired at anything? You either do it or you don't, right? Even if it's porn. What, is he only fucking people 20 hours a week or some shit?" asks Alex as he pulls Entombed's "Uprising" from it's resting place on the shelf amongst other records. He deftly slides the record out of it's sleeve, dropping it onto the turntable with a practiced touch.

Reviews: Evasion "From Reality"

By: Garviel Loken

Tucson's Evasion makes a compelling case for the continuation of melodic death metal with their debut recording "From Reality". With very competent musicianship and enough good riffs to pass muster, these guys sit on an even level with any other Arizona band who performs within that subgenre of the metal pantheon. Whether you are into this style of heavy music or not, Evasion is good enough to get a few head nods from even the most stalwart death metal elitist, and credit should be given where it is due.

Reviews: Twingiant "Sin Nombre"

By: Garviel Loken

Following closely on the heals of their recently released debut album "Mass Driver", the new extended play from Twingiant is pretty much business as usual for this Phoenix area band. All five tracks on "Sin Nombre" drink from the bluesy waters of some backwoods bayou and personify the Clutch/Melvins school of rock and roll. The rusty, iron encrusted vocals still roar much like on the debut record, the thick atmosphere of groove is still prevalent, but there seems to be something missing all the same.

Reviews: Swamp Wolf "The Brilliance Of A Feral Mind"

By: Garviel Loken

Hailing from Flagstaff, Swamp Wolf delivers one hell of a potent composition on "The Brilliance of a Feral Mind". Three parts venom and one part bile, these guys are adept practitioners in the art of genre bending. Call it blackened thrash and hardcore or any other clever conjunction of titles, the only thing that matters is whether the material is good or not. In the matter of Swamp Wolf, the material is not only good, it is great.

Reviews: Unfortunate Sircumstances "2012 EP"

By: Garviel Loken

Gritty and completely unpolished, this three song introduction to Unfortunate Sircumstances unleashes a deluge of crusty hardcore punk in under four minutes. The brevity of the material certainly fits the style that the band plays, but leaves the listener wanting more of it. However, there is fortunately just enough substance on this EP to give a satisfying taste of what Unfortunate Sircumstances has to offer for future efforts.

Reviews: Black Orchid "Where This Life Is Leading"

By: Garviel Loken

Hailing from way up north in Flagstaff, Black Orchid plays a mixed bag style of metal that many listeners may identify with. On their album "Where This Life Is Leading", the band certainly lets you know what the deal is as there are quite a few stylistic influences that are immediately apparent as they happen each time over the course of the nine songs. Intentional or not, these sounds are pretty glaring and obvious.

Reviews: Blister Unit "Christ Ape"

By: Garviel Loken

Do you like chaos? Well, you'll be going to the right place when you press play on "Christ Ape", the new full length album from Blister Unit. Across thirteen tracks and thirty six minutes, Blister Unit earns their band name with flying colors. The music is utterly relentless and dense like the imploding plutonium core of a thermonuclear weapon at the moment of detonation.

Driving Force: Wayne Rudell (Powered Wig Machine)

By: Salvia Hex

In this edition of Driving Force, we journey south to Americas' borderlands to track down the mysterious leader of Powered Wig Machine, the infamous Dr. Wayne Van Halen Rudell Esq. Our good friend Wayne is not only the driving force behind heavy Western rockers Powered Wig Machine, but he has also recently started to establish Sierra Vista as a regular tour stop for traveling bands by reaching out to a local bar named JR's Pub and enticing them to open the doors to bearded, vest wearing rockers from across this continent. We tracked Wayne down as he was attempting to sell some nu-metal kids a BOSS Metal Zone pedal (no mods) outside the local Hastings and forced him at donut-point to answer some questions for us.

Reviews: 500 Cunts/Stab/Bloody Corpse Dismemberment/Blister Unit "Four Way Split"

By: Garviel Loken

Four bands and a total of forty-five tracks may seem ridiculous at first glance, but like the intensity one might experience during a micro burst, the experience is over all too abruptly. The guilty parties named in this indictment (500 Cunts, Bloody Corpse Dismemberment, Stab, and Blister Unit) have committed numerous and glorious audio atrocities across the breadth of the recording and must now be called to account for them. Some are steeped in the chaos of grindcore, while others wear the crusty outer garments of punk and death metal.

Driving Force: Brett Thomas (Ladybird/Metal Night)

By: Salvia Hex

In this edition of Driving Force, we reached out to the barren, desert wastelands of Phoenix to track down the illustrious Brett Thomas of Ladybird. Aside from being in a stupid heavy sludge band, he's also the main man behind the Metal Nights at the Time Out Lounge, where once a week he infiltrates the world of Bud Lime and Kenny Chesney to drop a heaping slab of heavy wax all over unsuspecting ears. We cornered him outside the local methadone clinic and forced him to either answer these ten questions or we would report him to Sheriff Joe Arpiao's racist posse.

Best Of: 2012 Musician's Picks - Part II

We're back again for the second and final installment in our 2012 Top Ten lists. Part I was posted a few weeks back, and we're pretty stoked about the response we had to it. We gathered up a few more responses and lists, edited them up all fancy-like for your ass, and dropped that shit in your face like a hot load. Lick it up...

Best Of: 2012 Musician's Picks - Part I

For this series of Top ten lists, we sent out a call to duty to all the rockers and ragers that make up Arizona's incredible heavy music scene. We got a good amount of responses this year, so we compiled them all here for your amusement. Give this list a good once over, then hit the Axe's Facebook page to discuss, agree, argue and threaten each other with bodily harm. Get into it!

Best Of: 2012 Staff Picks

By: Salvia Hex

It's about that time of year to hit the internet with our annual Best Of lists. Unlike a lot of music sites, we like to wait until the year is actually over before compiling our lists. So since we're balls deep into January of 2013 now, it's a good time to get these things rolling. We'll start you off with the staff picks from myself and Garviel Loken. The lists we gathered up from a number of Arizona musicians will be following in the next post. Hopefully you can find something on here new to listen, or at least something to argue about.