Chronicles of Chaos

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Chronicles of Chaos
URL http://www.chroniclesofchaos.com/
Commercial? No
Type of site Music webzine
Registration Forum only
Owner Gino Filicetti
Created by Gino Filicetti and Adrian Bromley
Launched August 1995
Current status Active

Chronicles of Chaos is an extreme metal webzine. It focuses on artists that are generally outside the metal mainstream, and occasionally covers other forms of extreme music as well. Online since August 1995, Chronicles of Chaos is one of the longest standing active websites of its kind. Chronicles of Chaos has been a nonprofit publication since its inception. The online article count currenty stands at over 5,000 reviews, interviews and opinion articles. The Chronicles of Chaos staff currently comprises sixteen writers born in ten different countries. In addition to visiting the website, Chronicles of Chaos readers can also benefit from a monthly e-mail digest, an RSS feed and WAP access.

Contents

[edit] History

Chronicles of Chaos was founded by Canadians Gino Filicetti and Adrian Bromley in 1995, and started out in the shape of a monthly e-mail digest. Chronicles of Chaos (often referred to as CoC) was among the first Internet-only heavy metal and extreme music magazines, and currently remains as one of the longest running publications of its kind.

In its early years, CoC was one of the few to publish reviews and interviews on the Internet featuring bands such as Nevermore, Strapping Young Lad and Dimmu Borgir before they were well known, as well as numerous other bands that were popular in the mid-Nineties metal underground, including At the Gates, Fear Factory, Dismember, Dissection, Brutal Truth, Napalm Death, Sepultura, Hypocrisy, My Dying Bride, Cannibal Corpse, Edge of Sanity, Paradise Lost, Amorphis, Morbid Angel, In Flames, Sentenced, Therion, Emperor, Vader, Bolt Thrower, Opeth and Slayer, among others. CoC also interviewed the leaders of labels such as Earache Records, Peaceville and The End Records, and to date continues to review and talk to current bands.

[edit] 1995-2002

Initially comprised 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.

In this period, founder Filicetti retired from his role as contributor and co-founder Bromley moved on to form his own print publication, Unrestrained!, with fellow CoC contributor Adam Wasylyk. Meanwhile, various other writers departed or became part-time contributors due to other engagements. 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 first and only time in its history so far, with an announcement made in early 2003 that a new website was being developed. 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.

[edit] 2003-Present

From 2003 onwards, the publication adopted a database-driven website. Older articles previously found only inside plain text files became immediately accessible, and the new system also allowed articles to be published more frequently and directly to the website. The e-mail digest returned to its original monthly schedule, gathering up the articles published on the website during that month.

The staff was gradually augmented between 2003 and 2006 with the addition of new European, American and Australian writers. This led to a current total of sixteen writers, although several of those are only sporadic part-time contributors who were previously an integral part of the publication pre-2003. In keeping with its international tradition, ten different nationalities are currently represented in the staff. The Chronicles of Chaos archive currently contains over 5,000 reviews, interviews and opinion articles. More than 100 issues of the e-mail digest have been published to date, containing over 18 megabytes of text.

[edit] Trivia

- One of the site's co-founders, Adrian Bromley, went on to found his own print magazine in the shape of Unrestrained! which is published in the US and Canada.

- Many of Chronicles of Chaos' writing staff have gone on to become full-time contributors to magazines like Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Unrestrained! and more.

- Despite both frequently using the abbreviation CoC, there is no connection between Chronicles of Chaos and Corrosion of Conformity, other than an interview conducted by Adrian Bromley in November 2000.

[edit] External links