Greetings, and welcome to my corner of the labyrinthine beast known as the Internet. Hopefully, you've stumbled across this page because you enjoyed my work in Decibel and/or Outburn, or at least because you are wondering who the hell I am and how I got to write for some fairly high-profile metal mags -- or because you're my parents. Hi mom!
I have been writing professionally for seven years now. You may have seen my work in Campus Circle, Hails and Horns, Transform Online (RIP), Metal Eater, Metal Edge (RIP), and the aforementioned Outburn and Decibel. Since I don't always get to review upcoming albums I want to talk about, and I listen to loads of old stuff that I can't really cover in a print publication, I decided that I needed a place to chronicle my musical spelunking -- but be forewarned, there may occasionally be bat creatures that have to be fought off with the assistance of sexy British chicks. My listening habits tend to be voracious, and while Hot Rails to Hell will focus heavily on hard rock and heavy metal, I'll be covering pretty much anything and everything that I listen to.
Of course, that doesn't address the "trust" portion of the title, but the short answer to that is: you shouldn't. I believe that the only person whose instincts you should trust is yourself. Criticism, by its very nature, is subjective, and while I have a pretty healthy ego, I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I am the ultimate authority on what you should listen to. That being said, my job is to do my damnedest to convince you to either listen or not listen to something, and I will not shirk my duties. Maybe I'll even manage to say something insightful and/or humorous along the way! But probably not.
So, to start things off, I'll be putting up a few unpublished reviews from Outburn that were cut for space reasons. In the meantime, if you want to check out some of my writing and support print journalism, you can find my reviews of Astra, Darkest Hour, Darkness Dynamite, grief of WAR, Minsk, Monsters of Metal Vol. 6, Municipal Waste, Novembers Doom, Oceansize, and Pelican in Outburn #50, and my feature on Despised Icon, review of Arch Enemy, and sidebar on girly metal (featuring Leave's Eyes, Echoes of Eternity, and One Without) in Decibel #61. Enjoy!