We got this a month ago, but I am somehow just getting around to listening to it now and, oh my god, the new Sigh record is throwing me into all kinds of ridiculous, excited spasms.
I mean, good god, where the hell do I even start with this thing? By saying it just knocked Beach [...]

(photo by l_c_m_tt_)
What is the proper speed for heavy metal? Is it always fast and treacherous? Must is always raze and pillage? Can’t a group just chill out for a few minutes?
These were the questions posed by Nadja, the Canadian metal duo of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff, over the course of a restrained, frequently [...]

(photo by Talie)
Finally! An avalanche of new releases today, the first real bounty in what looks to be an extremely exciting autumn. I’m gonna do my best to cover all of them in this post, but I’ll undoubtedly miss a few, so please point out my oversights in the comments! I’m going to break [...]

Brand new on eMusic on a Saturday(!): The Best Metal Record of 2009, Funeral Mist’s Maranatha!.
I actually yelped when I saw this in Freshly Ripped today. I have been obsessed with this record for months, going so far as to try to track down the digital distributor to see if we could get it for [...]

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. Until now I thought the only celeb with whom I shared a name was Niles’s ex-wife on Frasier, but apparently I was mistaken. Welcome to my world, Maris The Great and the Faggots of Death. A truly remarkable discovery–I love everything about this [...]

Stupido Shop is, to my mind, the best record shop in Helsinki. I visited Finland the week before last and walking into Stupido was like seeing eMusic made physical – all of our favourites were there: Glass Candy on the counter; a vinyl copy of Boxer pinned to the wall and “Paper Planes” coming over [...]

At long last, Southern Lord brings their catalog up-to-date on eMusic. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s what:

Hearing “What You Won’t Do For Love” on the overhead speakers in the deli across the street today absolutely made my morning. Then finding out that we have a significant chunk, if not all, of Bobby Caldwell’s entire discography made my week. And THEN finding these youtube clips pretty much made my whole [...]

In these days of digital downloads and industry turmoil it is so easy to feel disconnected emotionally from the hype and release of any body of recorded music. So imagine my surprise and delight when I was sent into a fanatic FURY upon noticing what had been tagged in two normally unexciting fields of [...]

So there’s not a whole lot of consistency in this post — just a shout about two records that I’ve really been into lately that I fear will slip through the cracks: EMC’s The Show and Children of Bodom’s Blooddrunk.

I first attended the Plug Independent Music Awards in 2005, shortly after I had moved to New York and joined the ranks at eMusic. I couldn’t think of a better event to mark the beginning of my employment at a company that is so focused on the passionate spirit of music.

So to answer the question on everyone’s mind: the new Stephen Malkmus will be here. Hopefully by tomorrow. We had a slight glitch that kept it from being posted today, but all systems should be ‘go’ for tomorrow’s delivery.
In the meantime, here’s a quick roundup of some titles that did arrive today, many of which [...]

A relatively quiet day for New Arrivals on eMusic, but the few we do have are noteworthy. Side note: Todd was supposed to write this post, but he’s been camped out since 10am in front of the Best Buy across the street for a Janet Jackson meet & greet (That’s him with the brown [...]

The California metal band Neurosis played their first New York show in four years last night, and I have the terrible pictures to prove it.

In today’s additions, do not overlook Coptic Light, whose 2005 self-titled record is a modern math-rock classic, and at a bargain price of three tracks (in 45 minutes) to boot. Coptic Light were — they are no more — members of Storm & Stress (a Don Cab offshoot), Antioch Arrow (such a great goddamn band) [...]

I’m a music person because of my father, a musician, and I’m an indie-minded guy because of a dude named Butch Lazorchak. I grew up outside of Blacksburg, Virginia (home to Virginia Tech), which had an amazing — and now out-of-business — indie record store called the Record Exchange. It was there that I bought [...]

Maybe it’s the change in seasons or maybe I’m just feeling particularly dour lately, but for the last week or so all I’ve wanted to listen to is metal. I’ve been kind of a passive fan for a while — my tastes skew black and Satanic, but short of keeping tabs on the stuff that [...]

So, yeah, I went to Iceland.

 
A morbid day on 17dots, looks like every post mentions death in some fashion.  Not to break the trend, Paul Raven – bassist for such bands as Ministry, Prong, Killing Joke, Godflesh, Murder Inc. and others was found dead of an apparent heart attack on Saturday in Geneva, Switzerland.  I listened to this music a [...]

I’m generally pretty averse to singer-songwriters; there’s only so much acoustic guitar I can take, and I try to restrict my weekly intake of sorrow and longing to the hefty spate of emo bands I guiltily enjoy. The one huge exception to this rule is Mark Heard.