Interviews

In today’s modern metal climate, the melodic death/thrash that emanated from Sweden back in the 90s and mid millennium is looked at quite differently depending on the age of the fan in question. For those who remember, the sound from Gothenburg, Helsingborg, and beyond…

Today, there are two iterations of the Cro-Mags touring out there on the road, but that’s definitely not the case if you speak to band founder, bassist, and songwriter Harley Flanagan. For him, there’s only one Cro-Mags, and it’s the band with him set firmly in the creative driver’s seat.

Formed in 2013 in Boston, symphonic/power/black/melodic death metal band Seven Spires’ members met while attending the renowned Berklee College of Music. Featuring frontwoman Adrienne Cowan, guitarist Jack Kosto, bassist Peter de Reyna, and drummer Chris Dovas, the band has just released its sophomore affair, Emerald Seas, through Frontiers Music.

The first thing one notices about this five piece hardcore band from France is their moniker. It’s an unavoidable point of discussion, one that will either have people—and potential record label suitors, as you will see—running for the hills or justifying its use by claiming there were many worse and quite a few better band names they could have settled on.

The São Paulo based axe slinger found the Nervosa house empty when former members walked in late April. Refusing to throw the towel in, she quickly scoured the globe and recruited Spanish vocalist Diva Satanica, Italian bassist Mia Wallace, and Greek drummer Eleni Nota, and by the end of the summer, and against all odds, Nervosa’s fourth, latest and greatest album, Perpetual Chaos, was born.

“There’s a little sinner in all of us,” guitar maestro John 5 explained during a recent interview about the title of his newest solo instrumental album Sinner. On his tenth solo instrumental album, Sinner, he and his band The Creatures—featuring bassist Ian Ross and drummer Logan Miles Nix—perform a wide range of styles that encapsulates everything about his six-string prowess.

Australian progressive metal act Ne Obliviscaris has unleashed their latest album Exul, which took years to make thanks to the pandemic and was a long process but worth the wait. “It was incredibly difficult (laughs), yet incredibly rewarding with how the final product turned out.”

We spoke to multifaceted shred queen Nita Strauss (Alice Cooper, Iron Maidens) directly after her first solo show and the live debut of Controlled Chaos to talk about guitar technique, The Guitar Collective tour, balancing life on the road with Alice Cooper and her own material, and, of course, all about her new album.

September Mourning has been busy touring and working on a follow-up to Volume II and the September Mourning comic book. With fate on the heels of Emily Lazar, both literally and figuratively, we find out from the enigmatic Lazar and guitarist Rich Juzwick what the band has been up to.

The idea to release a short, 26 minute album titled Horror with VHS inspired cover art could have exploded in the face of a lesser retro thrash act without the pedigree and experience of Exhumed. Thankfully, Matt Harvey and Co. have all the bases covered with their seventh full-length, an absolute ripper of a record that strikes like lightning with riff after devastating riff.