Knife the Glitter’s Eli Litwin-Moskowitz Shares His Ten Favorite Metal T-Shirts

A metalhead’s t-shirt collection contains some of their most prized possessions. Sweaty, stained and torn, our shirts are chronicles of our lives, physical markers of a past time and place that we pridefully put on our bodies every day. They have a clear pecking order: there are those shirts you wear only when all the best ones are in the laundry, there are the absolute favorites you wear once every couple of weeks, and there are all the shirts in between, each with their own clear rank. To a metalhead, T-shirts are EVERYTHING.

Eli Litwin-Moskowitz of New Jersey progressive metallers Knife the Glitter is the latest to share his threads for our series My Metal T-Shirt Collection. Knife the Glitter released their long-awaited, self-titled, final album this past December; you can stream it below and purchase it here. Without further ado, check out some of Eli’s favorite threads below!

1. Burnt By The Sun

Burnt By The Sun were one of my favorite bands in college and I was fortunate enough to see them live a bunch of times. This one, with the artwork from their last album, I bought the last time I ever saw them before they broke up. I used to have a shirt from their first album, but it was in a backpack that was stolen a long time ago.

2. Sumac

Sumac put out my favorite album of 2016. I love Isis and Old Man Gloom, but What One Becomes was a new high water mark for Aaron Turner. They’re on some next level stuff and absolutely destroy live.

3. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum opened the door to a lot of weirder/artier music for me. They came into my life at just the right time, and I ended up having some serendipitous connections with them, via some close friends, that made them even more than just a band that I loved. This shirt gets a lot of “What’s going on here?” kind of looks.

4. Black Sabbath

My favorite album (and song) from the band to which we all owe everything. What more is there to say?

5. Prince

I’m a huge Prince fan. My brother-in-law gave me this shirt as a birthday gift. It’s a bootleg from France. Pretty sweet.

6. Intensus

I can’t help but plug another project of mine because I really love the artwork. Intensus is a freely improvised extreme metal recording project in which I play all the drums, bass, and guitar (save for a couple guest solos). Vocal contributions on the first album came from the singers of Between the Buried and Me, A Life Once Lost, The Number 12 Looks Like You, East Of The Wall, Trophy Scars and a few others. The album came out on Metal Blade in 2011, and I have just started working on its follow-up.

7. Extol

I have to include both of my Extol shirts because they are one of my all-time favorite bands. The Undeceived shirt I got in college when two friends and I drove four hours from Philly to Albany, NY because that was the closest they were playing. I had this feeling that I may never get the chance to see them again, and I was right! That one I really wore out and it has big holes in the armpits, but I still wear it around the house. The newer one I wear practically once a week.

8. Mouth of the Architect

Speaking of worn out, this Mouth of the Architect shirt is barely recognizable anymore. I got it probably over ten years ago and clearly wore it to death. I don’t wear it even around the house much anymore, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of it because of how much I like the band, and now it’s like an artifact.

9. Meshuggah

Not a t-shirt, but this hoodie is too good not to show off.  A one-of-a-kind, custom made item, the pieces of this came from a long sleeve shirt that I ordered which ended up being way too big for me. So I asked my sister to cut it up and sew the pieces onto a hoodie. I’ve had one or two people ask if they could buy it off me, but it’s not for sale!

10. Cave In

When the tattooed coffee shop guy asks me, “Whoa, is that an old school Cave In hoodie?” I feel cool for a minute. I love this one because in addition to being a very aesthetically pleasing design, it’s also kind of like a secret code, because unless you know the Jupiter album well you wouldn’t even know that it’s a band shirt.

Knife the Glitter released their long-awaited, self-titled, final album this past December; you can stream it below and purchase it here.