Features

18TH ANNUAL SCHECTER NAMM PARTY: HOLY WARS, NEW YEARS DAY, and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY January 18, 2020 Grove – Anaheim, California PHOTOGRAPHS AND REVIEW BY ANABEL DFLUX “Prepare for an influx of NAMM posts,” write hundreds of musicians and industry professionals on social media during the famous NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) week.

Maybe heavy metal music and Christmas don’t go hand in hand, but that hasn’t stopped some of the most prolific artists in the genre from creating some interesting tunes. Here are the 10 top metal Christmas songs we think best represent this 2019 holiday season.

LISTEN TO THE EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE OF THE MENDENHALL EXPERIMENT’S “NOTHING GOOD CAME EASY” ON OUTBURN.COM “Nothing Good Came Easy” is The Mendenhall Experiment’s anthem behind the band’s cause of raising disability awareness. It simply states that you can achieve anything you put your mind to, but “Nothing Good Came Easy’s” writing cred and honorable mention goes to the band’s former guitarist Mike Lira.

WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE OF SUBTLETIES’ “CONTROL” ON OUTBURN.COM New York alternative rockers Subtleties has just dropped their sophomore EP, Barely You from which “Control” is taken. Honing influence from across the rock spectrum, Subtleties’ new record balances driving guitars, urgent, heart-on-sleeve lyricism and resonating heavy injections.

There are many influential releases celebrating three decades of existence in 2019. Before the year wraps up, we here at Outburn would like to spotlight the most notable metal outings that were released in 1989. The criteria for making this list is mostly based on the album’s intensity, sound, riffs, songs, cover art, and album title, and not on sales numbers.

In August, Outburn ran a feature on the Top 5 Underground Metal Record Labels, which was met with favorable praise (unless your label didn’t make the list). This time around, instead of a ranking system, we decided to focus more on the diversity of the different labels to spotlight our appreciation and give recognition to them. Because that’s really what the whole point of this is about, to get metal fans to check out the labels’ Bandcamp pages and their excellent rosters.

WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE OF VIKRAM’S “THE MORTAL DANCE OF KALI” ON OUTBURN.COM Brazilian progressive metallers VIKRAM have unleashed the new video taken from the band’s debut album BEHIND THE MASK I released on October 25, 2019 via Rockshots Records.

It’s that time of the year, metalheads! Pull out the pumpkins, fake blood, and scary masks. It’s Halloween! If you’re like most people, you’ll likely throw a killer Halloween party. And you need to choose the soundtrack wisely. But you’re not some normal person. As a metal and rock fan, your music interests are way better than everyone else’s. So you won’t settle playing traditional Halloween songs such as “Monster Mash” or “I Put a Spell On You.”

Outburn caught up quickly with Exhumed’s Matt Harvey, to discuss some of the cinematic inspiration behind their latest platter of splatter for Relapse Records, the succinctly titled Horror. We shot from the hip with a little rapid fire Q and A about some of Matt’s favorite (and least favorite) moments from the worlds of slashers, monsters, the unhinged, and the undead.

LISTEN TO THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE OF AMARIONETTE’S “PERFECT” ON OUTBURN.COM “We’ve always been fans of Dance Gavin Dance, and thought it would be cool to do a cover of a song that flew under the radar for the most part.”