Rages of Sanity is an independent outlet for thoughtful, unflinching coverage of heavy music — doom, black, death, hardcore, sludge, noise. No algorithms. No press releases. Just records we live with.
Three recent reviews from our archive — slow burners, generational statements, and the strange corners of heavy that mainstream outlets keep skipping. All written by humans who actually own the records.
By Mara Vela · 18 min read
Forty-one minutes of slow, deliberate pressure that treats volume as a moral question. Void's A-side is the kind of doom that doesn't need to scream because it knows you're already listening.
By Eli Storme · 22 min read
A debut that treats the second wave as conversation, not inheritance. There are blast beats here, but the record's real violence is structural — long, patient frames that refuse to resolve.
By Tova Alden · 14 min read
Twenty-three minutes. Twelve songs. The kind of LP you hand to a friend who has stopped paying attention to heavy music and watch their face change. The lyrics are manifestos, the riffs are evidence.
Heavy music deserves writing that takes it seriously. We sit with records for weeks, talk to the people making them, and try to say something true. Four things we won't compromise on.
If a record is on this site, it's because a writer fought to put it here. We don't run sponsored coverage, we don't take promos in exchange for guaranteed stars, and our ratings are never negotiable.
Interviews run as actual conversations — sent back and forth, edited for clarity, never for tone. The quotes you read here are the things artists actually said, in their own structure.
We can tell the difference between funeral doom and death/doom, between powerviolence and grindcore, between depressive black and atmospheric black. That fluency is the whole point of the publication.
Most pieces here run 1,500 to 4,000 words. The format is the argument. A scene that produces forty-minute albums deserves readers willing to spend forty minutes with a review.
Five recent sit-downs with artists, label runners, and scene archivists. Each is a long read about craft, compromise, and why the work is worth it.
The Berlin-based composer talks about the long tail of her third LP, the ethics of writing about grief, and why she stopped trying to make records her bandmates would enjoy.
The two-person team behind Mire Recordings explains how they choose releases, what changed when vinyl pressing times hit three years, and why physical media still matters to a generation that grew up on streaming.
The Portland musician on the leap from solo cassette work to a four-person live group, the politics of touring the U.S. as a trans artist, and what got left behind in the translation.
Three college students in Alabama are quietly building the most complete public record of Southern sludge in existence. They explain what they collect, what they leave out, and why it matters.
Tokyo-based engineer and producer Yui Tanabe has shaped records by Brutal Truth, Sideburns, and three of this year's most-talked-about hardcore demos. She talks shop, gear, and pressure.
A few things people have said, with permission, about how the writing lands. We keep this page honest because the readers — and the bands — keep us honest.
"It's the only heavy music publication where I actually open the long ones. The reviews respect the listener, and the interviews don't make the artist sound like a press kit."
"We did a long interview with them before our third LP and it was the first time I read back quotes that actually sounded like something I would say. They didn't make me dumber for the piece."
"I send their reviews to my friends who say 'I don't like heavy music' and it almost always works. The writing opens the door without dumbing the record down."
Seven years of long-form reviews, scene dispatches, and artist interviews — all searchable, all free, all written by people who keep the records on the shelf. Start with this month's features.