Where Did Mary Go?

If you’re familiar with Håvard Ellefsen, better known as Mortiis, then you know that his musical career has evolved and changed many times since he was a member of Emperor in their founding years.  Since departing the legendary black metal group in 1992, Mortiis embarked on a solo career in the early 1990s that featured several releases which would heavily influence the dungeon synth genre, before gravitating towards an electronic pop and industrial rock format largely inspired by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails at the turn...

Though it may seem that Lex Legion took the metal world by storm a few months ago by announcing their debut album in late March, the project boasting four of the five members of the classic late 1980s King Diamond lineup that created Them and Conspiracy had been in the works for much longer than that.   According to guitarists Andy LaRocque, King’s legendary axeman for more than 40 years, and Pete Blakk, a mainstay for the aforementioned albums plus The Eye, the roots of Lex Legion stretch bac...

From a young age, everyone around her seemed to know that Tarja Turunen would have a future in music due to her incredible voice.  What many didn’t see coming though, was the way in which that voice would become part of a groundbreaking style of music that essentially created an entirely new genre of music.   After years of training in her youth and teenage years as in classical music, Tarja was seemingly faced with a decision to make based on two opportunities presented before her.  The first was to join a local symphony as their...

Though they’ve been together since 1982, you might be surprised to learn that Armored Saint has only released 8 studio albums to date despite their long history as a band.  When it’s released on May 22nd through Metal Blade Records, Emotion Factory Reset will become the 9th record in their 44-year history.  While most would consider that a low total for a band that’s been at it for as long as they have, most groups don’t exactly have the unique history, or bond, that the boys in Armored Saint do.

Breaking...

For over thirty years, Russell Allen has had one of the most powerful voices in heavy metal music.  Through his work as frontman for progressive metal titans Symphony X, performances with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, solo work, and a number of collaborations, Allen has come to be known the power, grit, and versatile nature in which he delivers his vocals.   Those vocals are usually for lyrics based in history, following a theme or concept, especially when considering the tremendous catalogue Symphony X have created over the last three decades.  With his mos...

How do you describe something that you never thought you’d see?  That’s the task I’m faced with trying to explain the performances I witnessed on February 26th and 27th at Tavastia in Helsinki as the surviving members of Children of Bodom reunited for the first time in nearly seven years to celebrate the band’s music and the legacy of Alexi Laiho in front of fans who traveled from all over the world for it, myself included. 

The anticipation of night one was unlike any show I’d been to, and...

Call it cliché, but the namesake of the first record Zakk Wylde ever performed on back in 1988 with Ozzy Osbourne could very easily be used to define his illustrious career to this point.  When Black Label Society releases Engines of Demolition on March 27th, it will mark the longest gap between albums for the group since they formed.  In that time between records, Wylde has toured the world with the surviving members of Pantera filling in for long-time friend Dimebag Darrell, torn through several Zakk Sabbath...

Throughout the long and storied history of American heavy metal legends Corrosion of Conformity’s existence, Woody Weatherman has been the only consistent member since the group started way back in 1982 in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Being the sole constant in the band, he’s been witness to a number of changes and transformations.  Bandmates have come and gone, and then come back again.  The musical style has mutated from hardcore roots to the southern-tinged metal that propelled Corrosion of Conformity to mainstream rock radio success in the early ‘90s, only to return to hardcore...

When two teenagers from the suburbs of Helsinki traveled three hours northeast to Lappeenranta during the summer of 1995 to knock on the door to the basement of a church, they might not have known at the time that the man who answered would become integral in helping them achieve their rock and roll dreams.  The young men, Alexi Laiho and Jaska Raaitikainen, arrived there in hopes of recording the second demo for IneartheD, the band that would become Children of Bodom, after they heard there was a young punk with an 8...

Before meeting him, a future bandmate of Chuck Billy’s recalled seeing him work his way to front row of a KISS concert in this way: 

“One figure stood out among the carnage, someone so large, he could push his way through anyone else in that crowd.  With a height of 6’4”, wild black hair, and a chest like a gladiator, he stood out.  Slithering to the front row, he ruthlessly pushed aside anyone who stood in his way.  Beers were knocked over, their contents spilling out… this was not someone to be messed with."

T...

The concept of death and Mayhem have been intertwined since most of the world first learned about them.  It’s been an integral part of the black metal pioneers’ story that has become so synonymous with the group that for a long time, it overshadowed their actual music, as many of the infamous events the world came to know them for occurred prior to the band actually releasing a full-length album.  One of those tragedies was the suicide of frontman Pelle Yngve “Dead” Ohlin, which is what ultimately led Attila Csihar to travel from his n...

Imperial Triumphant has been pushing the limits of metal since they formed in New York City in 2005.  By incorporating avant garde, jazz, and experimental sounds into their black metal delivery, the trio has risen to prominence with their last string of releases, culminating with this year’s Goldstar which has been praised by critics and fans alike as one of the top metal releases of 2025.  Though frontman and guitarist Zachary Ezrin was inspired to pursue black metal by the bands that dominated the Norwegian scene of the early 1990s, Imperial Triumphant delivers a bran...

Chama, the title of Soulfly’s thirteenth studio album released on October 24th through Nuclear Blast Records, is a Brazilian word with a dual meaning: it means both ‘flame’ and ‘a calling.’  The album is accompanied by a short story describing the journey of young man searching for meaning and direction in life traveling from the Brazilian slums to the jungle seeking inspiration, led by a flame.  When you consider Soulfly frontman Max Cavalera’s musical career, the name and story are perfectly apropos, even mirroring his own odyssey to where he is today in...

When Agalloch surprisingly disbanded in 2016, there was a collective sign of disappointment from those in the know in the metal community at losing one of its most creative, authentic, and genuinely unique bands.  Agalloch rose to prominence through a progressive metal alchemy that combined black metal, neo-folk, and atmospheric elements which set them apart from their peers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, specifically with their debut album Pale Folklore (1999) and its landmark follow-up, The Mantle (2002).   Subsequent album and EP releases, and gradually more frequent live performances, continued to elevate their status in the me...

Amorphis' fifteenth studio album, Borderland, was released on Friday, September 26th. To celebrate this milestone release in the band's 35th year of existence, founding member and guitarist Esa Holopainen and keyboardist Santeri Kallio made an appearance across the pond at Lucky 13 Saloon in Brooklyn, a metal institution since 2003, on Friday evening. Labeled as a record release party, the two key songwriters from Amorphis mingled with fans from New York City and its surrounding areas, talked about their fantastic new record that was played...

Mark Menghi certainly didn’t take the traditional route to prominence in the rock and metal world.  In fact, if you look back at his story, it might sound pretty familiar.  For starters, he worked at a record store he frequented often, the legendary Looney Tunes in West Babylon on Long Island.  Inspired by the likes of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Cliff Burton-era Metallica, he began playing in local bands during his youth that scrapped their way through every tiny venue with the same do-it-yourself ethos that every other...

Throughout his spectacular career, Gene Hoglan has been involved with some of the biggest names to ever play heavy metal.   From his earnest beginnings as a lighting tech with Slayer, that led him to be featured doing backing vocals on “Evil Knows No Boundaries” from Show No Mercy, to being bestowed the nickname “The Atomic Clock” during his time in Strapping Young Lad alongside Devin Townsend, and then being tabbed to play in Testament alongside Alex Skolnick and long-time partner in crime Steve DiGiorgio, Hoglan’s discograp...

When Dan Briggs joined Between the Buried and Me in early 2005, the band was at a bit of a crossroads.  After releasing The Silent Circus in 2003, an album that showed flashes of their future progressive sound, the group went through a number of personnel changes that eventually brought Briggs into the fold, alongside drummer Blake Richardson and guitarist Dustie Waring.  Alongside founding members Tommy Rogers (lead vocals) and Paul Waggoner (lead guitar), this lineup would write and record 2005’s Alaska, which firmly pushed the band’s soun...

When founding members Tomi Koivusaari, Esa Holopainen, and Jan Rechberger named Amorphis in 1990, they must have had a view to the future of the band.  A play on the word amorphous, which means having no definite form and unclassifiable, no word can better explain the last thirty-five years of the band’s history in regards to their music and lineup.   The legendary Finnish band has become synonymous with their namesake, as they’ve delved in and out of doom, death, folk, progressive, and other styles that seamlessly blend into their now-trademark sound. 

The s...

When Children of Bodom played their final show on December 15, 2019, it quite possibly could have been the last time their brilliant keyboardist Janne Wirman ever played a single note of music he wrote.  The last show came as a culmination of a tumultuous year that saw the band split ways with lead guitarist and vocalist Alexi Laiho after a series of disagreements, exacerbated by his increasingly erratic behavior due to alcohol abuse, which made it impossible for the legendary Finnish band to continue on as they were.  Wirman and the remaining or...

So the story goes, Tom Angelripper and his original bandmates started playing music as a means to escape a life of working in the coal mines in Germany.  Now nearly 40 years later, after influencing innumerable thrash, death, and black metal bands over their historic career, Sodom is preparing to release their 17th studio album The Arsonist through Steamhammer/SPV on June 27th.  Ahead of its release, I had a chance to speak Tom, the only original member remaining, about a number of topics, including:

·      the writing process for The Arsonist, his proces...

Though he may not have known it at the time, Alexander Kuoppala’s eight-year tenure in Children of Bodom would prepare him for his future endeavors in music education.  When he joined the group in 1995 when they were still called IneartheD, he was five years older than most of the members of the band.   As the group progressed and advanced their career with each of their first four widely revered records, he became an older brother figure to his bandmates, especially their superstar guitarist and vocalist, Alexi Laiho.  Alexi and <...

When interviewed about Mario Lalli for a documentary about the emerging desert rock scene he grew up in, Josh Homme of Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age fame described him this way:

“Mario is the one guy who I always thought deserved the most credit for everything.  He was always a few years ahead of his time… He’s always had this way about him – he’s very giving, he’s always done everything for the right reasons, for the art of it, for the love of it, and ex...

Porcupine Tree band leader Steven Wilson started his 2022 autobiography, Limited Edition of One, with a story about the band’s last show before the start of their well-known hiatus that began in 2010.   He wrote that subconsciously, while playing before a sold out crowd at the famous Royal Albert Hall, he knew that it would be the last thing Porcupine Tree did for a while.  There was one problem: he neglected to tell all of his bandmates of these plans for quite some time.

One of those bandmates was long-time bass...

Since their inception in 1997, Elvenking have never fit squarelyinto one genre or category in the world of metal.  On a surface level, the casual listener might blindly generalize them into power metal genre based on Davide “Damna” Moras’ soaring vocals and Federico “Aydan” Baston’s fast-paced riffing and lead guitar play.  But when you span the band’s entire catalog, the breadth of their influences are revealed, resulting in a brand of metal that is as much influenced by folk metal legends like Skyclad as it is by melodic death metal pioneers In F...