If you had told me in 1995 that down the road I would be reviewing the 19th album, Next to Die, from Six Feet Under, I would have said No Way!! I was very fortunate to have toured with them when I was in Internal Bleeding, with our first album Voracious Contempt, and Immolation was […]
Much like last year’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra effort, this short but blistering 6-track EP (though only 3 actual songs) from Indianapolis’s Mauled is a throwback to the Myspace, early /mid 00s era of deathcore. Specifically, the likes of Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, All Shall Perish, My Bitter End, and Embrace the End. No blackened or symphonic […]
Comatose Music keeps finding us more brutal slam death metal bands. This time it’s Engorgement, out of the UK, with their second album, They Rot Beneath Our Floor. It’s been a minute since the release of their debut, from 2012, Excruciating Intestinal Lacerations. That is a damn fine display of brutal slam death metal. Ricky […]
Lawd. It’s been since 2008 since I last heard Kentucky’s Blackened doom/sludge act Highgate. It was their debut self-titled album on Total Rust Music, and apparently, I really liked it. Now, since their debut, they have released a couple more albums with Shrines to the Warhead , Black Frost Fallout, and their last album, Survival, […]
With only their second album under their belt now, Beyond the Reach of Enchantment, Iceland’s Power Paladin show the metal world why they are climbing the rungs of the power metal ladder. I reviewed their 2022 debut, With the Magic of Windfyre Steel, and was pretty blown away. I need my power metal fast and […]
Knowing the circumstances behind The Ghost of a Future Dead, its recording, and the members, specifically, of course, Tomas Lindberg, made me listen to it from a different perspective. Adding on top of this, Tomas finished recording his vocals on the day before his surgery for oral cancer, making it impossible for him to ever […]
Indonesia is dumping out some brutal bands left and right. For me, the leaders in this scene are Decaying Humanity. I reviewed their monstrous debut album last year, and now here is the debut album from Multiwomb. Much of the time, the Indonesian death metal albums are super short, and this follows the format, with […]
Germany’s Schattenvald (Shadowforest) has been knocking around since 1998, but didn’t release an album until 2007, and has released 5 albums since, yet somehow neither I nor any of the staff here has covered them. And we love us some German black metal in these here parts. As I said in my review of Nazghor’s […]
Believe it or not, still now and again, a debut album surprises me in a really good way. I’ve heard every style within every genre for decades, folks. Back in 2019, my longtime friend Matt Bishop was on one of my favorite debut brutal death metal albums, in a long time, Excruciating Extermination, from Horrific […]
This is gonna be the easiest review I’ll have to write in 2026. It’s a Vomitory album. Done. I mean, of course I could flesh this thing out and ramble on about this being the band’s 9th album (11th if you count the Cut Up hiatus/ detour they band took after sort of breaking up […]
Gore Machine, from Philadelphia, returns with album number two – Congealed and Foaming. The debut from two years ago, Macerated & Liquified, was a pretty good brutal death metal album. Just like that one, this is a one-man show with Druesome doing it all. The first album cover was fun and gruesome, however this album […]
There have been stellar Black Metal bands coming out of the Middle East for years: Melechesh, Akvan, and Orphaned Land, to name three. Nile, while playing Middle Eastern Death Metal, is still from South Carolina, so they barely qualify (in sound only). So, having said that, I’m here to talk about Gomma, a one-man outfit […]
I know I’ve been reviewing a significant amount of metalcore lately, but it’s not been heavy enough. It’s been too sweet for my tastes, and I don’t have a sweet tooth. This is where Chamber comes in. To even call this “metalcore” is generous. It’s heavy, suffocating, in-your-face, and other adjectives. I am serious when […]
Germany’s death/thrash act Messticator is a relatively new act formed with former and ex- members of various other German thrash and death metal bands I am not familiar with, like Embers of Flesh and Devarium. Total Mastery is their second album, following up 2022s Forthcoming Revelation. As they all do, the promo materials tell me […]
I reviewed Immolation’s eleventh album Acts of God, four years ago and here we are with album #12, Descent. This album is a little more streamlined, and this lineup has been intact for a decade so they are firing on all cylinders with Ross Dolan on bass/vox, Rob Vigna and Alex Bouks on guitar and […]
Relationships can make your spirit uplifted, and you’re invincible with your partner. But then something happens, and the spark goes out, there are accusations and distrust; both of you are trying to break each other down until you’re shells of your former selves. Loss, disconnect from the joyful aspects of life, and venomous anger are […]
Swedish/HM2 death metal can come from anywhere these days. There are stellar bands in the style from France (Iron Flesh), Japan (Heteropsy), Greece (Abyssus), Chile (Soulrot), Russia (Wombripper), Germany (Lifeless), Czechia (Brutally Deceased), Poland (Ulcer), Australia (Earth Rot), Venezuela (Nocturnal Hollow) and the USA (Sentinet Horror), just to name a few. Newcomers, Necrogore are from […]
If you’re unfamiliar with Canada’s Threat Signal, that’s understandable, as Revelations is only their fifth full-length, but they’ve been around since 2004. They haven’t exactly been prolific, especially considering this is the first album in nine years. I honestly never thought I’d see another album, so this was a welcome surprise. Their sound is described […]
Well, honk my hooter, this debut album from brand new tech/dm band Delirious Compulsion knocked my slippers right off my pathetic feet. The band is made up of individuals from the United Kingdom / United States / Czechia / Switzerland. My brother Dakota Rivera provides the putrid vocals, and I was blown away to see […]
The thing I love about a pepper? A pepper has range. A pepper can be much deeper and more complex than a lot of folks are willing to explore and give it credit for. Sure, a pepper can certainly provide spice – at times, alarmingly so – and if you do happen to be one of those […]
Poland is a literal hotbed of Death/ Black and Folk Metal. Their most notable outputs are Behemoth and Vader (among others), but you can add Varmia to the mix of solid extreme music bands from the region. I last spoke about them with high praises for their EP Prolog (2023) and Nie nas widzę (also […]
Inoffensive, paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter, and lacking heft are usually not descriptors I bestow upon albums I enjoy. However… They still apply here. So, what I’m saying is that Colors in Grey by Oathbound is not for me. This is for the metal-curious folks. I’d imagine this gets rotations on Sirius Octane along with all the other […]
I sort of enjoyed the two prior releases from Sweden’s cosmic black metal act, Lightlorn; the debut EP, These Nameless Worlds, and the 2023 debut full-length, At One with the Night Sky. I own both physical CDs, and they fill that early Deafheaven, Soul Dissolution, Alkhemia, Vallendusk, Numeron, Vela Pulsar, Spectral Lore styled melodic/atmospheric black […]
So quite a bunch of things have been swirling around the Exodus camp over the last few years. First and foremost, Goliath is the long-time thrashers’ 13th album and first for new label Napalm Records. I am a huge Exodus fan and have reviewed their last several albums and have seen them live a bunch […]
Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a super heavy, metallic hardcore/beatdown, ‘not quite deathcore/slam’ bender with bands like Orphan, True Temper, Misery Whip, Beyond the Styx, Glassbone, Unfazed, Braces, Grounds For Assault, Silverlake Murder, Hounds of War, Traitors, Nailwound, Pintglass, Mugshot, No Cure, etc. But when this came across my desk, I thought it […]