Vocalist Christian Rivel (real name Christian Liljegren) has made quite a mark in the last 16 years. As a founding member of Narnia (7 albums), Divinefire (4 albums), Wisdom Call (1 album), Modest Attraction (2 albums) and Flagship (1 album)―not to mention his label Rivel Records―he’s racked up quite a discography. Yet [...]

When Godspeed You Black Emperor! lent itself for post-rock to advertise and gain momentum, little did they know just how saturated the genre would become. Soon after, everyone seemed to have a band that played the music by the book, making it harder and harder for the casual listener to [...]

There’s a lot to like from the debut of Barcelona’s Pagan metal act Lux Divina. It’s a well produced black metal record full of foresty, heathen pride and regal pagan grandiosity as well as trademark melodic black metal trappings.
Versed metal heads will detect the immediate influence of Borknagar and Vintersorg as well as early In [...]

The rest of the world got this disc late 2009, those of us in North America had to wait till January 26. The limited edition contains a bonus DVD recorded Live at Peace & Love -festival on June 28, 2008 in Borlänge, Sweden. This is almost reason enough to get this album…

Grab your shovel, go out back into the woods, and dig up your great grandfather’s chest, get his bearshirt and put it on. Join in the merriment. Bifröst is a recommended band that has shown great improvements in musicianship and deserves a listen.
Modern folk metal is plagued with too many synthesized flutes, too many chorus [...]

Here’s yet another entry in the parade of retro records that seem to be rolling in early this year, and like most of the others, Barn Burner’s Bangers is a pretty solid outing.
The Canadian outfit certainly draws influence from the early 1980s like the other retro bands I’ve heard recently, but they also dip back into [...]

The members of Daredevil Squadron wear their varied influences on their sleeves on their debut album Out of the Sun, and, to be honest, it’s quite refreshing. There’s a dash of traditional metal here, a bit of 1970s hard rock there, a pinch of 1980s sleaze, just a touch of blues rock and even an [...]

The malignancy seems to have entered remission. The sound is clearer and cleaner, the guitar tone of voice is less threatening with a more expressive feel, mixing in bonafied solos, and the steady strumming has reemerged re-imagined as an actual discernible rhythm. The overarching pacing has quickened to a crawl, and at times a trot. [...]

When I wrote my review of White Wizzard’s High Speed GTO last year, I said that if they could deliver an album as good as the title track of that EP, I’d proudly wear the T-shirt, despite my inner editor’s strong objections to their spelling of the word wizard. Well, folks, my shirt is on [...]

Wow – Overkill are back, and in a big way. Now, I’ve never been a rabid fanboy, but I’ve always been pretty fond of most of their early material. Post-Horrorscope though, the thrash legends had their share of ups, downs and line-up changes. Ironbound though, is set to change that. I can say with the [...]

I had been sort of a casual fan of Arsis before the release of the extraordinary We Are the Nightmare, but that album took my fandom to a whole new level and made me appreciate the two albums and EP before it even more. I felt the inclusion of drummer Darren Cesca on that album [...]

Here’s a cool little 7 track EP from a new California act who mange to meld dark, pummeling hardcore, crust and post rock into a solid release that bodes well for the future, even in relatively crowded scene. Definitely recommended for fans on Converge due to some blistering chaos, underlined with some subtle and metallic [...]

Ignoring the DVD releases and Best of -compilations, Armored Saint have been occupied elsewhere, unable to thrash out like they should. It’s been 10 years since their previous full-length album “Revelation” and the crowd has been left wandering in the dark, looking for the saint that is armored to set them free. This year, the band finally returns to the meat factory with their newest album “La Raza” (via Metal Blade Records). But the question remains… can they deliver? Read Shawn’s take on it.

You just need to take one look at the some of this German band’s promotional shots of the band smeared in stylistic blood on front of fiery battle scene to guess the style this band play and their primary influences. Look no further than the likes of Turisas, Ensiferum, Falchion and such, though Varg is [...]

Few and far between are the bands who can both display their influences and without completely ripping them off. California 3-piece rockers Year Long Disaster are one of those bands. Thankfully, they’re a new band not enamored with the current wave of wannabe “sleaze” bands that seem to be popping up all over. Nor are [...]

As a chronicler of the vast metal underworld, it is my charge – my burden – to delve deep into sonic realms which are shunned by most mortal ears. Over years of study, I have built up the fortitude, the facility – and, more and more, a growing fascination – with which to endure these [...]

France’s Hypno5e recently stunned experimental metal fans with Des Deux l’une Est l’Autre, a shimmering, pulverizing, kaleidoscopic odyssey of BTBAM-styled insanity. Even with all the dynamics and sprawl packed into the album though, it seems they still have more to say – or at least, they wanted to say it in a different, softer voice.
And [...]

And so the fittingly titled last album from Chet Scott (aided by Daniel Ellis Harrod and James Woodhead), closes the chapter on what has been one of the more interesting and introspective metal projects of the last few years with a deeply personal and almost completely ambient album.
Where as Scott’s last two albums, the debut Blood [...]

On first listen, I thought I was going to really like Stygian’s Fury Rising. You see, I have this weakness in the eyes of many, and that’s the fact that I actually enjoy some of the more commercial acts like Godsmack and Disturbed. Though they have some aspirations to something a little heavier, that’s really [...]

Brazilian band Dynahead deliver some strong, tight Heavy Metal with their debut CD Antigen. After several spins of this album now, I’d have to ultimately place it in the Progressive Metal category. But, don’t get visions of some Dream Theater or Threshold clone in your noggin. The Metal on Antigen is much more aggressive and [...]

Pretty much every source labels Carach Angren as symphonic black metal, but in all honesty I disagree. The band’s latest album Death Came Through a Phantom Ship goes way beyond the darkness and blackness that the word pair ‘black metal’ holds. But for the sake of being a conformist, let’s play along and call it [...]

I tried to forgive Eluveitie for last years Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion. Though it wasn’t a bad record, it wasn’t a metal record either. Now the band takes the obvious leap back into metal, but what we get is no comparison to 2008’s Slania. Unless you are a diehard fan of this band, Everything [...]

Well, here is 2010s first top notch tech death metal release (the re-issue of Obscura’s Retribution does not count).
After 2008s promising little The Nameless, The Faceless EP, this California trio have made all the necessary improvements and developments to start flirting with the likes of Severed Savior, Odious Mortem, Abysmal Dawn and such: busy and [...]

With only 100 copies pressed, I never would have heard about Midnight Odyssey had it not been for TOTD-forum member timshel, who has a bloodhound’s knack for sniffing out obscure, arty avant-garde black metal gems. In this case, it’s a one-man ambient black metal project from Brisbane, Australia that blends the [...]

It seems that a lot of the albums I’ve gotten early this year have a heavy 1980s influence to them. Most have been surprisingly very good, a couple have been awful and then there’s the middle ground, where the full-length debut from Finland’s Armour falls. 
There’s some fairly solid early-to-mid 1980s hard rock here, falling a [...]