Weekend Playlist: Chicago's Metal Mavens
By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 19, 2013 4:20PM
In honor of the great amount of Chicago metal releases seen in the past few weeks, not the least of which have been exciting new LPs from post-metal stalwarts Pelican and thrashy, trashy upstarts Oozing Wound (who, holy shit, even got a write-up in the New York Times!), our weekend playlist is devoted to Chicago's metal mavens.
Chicago has become a metal town, thanks to instrumental bands like Pelican and Russian Circles (who release their own new album, Memorial, on Oct. 29th) making their mark with their more experimental takes on heavy music.
Groups like Nachmystium and Locrian also helped push the city's metal scene into the limelight by adding psychedelic touches to punishing black metal, or by deconstructing the genre entirely. (Speaking of deconstruction, check out Anatomy of Habit, a band whose music is comprised of so many metal subgenres, and yet is wholly unique on its on.)
While all of these groups can make the pulse quicken with their riffs, the truth is that Chicago metal has been exciting for a long time. To wit: doom metal proginators Trouble, who put out an album this year; and Cianide, a death metal group who've been kicking around since the 1980s. This oral history for the AV Club is a terrific place to start, as is this Chicago Reader interview with local metal producer Sanford Parker.
But if you're looking to just dig in? Check out the playlist below. Also: Soundcloud links by Oozing Wound, and a Bandcamp link from Mount Salem, a local doom metal band who opened up for Windhand recently.