Now that fellow labelmates and countrymen My Dying Bride have two excellent retrospectives in the proverbial bag, Anathema get their turn to compile and assemble a collection or two of their own.
While Bride’s dual slabs of melancholy were voted by the fans on the group’s website, Anathema here seems particularly adamant over what tracks made [...]

Chapter III, not surprisingly, is the third full length by this German band. The title underscores the main issue with this band – Agathodaimon are just not very imaginative. They are accomplished musicians and the production is quite good, but there is something lacking. It is hard to really listen to the entire album. Invariably [...]

Hot on the heels of Carnal Forge, The Forsaken and nearly every other band in Sweden rocking to the success of At The Gates comes Alingsas-based Arise. Admittedly, I would have instantly liked The Godly Work of Art, say, two years back, but as more and more bands appropriate the upper echelons of Swedish death, [...]

I still listen to The Grand Leveler, along with Gorefest’s Erase; they ranks as one of my favorite all time Euro-Death albums. Since The Grand Leveler, however, Benediction has done little to recreate the magic on that release. I am happy to say that Organized Chaos presents a return to form for Benediction.
After two average [...]

As a music genre, I had always thought of hardcore as the middle ground between punk and metal. The ideologies of punk and with the edge and aggressiveness of metal blended perfectly without teetering one way or the other. Generally these days when someone refers to a ‘hardcore’ band it’s more likely they’re speaking about [...]

In theory I should love this album. Being a fan of Cruachan, Skyclad, In Extremo and other folkish inspired metal acts, I was looking forward to reviewing Waylander’s second album. Adorned with Celtic knot work and pagan icons and also having song titles like, “Morrigan’s Domain”, and “Balor of the Evil Eye”, you know what [...]

This French band plays orchestrated black goth, and is tailor made for Cradle of Filth fans. The cover art says it all, they are not very original, but the great production makes it worth listening to.
I have known about this band for awhile but had never had any desire to listen to them so I [...]

Everyone, who has followed Anathema’s illustrious career as intensely as this writer, should have seen this album coming. In purest form, A Fine Day to Exit is nothing less than a masterpiece. Not unlike Katatonia’s newest magnum opus Last Fair Deal Gone Down, the album is fueled by relentless emotive energy mixed with precise musical [...]

South Florida’s Until The End is a veritable hardcore supergroup of sorts. With members from Red Roses For A Blue Lady, Walls Of Jericho, Where Fear And Weapons Meet and Morning Again, you can tell from this all-star line-up Until The End mean business.
Blood in the Ink, their Eulogy debut, is 100 percent tough-guy, thugcore, [...]

For true proggers, this album is best purchased in its Limited Edition version, which contains a bonus disc of covers, demo snippets, and an interactive CD-ROM section, all housed in a hard cover with a beautiful full-color booklet and copious studio notes. The regular release of Bridge Across Forever is legend enough, as it’s easily [...]

In 1989, I brought Agnostic Front’s live Compilation, Live at CBGB’s, based on some review in a British metal magazine.’Being swamped in Iron Maiden, Sabbat and Metallica, I had no idea what New York hardcore was. I was literally blown away ‘ the energy, the unity and the power had me hooked, resulting in me [...]

Damn Metallica to hell. These former thrash kings did more damage to the genre with 1999’s collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony on S & M than any other band in metal history. And depending on whether you thought the mighty Met threw in the integrity towel with ’96s Load (which was just that), ’91s [...]

This band plays “brutal and bestial death black metal,” and that is as good a description as I could come up with. This is Carpathian Forest death metal style. Wall of noise type death is on display here, lots of distortion. The vocals are a croaking rumble that is surprisingly understandable.
As their album cover shows, [...]

It has been five years since Memoria Vetusta, finally we have the next piece from this long standing French act. Three albums in nine years of existence is one way to ensure cult status among the underground faithful, but five years between releases is just as likely to get you forgotten. The Mystical Beast Of [...]

Simply put, Worchester, MA, doom trio Warhorse is heavy as fuck. Crushing, intestinal moving doom metal is something that only a few bands do remarkably well – Cathedral’s first demo and album, the last two Sleep albums, Burning Witch, Grief and Electric Wizard’s albums immediately come to mind – and As Heaven Turns To Ash [...]

This album, Sweden’s Thy Primordial’s first recorded but third released, seems like demo material that has been released years later. Compared to their current material, the musicianship is weak and the production is weak, which is not unusual for a band’s first release, but this is a solid album in its own right. Thy Primordial [...]

Bethlehem is one of those bands that I’ve just ignored over the years for various reasons. I know they played a kind of black doom in the past, but they seem to have taken a giant misstep emotionally during their last stay in the mental hospital. My first impression was what the fuck? I’m glad [...]

Blast beats, aggressive growls, and intensity jump right out of the speakers almost instantly upon inserting Advent into the CD player. But then, out of thin air, we hit a wall and there is acoustic and piano ringing in our ears.
What we have here in April Ethereal is an aggressive, melodic, romantic death/doom metal band [...]

Many will find Finland’s Alghazanth hard not to compare to Dimmu Borgir. Alghazanth formed late in 1995 and, after more than their share of line-up changes, finally released their debut in late 1999. This is their third full-length in little more than two years, – quite prolific for a band plagued by line-up changes, which [...]

One look at the cover of Southern Apocalypse – a grainy shot of a bathroom, a suicide victim with a gun, a confederate flag – and you know just what you’re in for: brutal, tortured southern sludge.
Comparisons to Eyehategod are inevitable, but I’d go so far as to say that Beaten Back to Pure are [...]

It is 1987 and you are listening to Mayhem, no it’s 2001 and you are listening to Black Dawn. This is “True Black Metal” according to the band, and one must “only listen to during self-mutilation.” Now that all the obvious Mayhem comparisons are out of the way, what’s left? Musically they sound like early [...]

As the glut of stoner rock becomes deeper and less buzzed, it’s nice to see bands like Alabama Thunderpussy taking the genre into heavier and dirtier directions, content to expand, maximize and rock hard.
What it comes down to is that when the band screams out “Play This Record Loud!!!” on the back sleeve, they aren’t [...]

Blodsrit (blood rite) is an old heathen ritual performed by sacrificing blood for better crops. Blodsrit is also a Swedish black metal band with it’s origins in early Darkthrone, Marduk and Carpathian Forest. This is corpse painted satanic black metal written with care and conviction and more precision than most. Originally a one man project, [...]

This is my first experience with this band, although it is their fourth full-length release. So much for being gentle the first time. I have not been this blasted into this kind of audio submission since Cryptopsy’s Whisper Supremacy.
There have been some impressive releases in to heavier end of the Death metal/grindcore spectrum (Soils of [...]

After returning in Y2K with their stellar comeback record Revelation, California metallers Armored Saint serve one up to their long time fans with A Nod To The Old School; a collection of early indie tracks, live tunes, 4-track demos, covers and a few new numbers in a 2Disc package that is sure to fit comfortably [...]