Chronicles of Chaos (webzine)

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Chronicles of Chaos
Chronicles of Chaos screenshot.png
The Chronicles of Chaos homepage in 2015
Type of site
Music webzine
OwnerGino Filicetti
Created byGino Filicetti and Adrian Bromley
URL chroniclesofchaos.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationNo
LaunchedAugust 1995;28 years ago (1995-08)
Current statusInactive (since August 2015)

Chronicles of Chaos (shortened as CoC) was an extreme metal webzine. It focused on artists that are generally outside the metal mainstream, and occasionally covers other forms of extreme music as well. [1] Online since August 1995, [2] [3] Chronicles of Chaos was one of the first webzines in the world for that genre of music. [4] [5] It has been a nonprofit publication since its inception. [6] Chronicles of Chaos stopped publishing new articles in August 2015. [7] [8]

Contents

History

1995–2002

Chronicles of Chaos was founded by Canadians Gino Filicetti and Adrian Bromley in August 1995, [3] [4] and started out in the shape of a monthly e-mail digest. According to the site's official history section, "Gino decided to start a different kind of e-zine that would strive to cut through the bullshit of the music community and provide fans with a true and unbiased opinion of current metal music." [3] The first issue, Chronicles of Chaos #1, featured an 8 album reviews (donated by a friend of the zine), a re-cycled interview with Fear Factory by Bromley, a local band interview and a concert review. [3]

Initially composed of four contributors from Canada and the USA in 1995, the staff eventually reached a stable set of nine writers in 1997, including the first European contributor. Near the year 2000, the European contingent was expanded by three new writers, with representatives from the Asian and African continents joining shortly after. This led to a core staff of twelve writers in 2002.[ citation needed ]

In this period, founder Filicetti retired from his role as contributor, while co-founder Bromley moved on to form his own print publication, Unrestrained! , with fellow CoC contributor Adam Wasylyk. [4] Meanwhile, various other writers departed or became part-time contributors due to other engagements. Some of Chronicles of Chaos' writing staff became contributors to magazines like Metal Hammer , Terrorizer , Unrestrained! and more. As a result, the e-mail issues became less regular, with as much as three month gaps.

Between October 2002 and March 2003 the publication went on an unofficial hiatus for the only time in its history. Until 2003, the Chronicles of Chaos website served only as a static repository of plain text back issues, with the latest digest available for hypertext navigation.[ citation needed ]

2003–2015

From 2003 onwards, the publication became a daily updated webzine. [3] [9] Also established around this time was a search engine and archive, and a monthly "E-mail Digest". [3] According to Filicetti, the "E-mail Digest" had 3,000 subscribers in 2007. [3] The e-mail digest returned to its original monthly schedule, gathering up the articles published on the website during that month. More than 100 issues of the e-mail digest were published until 2011, containing over 20 megabytes of text.[ citation needed ]

As of 2007, Chronicles of Chaos had 16 staff writers, with contributors based in the US, UK, Romania, France, Norway, South Africa and Scotland. [3] Most of its writers were native English speakers. [3]

In 2007, Chronicles of Chaos was mentioned by sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris in his book on extreme metal. [10]

On December 7, 2008, Chronicles of Chaos co-founder Adrian Bromley died due to pneumonia, in his sleep, aged 37. [4] [11] [12] His death prompted numerous tributes within the music industry. [13] [14] [15]

2015–present

On August 12, 2015, marking the twentieth anniversary of the magazine, founder Gino Filicetti and co-editor Pedro Azevedo announced that Chronicles of Chaos had ceased publication of new articles. The reasons for this decision included much increased public access to streaming and downloading albums, as well as a dearth of new writers. [16] [7] [8] [17] The announcement was coupled with opinion articles from several of CoC's current and former writers.

Chronicles of Chaos remains online as an archive, containing over 7,500 reviews, interviews and opinion articles that were published during a span of twenty years. [16] [17]

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Schaliach was a Christian metal band formed by Peter Dalbakk and Ole Børud from Hamar, Norway. Dalbakk served as the band's vocalist, while Børud handled all the instrumentation. The band released one studio album, Sonrise, in 1996 through Petroleum Records. Three songs from that recording were then featured on the Rowe Productions compilation album Northern Lights: Norwegian Metal Compilation, which was also released in 1996. The band also contributed the song "Purple Filter" to the compilation album In the Shadow of Death: A Scandinavian Extreme Music Compilation, released in 2000 through Endtime Productions. Dalbakk was also part of the unblack metal band Vardøger, and Børud had joined the progressive death metal band Extol and also started a career as a solo artist. The two artists would years later, in 2015, team up again to found the progressive death metal project Fleshkiller. The genre performed by the band was described variously as doom metal, death metal, death-doom, gothic metal, black metal, melodic death metal, and progressive metal. Børud's guitar work was strongly influenced by classical music, with one reviewer describing it as a "metal symphony." Its lyrics were explicitly Christian, drawing heavily from the Bible and emphasizing the love of God for all humans. Schaliach has been compared to the output from Extol, Amorphis, Metallica, Solitude Aeturnus, Dream Theater, Threshold, Shadow Gallery, and Teramaze. Most critics were favorable to Sonrise — it was rated highly by HM writer Matt Morrow and by two reviewers from the Christian website The Phantom Tollbooth, and described by the webzine Chronicles of Chaos as "excellent". However, Rock Hard was less favorable and considered Schaliach boring.

References

  1. ↑ Leininger, Merrie (May 19, 2006). "In Flames plays unpretentious metal", Reno Gazette-Journal , p. H16.
  2. ↑ "First issue of CoC". ChroniclesOfChaos.com. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dumittan, Arlette Huguenin (2014). "Corpus". Text Linguistics in Heavy Metal Magazines and Webzines. Cuvillier Verlag. pp. 187–189. ISBN   9783954047451. ProQuest   2229276197.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Albert, Jaclyn; O'Connor, Laura (January 31, 2009). "Adrian Bromley", Billboard 121 (4): 18.
  5. ↑ (December 9, 2008). "Adrian Bromley RIP", Antimusic News. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
  6. ↑ "CoC's 12th anniversary editorial". ChroniclesOfChaos.com. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  7. 1 2 "CoC's 20th anniversary editorial by Gino Filicetti". ChroniclesOfChaos.com. Retrieved August 25, 2015.
  8. 1 2 "CoC's 20th anniversary editorial by Pedro Azevedo". ChroniclesOfChaos.com. Retrieved August 25, 2015.
  9. ↑ "CoC's 2003 reactivation editorial". ChroniclesOfChaos.com. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  10. ↑ Kahn-Harris, Keith (2007), Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge, Berg, ISBN   978-1-84520-399-3
  11. ↑ "Key Toronto Metal Figure Adrian 'The Energizer' Bromley Passes". BraveWords.com. Archived from the original on December 11, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  12. ↑ "CoC's Adrian Bromley editorial". ChroniclesOfChaos.com. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  13. ↑ "Adrian Bromley Memorial Show in Toronto". BraveWords.com. Archived from the original on December 15, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  14. ↑ "R.I.P. Adrian Bromley, 1971-2008". The End Records. Archived from the original on December 19, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  15. ↑ "Adrian Bromley Passes Away". Candlelight Records USA. Archived from the original on January 30, 2009. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  16. 1 2 Lake, Daniel (August 14, 2015). "Chronicles of Chaos: 20-Year-Old Extreme Webzine Halts the Charge Today". Decibel . Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  17. 1 2 MetalSucks (August 14, 2015). "Chronicles of Chaos: 20 Years and Done". MetalSucks. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
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