Jason Roche

If the band name wasn’t a dead giveaway, this side project featuring members of Virginia metal mainstays like Municipal Waste and GWAR has two things on its mind -- death metal and marijuana. New album From Wisdom to Baked features humorous odes to the green stuff with titles inspired by......

Led by Pantera frontman Philip Anselmo, this collaboration with past and present members of Corrosion of Conformity and Crowbar aims for more of a laid-back Southern vibe than their parent acts. The separate legacy Down has made for itself continued to build this year with the release of the Down......

This Little Rock quintet is at the forefront of a new breed of metal bands, which are equally adept at emoting melancholia and beauty through their sound. On new album Foundations of Burden, Pallbearer infuses the slow-tempo doom-metal blueprint with dashes of psychedelia and beautiful guitar harmonies. The overall subject......

This side project of Chris Spencer — leader of noise-rock pioneers Unsane — has a slightly more stoner-rock edge than his main act. But those who crave Unsane's relative anarchy will still find plenty of caustic jams to revel in on Dissent, Spencer’s newest work under the Cutthroats 9 moniker......

This Virginia act’s take on sludge-doom is surrounded by a psychedelic aura on albums such as 2010’s Ritual Abuse. While many bands in the subgenre lose themselves in repetition, Cough’s lengthy opuses are emotionally draining trips through darkened hallways and spacious rooms surrounded by multiple walls of sound. Show promoters......

Death founder Chuck Schuldiner passed away in 2001 from brain cancer. The vocalist/guitarist is considered one of the most influential figures in underground metal. In the early ‘90s, Schuldiner was a pioneer in stretching the boundaries of musical technicality within the death metal genre. This tour features ex-members of the......

Slayer remains the heaviest of the “Big Four” of thrash metal — out-shredding Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax — more than 30 years into their career. Their seminal 1986 release Reign in Blood is 29 minutes of scorching thrash that still inspires some of the most violent headbanging anywhere. But fans......

Costumed metal warlords GWAR suffered a major blow with the death of band leader Dave Brockie — aka “Oderus Urungus” — earlier this year. But they are forging forward with their leader’s mission of intergalactic domination via their metallic screeds. New characters Blothar and Vulvatron — the latter, GWAR’s first......

This Phoenix group’s new album, Vacant Face, is a strong contender for best metal album of 2014. The sextet tweaks the death­-n-­roll genre hallmarks popularized by Swedish acts such as Entombed and Dismember — groove­-laden death metal with a rock & roll swagger — and adds flourishes of psychedelics and......