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Tiny Desk concerts are known for their intimate energy and stripped-down performances. They also happen to be the perfect place for a stage dive turned crowd surf.

Gaupa – Fyr, Obituary – Godly Beings CD boxed set, Thorns – Stigma Diabolicum etc..

We hammered out the songs on “Pay with Your Face” from a violent swirl of thrash, death metal, crust punk, and utterly random detours. Here are 10 records that were brain filters throughout the process, with honorable mention to hundreds and hundreds of beers.

Rising from the underground in the early 2000s, Darkest Hour quickly carved a name for themselves in the metalcore and melodic death metal scenes. Across nine studio albums, the band has consistently pushed the boundaries of their sound, evolving while staying true to their blistering core.

Oklahoma’s Chat Pile is heavy, sludgy, and gloriously gnarly. Underneath all that grime lies razor-sharp social commentary and a twisted sense of dark comedy. Their songs sound like they’re rotting from the inside out, yet you can’t stop hitting play.

If their 2022 self-titled debut was Ready For Death’s brick to the head, ‘PAY WITH YOUR FACE’ is getting jumped in an alley with a tire iron, and somehow you’re laughing the entire time.

Rock On With Dad This Father’s Day

Park benches that lay claim to the “Greatest City in America.” A lonely parked station wagon idling in the grass. Mobs of people dressed in black, swarming Brendan Yates as he sits by his lonesome in said vehicle. And fast moving cars that follow the stylistic choices made by hardcore band Turnstile. These key elements found in the band’s newest music video LOOK OUT FOR ME, draw listeners into their new sound and set the precedent for their highly anticipated fourth studio album NEVER ENOUGH. 

When it comes to metal bands hating God, Eyehategod might have snagged the name, but it’s hard to argue that any band has done the job more consistently and with more gusto than Florida’s Deicide. Raging at the big guy since 1987 (originally under the name Amon), Deicide turned frontman Glen Benton into the cartoon mascot for Satanic death metal. Benton was and is a legitimately wild dude who branded an upside-down cross into his own forehead, made GG Allin-style suicide threats, shot squirrels in the middle of an interview, became a target of bomb threats from animal rights protestors, and clashed with radio evangelist Bob Larson like a pro wrestler cutting promos on behalf of Lucifer (“My lord is going to spare no mercy on you, Larson!”). 

Ghoul’s formula is deceptively simple on its surface: Thrash + monsters = fun. I mean, duh. For the uninitiated, Ghoul is the monstrous quartet of Digestor, Cremator, Fermentor, and Dissector. They hail from the totally real nation of Creepsylvania, an authoritarian state ruled with an iron fist by No. 1 Ghoul-hater Commandant Dobrunkum. They are definitely NOT humans with bands like Exhumed, Impaled, and Voetesek on their resumes; they probably don’t even know where Oakland is, being monsters and all. Their cartoonish live shows have kept them busy over the years as regular tourmates for like-minded maniacs like Municipal Waste and Gwar. But dig into their discography starting with their 2011 full-length Transmission Zero—in the Gimme store May 30—and you’ll find some seriously creative minds at work behind the filthy masks.

We’ve got new arrivals in the Gimme store every week. I’ll be highlighting some under-the-radar titles landing on our virtual shelves here on the Gimme Metal blog. This month, to close out May, we’ve got as much crushing death metal as you could need, a Christian metal band that never met a subgenre it didn’t try, and some thrash so primitive I should have summarized it with a cave painting. Check ‘em out!

In the late 90’s when High on Fire started with Sleep’s Matt Pike, it was seen as not much more than a side project for the prolific lick riffer while biding his time waiting to rendezvous with his main band but by the time ‘Luminiferous’ is released in 2015, the band’s seventh LP, HOF didn’t just stand for High on Fire but also HALL OF FAME on the sacred mountain of riffs.

CHEMISTRY… defined as the identification of substances which matter is composed. With that in mind, when discussing KHEMMIS’try, the band has made a name and legacy for themselves in a short period of time by displaying proudly what they’re made of.

Fit For An Autopsy had already firmly established themselves as one of deathcore’s pillars by the time 2015’s “Absolute Hope Absolute Hell” is bestowed upon us. Two years earlier they delivered an instant modern classic with “Hellbound” where they did everything right...

Sweden has become a fertile birthing ground for many of the most transcendent metal bands in the world. In the early 80s, Bathory and Candlemass helped establish black and doom metal, respectively. As the 90s took shape, death metal was in full swing, Entombed perfected their buzzsaw sound, and At The Gates started incorporating melody. Soon, Opeth emerged to combine it all.

Surely it wasn't an easy job for Spirit Adrift to follow up their astounding 2019 masterpiece “Divided By Darkness”, but Nate Garrett and company outdid themselves once again with "Enlightened In Eternity," just one year later.

Depending on how the calendar aligns itself, there will be at least one, but no more than three Friday the 13th’s each year. They can land on any month, but most frequently occur in March or November. Does that make this year’s September arrival rare? No, not really, but it’s an excuse to talk about death metal. So we’ll take it!

1993's Bloody Kisses, Type O Negative's third and the last recording with their original lineup, marks their transition to their iconic gothic metal style. It was notably the first Roadrunner Records release to be certified Gold, in 1995.

August 2023: MY MIC SOUNDS NICE! The headset microphone era of Grave Convulsions is OVER and we are verging on competent DIY audio production. I was also still unemployed at this point, which still sucked.

Tankcrimes Records' origin story begins sometime in the early 2000’s and somehow involves a one-inch button maker. That story is a little bit complicated and better told elsewhere, but through two decades, enthusiastic mastermind Scotty Heath has willed the label into a well-respected tastemaker and curator of extreme music.

Hailing from the land of Creepsylvania (fine, they’re actually from Oakland, California), the maniacs from Ghoul have been ripping & shredding the scene for over 20 years now. They’ve got a knack for storytelling, dark humor and all things nasty, gory and gruesome. And that right there is the winning combo for me; it’s like Exhumed and GWAR had a thrasher lovechild.

When it comes to thunderous drums, razor blade guitars, and screams hellbent on curdling blood, nowhere has had an impact like our dear old United States of America. In the spirit of July 4th and celebrating another year of American metal dominating the dirtiest corners of music, Gimme Metal asked our newest contributor and self-proclaimed “king of the basement pit,” Coop, to put together his Top Ten American Metal Albums list.