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...