Mining Metal: Abyssal Rift, Gorod, Hesperia, Mind Affliction, Mindwork, Rapid, Static Abyss, Unadorned

Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts. One of the most tedious things in the world of the arts is a self-conscious and insecure fixation on sophistication and intelligence. Good work will often become both and there is no shame in achieving either. But so too is there no shame in the naïve, the amateur, the frankly at times dumb knuckle-dragging fun, especially in the worlds of punk and metal. A defensiveness around that appellation tends to come when we feel like we are being typified, either in our work or in our taste, but the truth is so much life contains so many facets, and this kind of idiotic splendor is one of them and a blessed one at that. When you are swilling beer and blasting speed metal, headbanging around a bonfire in your yard, is this an act of peak intellect comparable to Goethe alone at his desk reading the last published novel of his age? No. But does this diminish its joyfulness, its raw humanity? Absolutely not. ...