Evan Mugford

Evan was raised in a particularly un-metal household. There was no AC/DC or Led Zeppelin. No Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, or Iron Maiden. On any given weekend morning, the sounds of Garth Brooks, Jon Secada, and Earth, Wind, and Fire resonated from his parent’s living room, and, for the most part, Evan loved what he heard. The sounds were soulful and light-hearted, fitting for childhood, and heavy metal, well, he was convinced that it was stacked in a junkyard.

Hard rock and its variants didn’t enter the scene until middle school – a period when MTV and Hit Parader introduced Evan to bands like Korn, Tool, Primus, and Marilyn Manson. High school would usher in nu-metal acts like Snot, Nonpoint, Slipknot, and Mudvayne, and then, in college, Evan came in contact with groups like Throwdown, Lamb of God, Chimaira, and DevilDriver. The more Evan looked, the more metal he found, but it wasn’t until after he had earned his undergraduate degree did the grandeur and true scope of the genre finally reveal itself and, in the process, force Evan to acknowledge that he knew precisely squat about heavy music.

Finally at grips with the reality that Hatebreed is not the most brutal band in all of creation, Evan has made it his mission to inform and educate a whole slew of young metal-heads in a way that he’d never had.

Evan has managed to bribe his way to the completion of a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in English.

Just like you, metal has been there for me through thick and thin. Reviewing albums is simply my way of repaying all of the amazing artists who’ve made the rough times seem smooth and the smooth times seem rough.