Stoner Rock vs Sludge: How to Tell the Subgenres Apart You’re halfway through a playlist when a riff hits — slow, fuzzed-out, heavier than a transport truck on the 401 — and you think: is this stoner rock or sludge?…

Loud and Safe: Protecting Your Hearing at Metal Gigs The last time we caught a sludge-doom three-piece at a packed club in Toronto, the opening riff hit us somewhere in the sternum before it ever reached our ears. By the…

Doom Metal Explained: From Black Sabbath to Funeral Doom Why does doom metal feel like the heaviest music ever committed to tape, even when it barely moves? That’s the strange power of the genre—it trades speed for weight, riffs for…

Canadian Metal Bands Every Heavy Music Fan Should Know The Opera House is packed on a Friday night in Toronto, the floor a sea of denim and raised fists as a wall of down-tuned riffs rolls off the stage. Somewhere…

Building a Metal Vinyl Collection Without Breaking the Bank We know the reputation vinyl has earned over the past decade: expensive records, limited pressings, and shipping costs that make you wonder if the album is being hand-delivered by a courier…