I’m a huge fan of High Gain Doom Sludge Distortion Pedals - and already have several favourites in that category - including the Blackhawk Balrog, Earthbound Audio Supercollider, Lichtlaerm Audio Altar, and even the recent JHS Pedals Hard Drive.

The Cannibal Unicorn hits slightly differently - as even at full tilt it doesn’t get as boomy and saturated as the others - but combines its sludge with superior note clarity. This is a fairly distinct voicing, with unique abilities, while some of ...

So I typically do the metal pedal roundup in and around Autumn, while now seems to be a decent time to do a recap - as quite a large sway has changed since I last did this exercise back in 2022. And we have had a number of really strong new contenders - which each sounds fantastic, and overall heralds a kind of new era of heavy metal pedals with even more range and dynamics.

There are 10 New Pedals since 2022’s rundown, more than a quarter of the previously listed pedals have been swapped /...

A decent showing on the Distortion side too - with some particularly great High Gain Distortions. I was due to review the Licthlaerm Gehenna and Medusa also - but with Daniel Ringl’s workshop move - that didn’t quite get sorted this year - hopefully early in the new year - and then I can update the ’Full Metal Racket’ selection which exercise I normally do late Autumn!

There’s couple of really cool filter distortions here that I really like - the Intensive Care Audio Vena Cava Filter / ...

This pedal surely needs no introduction now - so pervasive was it’s impact on its launch in 2020 - that this is more of a refresher as to what makes it so great - considering how many are already aware of it and using it.

As I mentioned in my fairly recent EEA brand overview - Silas Fernandes initially came up with this concept back in 2012 - way before Horizon Effects’ Precision Drive was a thing - while the path to market was somewhat more tortuous for Silas and involved a move from ...

Wow what a wild ride of a month - one of the busiest to date - bookmarked with two superb events. You really need to read my event round-ups - they’re so full of little details - and of course personalities - the bigger friendship network and sort of family that makes up this magnificent sector in many ways. For sure everyone is in hard competition with each other for the same customer money - but there’s genuine warmth of spirit - a friendliness and willingness to cooperate and get along. Both...

When you check out the Thrash Metal genre you can’t help notice how it came to be so heavily dominated by the West Coast California Bay Area movement - as seen by the fact that 3 of the ’Big 4’ hale from that area - Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer - with only Anthrax representing New York / East Coast. In fact if you cast your net wider to covering Newer and Vintage bands in that genre - the spread gets even more extreme with just a handful of bigger names - including Overkill representing the ...

Silas is a guitarist, composer and producer, Brazilian-born, but settled in Charlottesville, Virgina for some years now. He very originally conceived the idea for his Mud Killer tone enhancer pedal way back in 2012, while the route to market was far from straightforward, and involved a move to America within that - which meant that said pedal and brand as such did not emerge until 2020.