Radical Research Podcast

Writing about Devil Doll is like skating about horticulture. Led by the deeply enigmatic Mr. Doctor, and purposely shrouded in the thickest mystery, Devil Doll’s music disappoints even the keenest taxonomist. Experimenting with metal, classical, and progressive rock, Mr. Doctor and his revolving cast of collaborators created large-scale, spell-binding masterpieces that, really, are without peer. L...

Melvins’ career -- a vast, still-expanding 36-year odyssey across the full spectrum of heavy and experimental sound -- is marked by goalposts, some triumphant, some deviant. On this episode of Radical Research, we train a critical eye on 2002’s bellwether, the curiously-named Hostile Ambient Takeover . The album takes stock of many of the band’s hallmarks: droning, hypnotic trance rock, mathematic...

The so-called “Canterbury scene” was an adventurous musical movement of time and place, bonded tightly by shared influences and an incestuous genealogy. This episode, we climb our favorite limbs from the Canterbury tree, including but not limited to Caravan, National Health, Egg and Quiet Sun. Much respect to Dave Stewart! Be praised, Steve Hillage! Arise, Richard Sinclair! We shout hails to thee,...

It began with suffering and ended with screams (and whispers). St. Louis' radically-progressive Anacrusis never enjoyed the recognition they so deserved, but popular neglect did little to temper their potent vision. A product not only of the ‘80s thrash scene but also of the fertile post-punk and alternative rock landscapes, Anacrusis mined an especially personal sound that reconciled the aggressi...

Men Behaving Badly: Trashed Productions What is music if not sound? In episode 28, we discussed the mathematical properties that have shaped some of rock and metal’s most extraordinary albums. In episode 33 of Radical Research, we expand our investigation into the controversial, often divisive, sounds of some of metal’s most remarkable albums. We will take a look at the fevered, heading-straight-f...

In less than 10 years’ time, Michigan’s maddest scientists, Thought Industry, built a five-album discography that drew upon every available atom and protein in the rock and metal corpora. From the mutated post-thrash of its debut, Songs for Insects , to the melancholy, cosmic vistas of its watershed swan song, Short Wave on a Cold Day , Thought Industry never abandoned their quest for invention an...

Crawling out of Manchester to work strange machinations on the English psych-pop era of the late 1960s, Peter Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator’s sonic architecture was a mirror to that decade’s creative promise and a murder of its utopian ideals. They documented their deeds throughout eight albums between 1969 and 1977, revving up the electrostatic contraption again in the 2000s when the world...

We here at Radical Research like a good departure. Whether that means the beginning of a vacation or the sixth Journey record, departures are just good for the soul. And so goes the third record by Germany’s Deathrow, Deception Ignored , which constitutes a break from the band’s heaving thrash origins and a migration to technically-advanced thrash territory. This episode celebrates the evolution o...

Under the guidance of bassist Ralf Hubert, Mekong Delta’s initial phase featured a revolving door lineup of Euro-metal luminaries. Adopting pseudonyms and lurking unseen in shadows, Mekong plied a brand of progressive metal that drew inspiration from composers such as Modest Mussorgsky, Aram Khachaturian and Alberto Ginastera, to name just a few. Never lacking in speed and intensity, Mekong Delta...

As Pythagoras mused, “There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.” So too is there magical energy in the shapely contours of the most mathematical rock music. In this episode of Radical Research, we trace out a heritage of calculus embodied by bands on the acute end of the rock spectrum. From the rarified, Bartok-ian rock of King Crimson to the wi...

A Skeptic’s Universe is what happens when student becomes master. Spiral Architect’s school years were spent in obscurity, honing their craft, learning their lessons, keeping their noses to the grindstone. In 1998 they began work on their master’s thesis, and in early 2000, upon publication, earned a spot on the lonely pedestal of top-tier tech metal. While owing debts to Watchtower, Fates Warning...

Angular, adventurous, and apocalyptic in nearly equal shares, few bands scratch the collective itches of Radical Research like Victoria, British Columbia’s Nomeansno. From their punky beginnings to the nuanced terror of their mature work, Nomeansno trafficked some of the most dangerous and dexterous rock music of the '80s and '90s. Accompanied by venomous libretti - Rob Wright May be responsible f...

Pytten’s Chamber Music: Black Metal in Grieghallen As the ground began to swell in early ‘90s Norway, a shadowy figure known to metal fans only as “Pytten” ( ne Eirik Hundvin) ensconced himself in Bergen’s Grieghallen Studio and began to document the work of the country’s Young Turks. In this frontier territory, Pytten used the cavernous spaces of Grieghallen to create a miasmic, atmospheric sound...

Emerging from the swampy wastes of Florida, Nasty Savage created a body of work built on the inimitable vocals of Ronnie Galetti (aka Nasty Ronnie), hammering percussion, and a harmonic guitar language that has yet to be replicated. This episode of Radical Research takes a focused look at the band's most feverishly creative period, represented by 1987's Indulgence LP and 1988's Abstract Reality EP...

This game originates from one Jeff plays semi-regularly with our pal Tim Hammond, where CD-Rs fly back and forth between the Boros (States and Greens), and one has to puzzle out the other's mystery tracks. It's been an effective way to both discover new stuff and learn about things to avoid. This episode Jeff and Hunter play mystery tunes for each other. We'll likely repeat this point-5 feature on...

The possibly despicable term “art rock” is where pop, prog & rock meet, with a generous layer of quirk embedded throughout. Art rock is pop without restraint, prog with good table manners, rock stretching its creative fibers beyond the norm. And yet, gray areas abound! In episode 23 of Radical Research, we offer an hour-long survey of several artists in this realm: Crack the Sky, Be Bop Deluxe...

It would be inaccurate to say that Germany’s Pyogenesis is underrated because, in fact, they have hardly ever been rated at all. Over the course of their career – which is still in process – Pyogenesis worked across a wide swath of genres, including death/doom and alternative metal, before settling on a mostly-unsuccessful foray into pop-punk. The 22nd installment of Radical Research dedicates mos...

Meet the creatures Plotkin & Dubin, instigators of some of the most beguiling music ever beamed to Earth from a  New Jersey-shaped quasar. Like the guy in the petri dish on the Musical Dimensions … album cover, your puzzled Radical Research hosts consider the bizarre landscape before them and dive into the peculiar tumult of OLD.  Note I: We can only assume “sleastak,” from the album...

From the dark past, in the light of freezing moons and through funeral fog, Mayhem reappeared in 1997, under cover of night and to relatively little fanfare. Wolf’s Lair Abyss, the band’s first release since 1994’s epochal De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas , reveals a fiercer, future-forward approach to Mayhem’s trademark hailstorm black metal. Time has been kind to this EP and so your Radical Research ho...

Goodbye clarity, hello obfuscation… Norway’s other post-black metal duo, perhaps dwelling deeper in obscure shadows than Solefald… we hail Fleurety’s dedication to the dark arts and… which craft? All the ones that bring metal to the most precarious of left-field edges. So bizarre that it makes complete sense. We enthusiastically endorse their mission. Note I: Of all our favorite high school Latin...

From a kernel to a cosmos. Over the course of a decade and beyond, Germany’s Grobschnitt twisted and bent and stretched a piece of sound that would be known as “Solar Music.” An alchemical collision of Prog, Krautrock, psychedelia, and uncanny theater, “Solar Music” represents a fascinating evolutionary journey and, particularly in its live iterations, reveals a band...

The second in an occasional series of brief ambushes. With this mini-episode, we ponder and marvel at similarities between a certain few musical passages. Prompted by our previous episode on Afflicted, we compare/contrast moments of uncanny similarity, one of which is too close for comfort. Coincidence or rip-off? We’re not judging. But you can… Music cited, in order of appearance: Afflicted, “Ris...

Prolific for a brief few years, with curious beginnings and a mostly ignored ending, Afflicted’s supernova burned brightly at its peak. That peak, Prodigal Sun , is the essential cornerstone of Afflicted’s output and is explored in depth here. Psychedelic, transcendent left-field death metal lunacy from far beyond. Note I: As we talk about Afflicted’s 7” era in this episode, we discuss an insane h...

Few things in life get the hosts of Radical Research as excited as the squishy, otherworldly sounds of the analog synthesizer. For our 16th episode, a special detour from our typical musings, we sort through the decades in search of some of the deepest, wildest, most thrilling synthesizer sounds in the rock and metal kingdoms. So, please, meet us at the wormhole and tag along for this investigatio...

Can you sense them? The ghosts? Quiet yourself for a moment. They hang in the air and whisper in our ears. They taunt us with memories of a golden age. Listen closely and you can hear the spectral voice: “1993.” They mock the sterility and cannibalism of contemporary metal and remind us of a single day that produced three works of heavy metal futurism: Dimensions , Spheres , and Focus...