sunn O))): Eternity’s Pillars (2025)

BWOOOOOOWWWWWMMM! How a band like sunn O))) can basically take that feeble attempt at onomatopoeia and twist it into something so hypnotic, so mesmerizing and frankly…beautiful is beyond me. Such is the case with Eternity’s Pillars, the new EP/single from the band’s recent signing/partnership with Sub Pop Records. Unhurried and as intentional as ever, the band doesn’t so much rip as thrum their way through three massive tracks that spill molten love all over you.

ChrisDecember 5, 2025Leave a comment

agriculture - the spiritual sound album cover

Cassette

Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound (2025)

Welcome to an experiment. As I write this, my brief take on The Spiritual Sound, the phenomenal sophomore LP from California’s Agriculture, I’m actually listening to their self-titled debut – an album I really, really did not care for. Summoning the joy and fervor the new album gave me while revisiting a debut I found anonymous and cowering behind a wall of bricked production, I began to identify fragments of the things that would fully bloom two years later. I won’t say I’ve come around yet, but man: what a giant leap this album takes – and lands – successfully.

I think.

ChrisDecember 4, 2025December 4, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

In Flames: Clayman (2000)

I needed something that rocked. Riffs that cut, melodies wrapping you in drama leading to anthemic choruses and killer solos. Normally I’d go with some tried and true 80s thrash, but ever since really falling for their 2023 album Foregone In Flames has entered into the riff rotation. Clayman sits squarely in the overlapping boundaries of the Swedish institution’s two distinct phases: on the one hand are the pocket of albums that helped define the New Wave of Swedish Death Metal sound; on the other is the more processed, streamlined metal the band would continue to refine and tweak for the next quarter of a century. As such, it gets the best of both worlds, and has been a favorite of mine since discovering its sound back in my college days.

ChrisAugust 27, 2025Leave a comment

Megadeth: Endgame (2009)

I guess this is how the story ends, to quote a song title from Endgame, the 12th album from thrash metal legends Megadeth? If true, and the forthcoming album and tour is to be Dave Mustaine’s last (under that moniker, at least), it’s good to see him not only leaving on his own terms, but with a body of work that — while it may include a few stinkers — contains more than enough killer albums to justify calling the “legend” tag and anchor their standing in the Big 4 of Thrash forever. And in Consuming the Tangible fashion, rather than mark the occasion with a bona-fide classic, I wanted to put the spotlight in Endgame, which doesn’t get nearly the praise it deserves as a top-tier Megadeth release.

ChrisAugust 15, 2025August 15, 2025Leave a comment

Torche: Torche (2005)

I’m sure there were other bands purveying the sludge pop vibe before Torche; hell, you could say that Floor, the band founded by Torche’s Steve Brooks and Juan Montoya were already setting the groundwork for what Torche, the eponymous debut would crash out of the gate with. But it was my first dalliance with this kind of heaviness, one sheathed in a sparkling pop veneer, made more striking by the rainbows adorning the molten volcano on the cover art. Things would get even more melodic and catchy on subsequent releases, but I started here in that glorious year where extreme metal became a touchstone for me (again); let let’s take a moment and wrap up the work week with why this works (alliteration for the win).

ChrisAugust 4, 2025August 3, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Slayer: Show No Mercy (1983)

A lot more new music purchases to get to, but I needed a bit of a breather. So I go back to the time of my childhood, but I’ll be honest: I definitely wasn’t listening to Slayer at 10 years old, cool as that would be. I remember the burnouts in high school with the logo emblazoned on their jackets, but my black Members Only jacket had a small Stryper logo at the time (I would eventually upgrade to acid washed denim with a Halloween back patch). It took another few years and the band’s incredible live album before I became a fan, and a few decades after that before I dug into Show No Mercy, their 1983 debut. Fast and loose and gleefully evil in a way their followups would veer sharply from, it’s a bubbly blast that shows hints of the beast they would become.

ChrisJune 27, 2025Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

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Tag: metal