Alexander Jones

While a hyper-introverted genre like blackened folk metal rarely, if ever, gives rise to controversial public figures, John Haughm has consistently proven to be an exception to the rule. As if being the front-man and creative genesis behind Agalloch, one of this century’s most beloved and critically acclaimed metal bands, wasn’t enough, Haughm’s highly controversial […]

Each generation has their “gateway” hardcore bands — the bands they saw or heard in their formative years that instantly became the catalyst for a lifelong musical obsession. While just about every hardcore dude pushing 40 will point to bands like Snapcase, Hatebreed, and Earth Crisis as their musical patron saints, it’s a young beatdown […]

Although it may seem blasphemous to doom metal purists, the Liverpool-based “caveman battle doom” trio Conan has graduated beyond the Power of the Riff. What its records offer instead is a fascinating question: What if the feedback — the almost Zen-like, monolithic slabs of noise and atmosphere that carry the riff from point A to […]

The Long Island thrashers in Extinction A.D. — which is essentially hardcore greats This is Hell with a new guitarist (Ian Cimaglia) — are injecting their tried and true punk formula with a healthy dose of shredding. The band’s latest record, this year’s “Decimation Treaty,” is a brutal, no-nonsense crossover-thrash offering that marries hardcore’s seriousness […]

While that header might read “pop-punk,” don’t fret. Long Island’s Iron Chic have nothing in common with the saccharine naivety that hangs over the current scene’s most popular bands. In fact, Iron Chic’s music aches and roars with the unmistakable weight of real-world emotional experience, and nowhere is this more evident than on its most […]

The tale of Black Death, arguably the first heavy metal band with all African-American members, is a wonderfully lascivious one littered with seedy venues and mountains of cocaine. Despite the historic nature of the project, however, frontman and mastermind Siki Spacek toiled in rust belt obscurity alongside his motley crew of speed-metal troubadours from ’78 […]

Scott Wino has always been somewhat of a man out of time. It’s a fact he readily acknowledges on the legendary, self-explanatory Saint Vitus track “Born Too Late,” crooned with the kind of gallows acceptance you’d expect from the only real metal dude signed to SST Records in the 1980’s. When he was peeling off […]