Black Sabbath created the template for heavy metal and thrash. But it's instructive to acknowledge just how unique Black Sabbath were when they first emerged. Those first eight albums are essential.
Thank you for your life, Eddie Van Halen. Long live the music, the joy, and all the little dreamers you inspired.
Abortion is under threat again, and there's a sex offender in the Oval Office. A fitting time, in short, to crank up the righteously angry vocals of feminist hard rock heavy hitters like L7.
For a moment, Fool for the City found Foghat putting their glitter-embossed Converse Chucks on hallowed stadium ground.
Speaking on a range of topics, including filmmaking, the future of live music, and his appreciation for artists such as UFO and Thin Lizzy, Twisted Sister's Dee Snider proves game for all topics.
If you ever thought 2000s hard rock needed more guitar leads and solos, Viserra have you covered with Siren Star.
Hawkwind's 1970 debut opened the door to rock's collective sonic possibilities, something that connected them tenuously to punk, dance, metal, and noise.
“Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?" Counterbalance's Eric Klinger and Jason Mendelsohn have, and they file this report.
Released alongside Nirvana’s Nevermind, the importance of Pearl Jam's Ten has been somewhat overshadowed by that record. Pearl Jam were barely together for a year, but released a cohesive debut that would help define '90s alternative rock.
Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip features some of the most obscure sides on the planet, including this 1969 blues-based ripper that imagines what Motörhead might have sounded like as the house band at a Toledo Holiday Inn.
Whatever the reason or reasons why Manic Street Preachers' Gold Against the Soul remains the least celebrated of the band's storied career, this shiny and very impressive rerelease is an opportunity to rehabilitate it in the minds of many.
Forty years later, Rush's ability to strike a nearly perfect balance between mainstream invitingness and exclusory complexity is even more evident and remarkable. The progressive rock classic, Permanent Waves, is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
In times of quarantine we listen and we write, so here are 20 extreme (and some experimental) records to spin during these times.
Before Jimi Hendrix, face-melting guitar solos were all too rare. His 1967 debut album Are You Experienced? blew the lid off the unmelted face market and rock was never the same.
On their self-titled debut, Human Impact provide a soundtrack for this dislocated moment where both humanity and nature are crying out for relief.
New York quartet Wildlife has plenty of glam and pop swagger to go around on single "Automatic" from upcoming LP Year of the Snake.
Gigaton sounds like Pearl Jam convincingly doing their very best to not sound like Pearl Jam. Liberated from their past and their expectations, the band have freed themselves to take some long overdue risks.
In 1972, the Rolling Stones were holed up in a rickety mansion in the South of France, writing an epic love letter to American music. Counterbalance examines the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St and separates the fever from the funk house—now!
Imagine an orgy scored by rusty industrial equipment blasting New York City noise-rock, something like Unsane, Cop Shoot Cop, or Swans in their wicked primes. That's the noise-rock supergroup, Human Impact.
Let them entertain you... here are ten songs of Queen at their hard-rocking and overblown best.
If Greta Van Fleet are that wonderful horrible thing called zeitgeisty, that zeitgeist is defined by desire to escape to a fantasized past where the battles were cleaner and the battle lines simpler than today's appear to be.
Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, one of the most technically gifted rock musician of his - or any - generation - passed away from brain cancer on 7 January, leaving behind an incredible legacy.
Minneapolis noise rock band, Buildings return with a new album and a new cut that speaks to the frustrations we face every day. Buildings make boredom sound (almost) fun on "Sit With It".
The nostalgia circuit will have to wait a while. Hawkwind have just released an album that borrows from the 1970s, but still sounds relevant in 2019.
Easter Is Cancelled is the Darkness' best album since their 2003 breakthrough Permission to Land.
As part of the upcoming benefit album Blanket the Homeless, the Stone Foxes shine through the atmospheric, rhythmic rock of "Million Dollar Shoes", a song that sets the spotlight on the San Francisco Bay Area's homelessness crisis.
For an artist whose discography spans continents both literally and stylistically, there was one reliable thing: Ginger Baker knew what was needed, and if he had to invent new ways of forcing rhythm to the forefront, that was his job. It will remain his legacy.
Bad Company's albums have been fairly and consistently good -- all of them crucial to the development and popularity of album-oriented rock. The Swan Song Years is a perfect and convenient way to get all of the band's first six albums in one package.
Portland duo Fox Medicine recall the intersection of environmentalism and wicked humor in the earliest grunge, and offer up their own brand of "bubblegum doom" on "Comfort Pony".
Chicago heavy rock outfit, Dead Feathers take the long view on an album that asks us to look deep within and face our fears. Landing squarely between Black Sabbath and Fairport Convention, Dead Feathers come up winning.
Ecstatic Vision's "Shut Up and Drive" challenges notions of heavy rock as it adds acoustic guitar and synthesizers to the spectrum.
Moving from Mahavishnu Orchestra-style to '70s-style rock sees the trio move from being Sand to becoming Ether Feather on "Your Half in the Middle".
Guitar Wolf, Japan's answer to the Ramones, has proudly kept their shtick going for 32 years, and the ravenous pack doesn't let up in their latest, Love and Jett.
The Spanish outpost of the legendary hard rock UK festival is back to confirm its place on the European hard rock map.
Two recent videos from Rammstein and Hatari offer a study in contrasts and speak loudly to the challenges involved in authentically confronting colonialism through popular music.
Aaron Lee Tasjan talks about producing Drivin N Cryin and recognizing the importance of Kevn Kinney's lyrics: "There were a few lines that jumped out and said, 'Kevn's singing about something super-personal right now.' As soon as I realized that, I said, 'My approach has to be that people can hear and understand what he's saying clearly.'"
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