Episode 129.5 – Drilling Down on Gaahls Wyrd’s “Flowing Starlight”
Norwegian vocalist Gaahl is a man who we deeply admire...
19 June, 2025
black metal Tag
Episode 124 – FLOPTAGON: Bathory’s ‘Octagon’
What started as a joke ("send us a $10,000 donation and we'll do an episode on Bathory's disasterpiece flop, 'Octagon'!") Well, we wondered what that kind of episode would be like, so we decided to just chat about it and see what happened. No big...
17 January, 2025
Episode 122.5 — A Challenge from S. Craig Zahler to Hunter Ginn, re: Sarcofago “Nightmare”
Jeff: “Was talking with my friend S. Craig Zahler a few days ago, and we were discussing Sarcofago’s 1987 debut, I.N.R.I. Zahler noted that there are some bewildering timing issues in 'Nightmare,' and how he’d like Hunter ('who is 20 times the drummer I am')...
30 October, 2024
Episode 121.5 – Previous Episode Updates (Hail Spirit Noir, Hammers of Misfortune, Manes, Diskord, Xysma, Kayo Dot)
In this .5 episode (the longest point-5 we’ve done to date), we offer up 6 subjects of previous Radical Research episodes and take a look at their activities since we last put our spotlight on them. (As we explain at the beginning, the sound quality...
10 October, 2024
Episode 112 – We Mean You Harm: Hail Spirit Noir 2012-2021
For its 112th episode, Radical Research travels to balmy Greece to investigate the cryptic evildoing of Hail Spirit Noir, whose hellbroth of black metal, prog, psychedelia, and witchery strikes a special chord with your hosts. We take a deep look at the band’s first four...
25 April, 2024
Episode 111 – Immortal’s Blizzard Beasts: Convoking Nebular Dimensions
For episode 111, Radical Research returns to its spiritual homeland of Norway. But on this trip, RR steers clear of the usual avant suspects and instead climbs the Mountains of Might to take a closer look at Immortal’s twisted and divisive fourth album, 1997’s Blizzard...
02 April, 2024
Episode 109 – Sigh’s Weirdest! Let the Strangeness Do the Talking
Sigh is unquestionably one of the weirdest bands in the metal realm. And since Radical Research skews weird, and since we are both fans of Sigh since the mid ‘90s, it seemed obvious that we would eventually do an episode featuring some of the very...
01 March, 2024
Episode 106 — New Metal Massacre: Horrendous, Afterbirth, Laster & Vemod
Time to stop messing with the time machine and live in the present. Herein, we delve into the greatness that is Ontological Mysterium (Horrendous), In But Not Of (Afterbirth), Andermans Mijne (Laster), and The Deepening (Vemod). Metal lives? Metal lives!!! ...
10 January, 2024
Episode 99 – The Four Freaks Roundtable: Jeff & Hunter + Thomas Nul & Brian Grebenz
Radical Research has called on two of its most stalwart allies, the estimable Thomas Nul and Brian Grebenz. Over the course of almost two hours, this veritable Roman Senate chews on the hard-hitting issues that occupy the minds of all right-thinking citizens of the Research...
28 July, 2023
Episode 98 – The Meads of Asphodel’s Guts Spun on the Loom of Judgment
“Experimental extreme metal band The Meads of Asphodel believe in all peoples’ right to live in peace, free from the shackles of inflicted dogma and servitude.” ...
01 July, 2023
Episode 78 – Enslaved’s Monumension: Floating Diversity & Monumental Dimensions
We love Enslaved. They are a rare long-running band that, in our estimation, have not released a bad album. Of their 15 full-lengths to date, your Radical Research hosts highly rank their sixth album, 2001’s Monumension: it’s Ginn’s #2 (just behind Eld, 1997) and Wagner’s...
31 March, 2022
Episode 72 – Master’s Hammer: Dreaming Bulldogs & Shy Geckos
Formed in the Czech Republic in 1987, Master’s Hammer summoned a singular, constantly mutating approach to black metal over two distinct lifetimes (1987-1995, 2009-2020). The band’s debut album, Ritual (1991), is described by Darkthrone’s Fenriz as “the first Norwegian black metal album, because it sounded...
08 November, 2021
Episode 45 – A Means to an End: The Manes Discography
For the 45th episode of Radical Research, we continue our trek north, this time landing in Trondheim, Norway, where we take a close look at the vast and fascinating discography of Manes. Well-respected in black metal circles for their personal and visionary approach to the...
27 November, 2019
Episode 20 – Wolf’s Lair Abyss: Answer & Announcement
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...
04 December, 2018
Episode 19 – The Unquietness of Fleurety
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...
27 November, 2018
Episode 1 | It Ulver Is
For the inaugural episode of Radical Research, we delve into the mysterious, magnificent William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1998), the fourth album by Norwegian shape-shifters Ulver. Note: The sound quality of RR1 isn’t exactly superb, especially Jeff's mic in the intro. This was...
27 March, 2018