About

Mephistophilizer is a publication about music and musicians. There will be reviews. There will be interviews. There will not be endless debates about what genre a band fits into nor will there be gushing about how many streams someone got. If this thing is doing what it's supposed to, you'll usually get concise writing about music and songwriting and lyrics and the things that connect musicians to the world.

The name

Took the name from the band of the same name. The band was something of a joke that goes all the way back to a late night session writing ridiculous off-the-cuff lyrics to Sabbath and Motörhead tracks sometime back in the late 90s in a little Boston studio apartment. Best one was the line "Woodland creatures made of leather..." sung to the melodic opening line of "War Pigs".

Anyway. Mephistophilizer. Think it's an apt name for a zine, given that reviewing music is something of a Faustian endeavor.

Who is behind this

Chiefly writing and editing here is Srogi Mroczek, proprietor of an eponymous record label and co-conspirator on a number of projects — most recently the band Bleak Magician and the synth project Towerhouser.

It's all free (for now)

May open up a premium tier at some point in the future. But, then again, maybe not. Let's just see how things go.

Subscribe

Best way to show your appreciation is to subscribe. And follow both the Mephistophilizer feed and Srogi's account over on Bluesky.

Contact and Music Submissions

Have an upcoming release? Something to share?

Do not send attachments, but feel free to send links to your music on Bandcamp, Ampwall, etc. to srogimroczek (at) gmail.com.

Pitches / Writers

Have an idea for a story / interview? Dying to publish a review? Pitch it to srogimroczek (at) gmail.com.