With creator and undeniable foundation of the group, rhythm guitarist Scott Ian, Anthrax is reminiscent of well-run sports team, a team who has persevered through trades, losses to free agents and retirement to continually be an elite staple within the league.   

For a Metal band more taken with exploring the heavenward than wreaking destruction on Earth, Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones) makes an especially sound title for an Intronaut album.   

There is something to be said for a Metal band that can incorporate its religious beliefs into the music without coming off as cliché or pompous. San Diego Metalcore outfit As I Lay Dying has been one of those bands.  

Hating on the haters is one of those hobbies musicians will never get sick of. With “Execrator” off its latest album, Apocryphon, Heavy Metal four-piece The Sword climbs into this increasingly packed clubhouse.   

This year has already been a huge one for Halestorm. In February, the song “Here’s to Us” was performed on Glee and the band’s sophomore album, The Strange Case of... was released in April, hitting Billboard’s Top 20 in its first week.   

  While Metal shows are havens for certain physical behaviors — headbanging, throwing the horns, grasping for an invisible orange during a particularly juicy guitar solo — smiling while you're playing is not one of them. But that hasn't stopped Steve Brooks. Torche's ringleader doesn't just crack a hint of a happy face during concerts but practically beams.  

President Obama’s “2012 Election Playlist” was posted recently on Spotify (credited to Obama and his young campaign staffers). There are songs by James Taylor and Springsteen, plus his new karaoke jam “Let’s Stay Together,” but there is a suspiciously large number of Country songs (Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, Sugarland, Zac Brown Band).  

It very well could be that the Kansas City Deathcore/Doom Metal outfit that formed in 2006 and christened themselves after Hawthorne’s knocked up 17th-century heroine had the same kind of dichotomy in mind. Melodic yet noisy, technically precise yet wildly chaotic, growled and shrieked vocals from the recesses of hell … OK, that one’s pretty consistent and perhaps also flawed yet redeemable.