When Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Sept. 18, another wave of uncertainty swept the country.

It wasn’t just the question of who would replace Ginsburg on the bench, but who would appoint her replacement and when.

What happened to Ministry’s lyrics?

That’s what I’m asking myself because I just listened to their 2013 album From Beer to Eternity several times over the last week.

At the time of From Beer to Eternity’s release, Al Jourgensen, the founder, heart and soul of the band had declared it to be their last album due to the death of guitarist/bass guitarist Michael Scaccia on Dec. 23, 2012. Scaccia had died just after the band finished recording sessions for the album.

Of course, five years later, we know that’s not the case since Ministry is still around.

Anyway, there’s not…

Transcendence into the Peripheral by diSEMBOWELMENT is a strange album and kind of a challenge to review.

Seriously, what am I supposed to call their style? It’s not quite death metal. Not quite doom. Not quite grind. They’re closest to the funeral-doom of Skepticism, but that doesn’t feel quite right either. Instead, it sounds like this nebulous entity that exists outside of classification, waiting to reach its aural tentacles in and tingle the unexpecting listener’s spine.

disEMBOWELMENT’s sound is as interesting as the band itself.

Believer’s 1993 album Dimensions is one of those albums I took a chance on due to the glowing reviews from Borivoj Krgin.

Krgin was the reviewer I trusted most at Metal Maniacs and when he said something was exceptional, I usually took that as a cue to go buy an album.

I wouldn’t usually pick up an album by a band from the Christian scene. It’s not really got to do as much with religion as it is simply with most of the groups seeming to be boring knockoffs of better bands.

So, when Krgin, who was openly atheist then…

Cynic’s 1993 album Focus is another one of those albums I bought based on the reviews in the magazine Metal Maniacs.

At the time, I listened to it quite a bit, but I don’t think I appreciated it for what it was. But hey, I was 16. My interests back then was the hard-hitting tunes of Pantera and Megadeth and I had not developed quite the patience for music you have to sit down and really listen to in order to appreciate. Cynic, whose style fused metal, jazz and synthesizers, is one of those bands that require that patience.

So…

Sick of it All is one of those bands I’ve always known about but never really listened to.

You can blame that on a number of factors, but probably the main one is just the lack of availability in my area. You never saw their albums on the music store shelves, heard them on the radio or saw their videos on MTV. Aside from magazines, Sick of it All existed in a different universe for me.

That was life in rural Arkansas back in the early-to-mid 1990s though.

Years later, thanks to YouTube, I got to sit down and listen…

Evoken’s 2005 album Antithesis of Light like most albums in the funeral metal genre is hard to review.

With funeral metal you have very long and slow songs with sparse lyrics. It’s not music meant for moshing or headbanging. Instead, it’s better listened to alone in a dim or dark room while you’re alone with your thoughts or with a few melancholic companions.

Much like ambient music, this is the sort of music that takes you someplace. The sounds put images in your head instead of words.

Sure, John Paradiso growls some lyrics here and there, but his guttural and…

If I didn’t know that the 1993 album Infierno De Dante (Dante’s Inferno) by Transmetal was produced by the legendary Scott Burns, I probably would never had bothered to listen.

After all, when I hear a name like “Transmetal” an image of a hairband trying to pass itself off as “progressive metal” comes to mind.

Well, Transmetal definitely ain’t hair metal.

Transmetal are instead a brutal Mexican death metal band who toss aside everything that comes with their glammy-sounding name and just pummel the listener with their sonic sledgehammer.