As you may have heard, country music lifer Hank Williams, Jr. has parted ways with Monday Night Football, the TV show he spent 20 years singing the intro for, just because he made a totally calm and…   Read Story »

Before the quibbling starts: I didn't include YOB's Atma because it isn't out until August. It would be way up there. I've also been listening to Dragged Into Sunlight's Hatred For Mankind quite a…   Read Story »

Varg Vikernes has been especially active since his release from prison in 2009: This Spring he's unleashing Fallen, Burzum's second post-incarceration collection, and eighth album overall. (It's the…   Read Story »

Clichés be damned -- this really was a good year for metal. I had a harder time organizing a Top 10 in 2010 than ever before. Ditto the Top 20. It was such a good year that I went overboard and…   Read Story »

L.A.'s Chelsea Wolfe composes fractured, noisy, abstract, experimental and exploratory gothy doom-folk that reminds me a bit of Portal Of Sorrow, Marissa Nadler's collaboration with Xasthur. Maybe…   Read Story »

People hate Burzum. A passing mention of Varg Vikernes' longstanding one-man black metal project is enough to kick-start a heated debate. (I know, it happened to me in a bar last night. And a few…   Read Story »

Belus, Varg Vikernes' first post-prison recording/first Burzum album in 11 years, is out 3/8 via Byelobog. Listen to samples at Amazon. Besides the intro/outro, he's ditched the synthesized dark…   Read Story »

When I included "Haunting The Chapel" in the headline to my last column, I'd intended it to be a smart-ass joke regarding my inability to legally use the name "Show No Mercy" after relocating things…   Read Story »

Varg Vikernes killed his Mayhem bandmate Euronymous in the early '90s. That someone's making a movie about that Norwegian black metal scene based on Lords Of Chaos is intriguing. That teen hunk…   Read Story »

After serving almost 16 years for the 1993 murder of Mayhem guitarist Oystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous) and torching some churches, Norwegian black metal legend Varg Vikernes will soon be free.…   Read Story »