[Blistering Song of the Day: No-Man's "Taste My Dream"] A couple of years ago I bought the remastered/expanded edition of Wild Opera, and was blown away with how different it was to some of the duo’s other efforts. No-Man’s music has always been a little hard to categorise, but at a push, I would call it avant-garde pop with a dark undertone. And while all their albums are obscure classic gems in their own right, I have a soft spot for Wild Opera, primarily because of its jazz influences...

[Ahab – Afloat In the Fever Sea] “The problem is no one is 'true.' I listen to 70’s stuff; I even listen to 20’s stuff and classic death metal and black metal. No one is like that true. It’s okay for me if some genre purists are like 'You’re not funeral doom!' We had that discussion since the first demo. The nice description was like, 'It’s tempting to call Ahab a riffing funeral doom band.' I mean, of course, we’re not pure funeral doom at all. We’re not at all funeral anymore. For me, funeral doom was more of the vibe…something like a trance.” – Chris Hector

[Blistering Song of the Day: Chastain's "Ruler of the Wasteland"] Opening with a neo-classical shredding guitar run, this traditional power metal act featured virtuoso David T. Chastain, as well as the surprisingly heavy female vocals from Leather Leone. Many of my friends in high school struggled to believe that this wasn’t a male screaming these lyrics, but promo photos would prove them wrong (you see, this was pre-advent of YouTube videos)…

[Firewind - Have Axe, Will Travel] “I’ve noticed in America the fans are a bit more open-minded when it comes to difference - a band like Firewind, we can easily tour with a band like Arsis in the US without getting tons of crap about it. You can’t really do that in Europe - Arsis would have to tour with a black metal band at least. That’s one thing I don’t like about heavy metal these days - everything seems to be about the tag…why does it have to be like that? Music is music - if you like different kinds of music, you should be able to enjoy that.” – Gus G.

[Blistering Song of the Day: Nekrogoblikon’s "Bears"] I dare you not to crack a smile when you listen to this song and hear the lyrics. "Bears" is energetic, fun, and humorous. It is also entertaining to experience live, especially after a few beers. The lyrics colorfully describe bears' aggressive behavior, as well as what one should do in the presence of a bear, so as to not be eaten. "Bears! Standing tall in the woods, they'll bite off your face if you're up to no good." Enjoy!

[Atoma – Behind Sleep and Space] “We took our own situation and mirrored it into space. The alienation and feeling of disconnected we feel to this fast food calculative and corporate modern world we live in, made us into the astronauts we became. We began becoming obsessed with creating a vast world of Atoma as a refuge. We’re spending all our awake time in a haze exploring new ideas and trying to understand what this strange and mesmerizing phenomenon in our lives is.” - Ehsan Kalantar

[Blistering Song of the Day: Edge of Sanity's "Elegy"] The first melodic death metal band to regularly employ clean vocals, Sweden's Edge of Sanity were way ahead of their time, producing back-to-back masterpieces in the form of 1994's Purgatory Afterglow and 1996's Crimson. Since Crimson is a single 40-minute long song, a selection from Purgatory Afterglow seemed like the right way to go. "Elegy" is the pick here, a stop-on-a-dime bruiser with bursts of melody packed into a compact 3:57 running time...

[Cattle Decapitation – Serving A Dead Man] “The media likes to grab onto certain things and run with them. I think that angle with our band is shiny; flashy…people are going to grab onto it and run with it. A lot of that started with the fact we have an intense name and play intense music, so people think we’re super-leftist, vegan warriors. To be honest, Derek and Dave eat what they want. Me and Josh are the only vegetarians [laughs]. The last five records have dealt with other themes than animal rights or anything like that.” – Travis Ryan

[Blistering Song of the Day: Accept's "The Abyss"] The departure of Udo Dirkschneider, didn’t mean the end of Accept and Blood of the Nations is the best proof for this. I love this album and throughout all the songs, “The Abyss” is certainly my favorite. This song is pure heavy metal, raw and very deep in the same time. “The Abyss” starts with a crazy, heavy riff followed by Mark Tornillo’s screaming, which shows that he did not simply replace Udo, he has his own unique voice, blending perfectly with the band’s style...

[The Foreshadowing – Worlds Within the Margin] “In Italy, it always talks about world crisis, unemployment, corruption, but apart from this, no one wonders what our life is. Every day we get up early in the morning and run, we come back home and run. We always run to arrive at the final destination in time, as we were rushing for a race, but we don’t even know why we are doing that, and we always do it, even before the crisis. I think it’s time to put an end to this, to change our mentality and start to dedicate more time to ourselves, in a spiritual and more human way, I mean.” - Francesco Sosto

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