Michael Nelson

If you were gonna write a Great Jones Street-esque postmodern novel about an American black metal artist, you could do worse than to base your protagonist on Austin Lunn. It’s not that Lunn himself seems like a DeLillo character, per se, but his story is just so perfect that, like … well, like … you…

We’re three weeks out from the release of At The Gates’ To Drink From The Night Itself. It’s the Gothenburg death metal band’s sixth LP all counted, their second following a 19-year hiatus, and for my money — right now — their best to date. To be clear, that’s absurdly high praise: In 2008, Decibel…

Deafheaven’s new album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, drops in mid-July, and the first single, “Honeycomb,” came out in late April. I dunno when single #2 will arrive — there’s only seven tracks on the LP, which complicates the long-rollout strategy — but today, you at least get some new music: the f…

Sometime in fall 2015, on the streets of Soho, I noticed this manhole cover plastered with a few years’ worth of stickers from graffiti artists-turned-gallery artists and punk bands-turned-guerilla marketers, with one sticker in particular jumping out at me. It was a weird juxtaposition of two very…

Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I am seriously in the weeds over here. What’s going on? Heard any good tunes lately? Me, I been neck-deep in an ever-flowing stream of killer jams, and I’m trying to write a whole thing about all that, but life […]

In early November, the Japanese post-hardcore band Envy released a two-song digital single titled Alnair In August. I wrote about the record when it came out, and I started off by saying this: If you listen to heavy music circa now, you know Envy. Even if you’ve never actually listened to Envy, you’ve heard them. […]

Black metal has been atomized beyond the point of recognition, perhaps even beyond the possibility of recognition. Perhaps it has always been this way. Perhaps, in fact, “black metal” exists only in the negative: an oppressive caricature inherently absent any actual characteristics, whose sole stable element is internecine discord. Even before there could be some […]

Ever since My Bloody Valentine dropped m b v in winter 2013, heavy-style shoegaze has enjoyed a nice little moment. Maybe more than a moment, actually, and maybe something bigger than “little.” All the way up top you’ve got that band Deafheaven, obviously, but it goes all the way down the line, too. I’m just […]

On one wall in my apartment, I have two things hanging: On the left is a large American flag that covers most of the wall, so big it took two people to hang up when we moved in. To the right of the flag is a notably less patriotic, more anti-establishment emblem: a poster I […]

Elliott Smith was born on August 6, 1969, and thus, August is Elliott Smith Month, according to his onetime label, Kill Rock Stars. To celebrate, KRS has been generously offering fans alternate versions of some old Elliott tracks: previously unheard versions of songs that appeared on Smith’s 1995 an…