Fates Warning’s compelling 13-album discography, from debut Night on Brocken to final album Long Day Good Night, is the very essence of progressive heavy metal music. Founded in 1983 in Connecticut by five ambitious youngsters, the band matured, evolved and shifted through one of the most fascinating evolutions in the genre.
Over the course of its previous 93 episodes, Radical Research has banged, thrashed, and decapitated but never before has it waltzed. That ends now. Formed as Aslan in 1985, San Diego’s Psychotic Waltz released four full-length albums in the ‘90s, each of which challenges all......
18 March, 2023
When a member of a fringe Swedish death metal band makes a request, Radical Research heeds the call. To that end, RR episode 93 is a response to Philip Von Segebaden’s (Afflicted) appeal for a song-by-song analysis of Swallowed in Black by California’s preeminent thrash......
21 February, 2023
Rarely can a rock or metal band be described in terms of open-heartedness, nostalgia, or compassion. But the subject of Radical Research’s 92nd episode defies convention in nearly every way. Madison, Wisconsin’s Last Crack was a band that seemed on the brink of breakout success......
02 February, 2023
Occasionally, Radical Research dares to tackle the big questions: what is time, and can we have a piece of it? Can a psychic saw perform brain surgery? Can a metal album have a samba track and several bars of Miami bass hip-grind? On episode 91,......
11 January, 2023
This installment finds Radical Research in familiar territory, in the wilds of Scandinavia, this time in pursuit of progressive rock luminaries, Anekdoten. Our study covers not only the group’s six full-length albums but also their inspired, ghostly collaboration with fellow Swedes, Landberk, under the Morte......
13 December, 2022
Our 81st episode circled around the works of drummer Dave Murray, surveying Estradasphere, (Deserts of) Traun, Tholus and Sculptured. Here, we dig into Murray’s mind in further efforts to discover what makes this all tick. And we will say this yet again: Dave Murray is......
03 August, 2022
by Hunter Ginn Since 1970, heavy metal has courted a relationship with apocalypse, but outsiders to the genre often miss the complex ways in which metal engages with fear. The genre’s most innovative and lethal artists have mapped out geographies of psychic terror, wherein imaginative......
17 May, 2022
Originally intended for The Monolith, we are grateful to Radical Research enthusiast Chris Warunki for allowing us to run this interview that he conducted with Eucharist’s Markus Johnsson and Daniel Erlandsson in 2016. This stands as a supplement to our 69th episode, which focuses on......
03 August, 2021
Hippocrates mused, “Life is short, art is eternal.” The passing of four uncommonly-gifted drummers – Neil Peart, Sean Reinert, Reed Mullin, and Bill Rieflin, all amidst the doleful wilderness of this plague year – has brought life’s brevity into sharp relief. And, so, here it......
23 December, 2020
Episode 55 of Radical Research features our overview of Hammers of Misfortune, one of the most creative, interesting, original metal bands to emerge in the aughts. Admittedly, we haven’t gotten super-excited about a ton of newer bands birthed in this current century, but we find......
10 November, 2020