Sound over signal
No aggregator copy. No "fans also like." Every review is an argument. We rank on craft, intention, and whether the record needed to exist — not on hype cycles or submission volume.
Est. 2019 — Underground Press
An obsessive record of the loud and the loud-hearted.
Rages of Sanity is an independent publication for heavy music — doom, black, sludge, hardcore, noise, and the strange corners in between. We write long, we listen twice, and we don't chase algorithms.
Built in basements, refined in transit.
What started as a shared spreadsheet of demo links between three friends in 2019 became a publication with a clear point of view. We never set out to be comprehensive — we set out to be honest.
The site began as a Bandcamp group chat. We were reviewers, not influencers — a distinction that still matters to us. Every record we cover has been played front-to-back at least three times, usually in contexts the artist probably never intended: a 5am drive, a 3pm office, a kitchen with a single speaker blown out.
By 2021 we'd published our first long-form interviews, including a 4,000-word conversation with a death-doom band rehearsing in a converted Lutheran church. That's the work we care about — the bands making records for reasons that have nothing to do with metrics, and the readers who want to think harder about the records they love.
Today, Rages of Sanity is run by six contributors across four time zones. We publish reviews weekly, features monthly, and interviews whenever a conversation earns the airtime. We accept no paid placements, no promo fees, no label sponsorship. Our only client is the reader.
The mixing desk that traveled with us. Three of our earliest reviews were mixed on this board in a basement outside Portland. We still have it.
Three things we won't compromise.
Editorial positions sound like press-release language, but ours are operational. Every piece on this site is held against these three rules before it goes live.
Time as a tool
A record lives with us before it earns a verdict. Our review window is minimum 14 days. We treat re-listens as part of the work, not a luxury — and we say when something grew on us, or didn't.
Independence, structurally
No label sponsorship. No paid reviews. No embedded promo. Our Patreon and direct reader support fund the site — that's the only ledger that matters when we decide what to cover.
Confrontation, not cruelty
Heavy music can be ugly. Critics can be sharper. We aim for the former and never the latter. We name what doesn't work, but we treat artists as people — especially the ones who aren't famous yet.
By the numbers
Five years in, still counting.
1,240+
Reviews published
312
Long-form interviews
48
Features & essays
6
Contributing editors
The people behind the bylines.
Six writers, four cities, one shared rule: if you can't defend the take in a room full of band members, don't publish it. Meet the regular rotation.
Mara Kessel
Editor-in-ChiefFounding editor. Covers doom, funeral, and anything with a string section that shouldn't be there. Lives in Pittsburgh with two turntables and a cat named Feedback.
Jonas Oduya
Senior ReviewerBlack metal, post-punk, and the awkward space between. Has interviewed 80+ artists and keeps a running spreadsheet of every record that makes him cry on the train.
Rosa Veliz
Features EditorLong-read specialist. Spends most of her time chasing scene histories and oral histories. Her piece on the 2010s Pacific Northwest grindcore revival remains our most-read feature.
Devin Haq
Hardcore & PunkWrites about hardcore with the seriousness the genre has earned and the accessibility newcomers need. Books our quarterly zine inserts and runs the interview audio archive.
Send a record, a tip, or a long email.
We read everything. We answer most things. Press kits, demos, and corrections can all go through the channels below.