Authors: Henry Glasheen
SaltCon 2015: EAE Showcase
At the far end of the exhibit hall, a couple of student teams from the University of Utah’s EAE program had set up game demos. … read more
SaltCon 2015: Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Flash Point: Fire Rescue is a delightfully elegant cooperative board gaming experience. The players take on the role of a specialist in a team of firefighters who must save as many people as possible from being burned to death in a house fire. … read more
SaltCon 2015: Castles of Mad King Ludwig
In this competitive eurogame, you compete to build a castle that will win you the most victory points at the end of the game. Trouble is, you have to satisfy a whole host of conditions for each room in your castle and compete for choice room types and sizes. … read more
SaltCon 2015: Dungeons & Dragons – Ruins of Thundertree
At every single gaming convention I’ve ever gone to, I have always tried to squeeze in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, and virtually every time, I walk away disappointed. Most of the time, it’s because of an overworked Dungeon Master who runs us through an introductory adventure with zero drama, excitement or roleplaying. … read more
Gut Rock Harakiri: Dwellers’ Dark Jams Cut Deep
Dwellers play a style of music they refer to as “gut rock,” a sort of non-genre of writing fun, simple music born of gut feelings and instinct. “We didn’t want to play anything that was genre-specific,” says guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano. “If we ever thought about [a part] more than five minutes, we’d just look at each other and say, ‘Fuck it, man! Gut rock!’ and that would make us choose the simplest path.” … read more
Localized – Nevertanezra, Huldra and Visigoth
On February 10, heavy metal gods Visigoth and the mighty post-metal Huldra play SLUG Magazine’s Localized at the Urban Lounge. Nevertanezra’s death doom majesty opens the show. Localized starts at 10 p.m. and, as always, only costs five bucks. … read more
Local Reviews: Pretty Worms
Side “Acid” takes punk beats and droning bass grooves and combines them with electronic noise and glitched-out mechanical melodies. Pretty Worms play a style of noise rock that is pretty unusual at first listen, but if you give it some time, the incoherent vocal loops and seemingly random atonal synthesizers might begin to make sense. … read more
Local Reviews: Pretty Worms/Blackhole
“Killers Galore” is a ride through noise punk hell on a groovy bass and a light, punchy drum rhythm. Punctuated with sound clips of sirens and yelling, part of the song’s appeal is the sublime strangeness with which they approach a very basic song. … read more
Local Reviews: Pretty Worms/Plastic Furs
With “Comet Tail,” you can hear Trisha McBride’s vocals a little more clearly in the mix of bright bass and thick sonic distortion, and her ranting drone is an excellent fit for Pretty Worms. It’s a little slower and much less noisy than their other material, but as a stand-alone track, it rocks with the best of them. While the familiar, yet still unsettling vocal loops play on, the drums keep a snappy, danceable beat. … read more
Demigods: Alas, Behemoth is Upon Me
Calling it his “most precious child,” Behemoth’s guitarist and vocalist Nergal doesn’t feel like reducing his music to a simple catchphrase. “I just grab my guitar, and pour all my emotions into new riffs and new songs, and the last thing I care about is whether it’s in the ‘blackened death metal’ box,” he says. “Behemoth is Behemoth.” Though recent years have posed a slew of trials for the band—especially Nergal’s leukemia diagnosis in 2010— he emphasizes that Behemoth is a “tight, solid unit again.” … read more