Death Metal MusicMusic and Culture on the Edge

If you’re a serious metalhead, then you’ve probably heard of Pentagram, whose satanic imagery and albums of gloom-drenched rock were enormously influential on the development of heavy metal in the 1980s and ’90s. The band’s guitarist, Knoxvillian Victor Griffin, has followed a long and strange course from Pentagram’s drug- and booze-fueled days back home to East Tennessee, where he’s found a ...

Oceans of Silver and Blood (CONFRONT) is a document of a live performance captured at Cafe Oto last year. Mark Wastell and Joachim Nordwall produced 45 minutes of transcendent, minimalist monchrome gloom. Nordwall seems positively subdued compared against his assaultive mode when playing as one half of Skull Defekts, but the date also demonstrates something of Wastell’s open-minded versatility. This record could be made from a fine blending of electronics and brushed percussion, or who know

Gloom, glower, and heavy-as-hell riffs rule. December 5, 2008 - Music journalists have been debating the origins of heavy metal since the early 1970's.