ABOUT SONIC AUTOPSY
Sonic Autopsy exists as a practice of listening, interpretation, and documentation. We focus on how heavy music is actually experienced and how it moves through culture, expressed through case files, live incidents, field reports, and interviews.
CASE FILES
Case Files are experiential analyses of albums and releases. They approach listening as an encounter rather than a traditional review, focusing on how sound influences emotion, perception, and embodied response.
Each case is treated as documentation of experience rather than evaluation. The aim is not to rank or judge, but to observe what occurs when sound is fully engaged with over time.
live incidents
Live Incidents are experiential accounts of live performances and events. They approach the live setting as an encounter, focusing on how sound is felt in real time — across the body, the room, and the collective atmosphere.
Rather than recapping or reviewing, they document what unfolds in the moment: shifts in energy, intensity, and presence as sound moves through space and audience.
FIELD REPORTS
Field Reports are reflective essays exploring heavy music through philosophical, psychological, sociological, and cultural perspectives.
Rather than focusing on specific releases, they examine the conditions surrounding sound — how it is created, experienced, and situated within broader human and cultural contexts.
Interviews
Interviews are conversations with people across the heavy music landscape — bands, fans, venues, and beyond — exploring the lived experience of heavy music.
Rather than focusing on promotion or biography, they centre on how sound is felt, interpreted, and experienced in real time and real spaces.
Meet the CREATOR
LISA MCLEAN
Lisa McLean is the creative force behind Sonic Autopsy, working across experiential writing, analysis, and documentation of heavy music and its impact on human experience.
Her work is grounded in a long-standing practice of using language to explore inner experience, perception, and psychological processes.
Sonic Autopsy is an ongoing practice of documenting how heavy music is experienced, interpreted, and lived.
This is not traditional music journalism. It does not rank, review, or categorise in conventional terms.
Based in Melbourne, Australia.