Author Archive

Devourment – Unleash the Carnivore

What a year. Seriously, new albums by Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Cannibal Corpse is one thing in a year, but when the underground is also churning out slabs of equally if not more ferocious material then it shows that the good times truly are a rolling. Now for a band that’s legacy was built on a […]

Unholy – New Life Behind Closed Eyes

You are mistaken if you are thinking this is the Finnish doom band of the same name so click away now if you were expecting a mournful recollection of misery. Instead is the complete other side of the spectrum, fierce, robust, thrashing metal from a place more likely to be more miserable then Finland, that […]

Thick As Blood – Embrace

What more did you expect? There are three words above that are intrinsic to hardcore terminology, “thick,” for thick riffs, beats, vocals and lyrics. Blood, well, you don’t have to be blood to be family and all that rhetoric that’s been rife pretty much since the beginning and embrace? You embrace the music, the scene […]

For Today – Portraits

First and foremost, massive improvement from their debut Ekklesia and whilst For Today show growth in their musical capabilities they are some way off the top of the mound in the metalcore circles, even the Christian ones.They continue to build on their solid foundation of choice influences, taking the stutter and lurch of most modern […]

Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky – The Grand Partition and The Abrogation of Idolatry

This band is seriously armed to the teeth in almost every respect. First of all, they have one of the longest, most ridiculous names ever conceived. Second, they’ve matched that with the album title. Third, they have enlisted James Murphy to produce and mix this beast, the Obituary connection continues, at least on the Euro […]

Pulling Teeth – Paranoid Delusions / Paradise Illusions

More horrific. More addictive. That’s the aim for Pulling Teeth. Every time they come back they are that much more ugly, that much more putrid but, that much more intoxicating and tempting. Furthermore, with each release, everything just gets better, doomier, faster, of course uglier but paramount of course is the quality which is unsurprisingly […]

War From a Harlots Mouth – In Shoals

Credit where credit’s due, not only have WFAHM continued to pursue the jagged, distorted path laid down from their prior releases but have more importantly, remained active. It’s particularly admirable given the current climate and the fact that people are becoming more and more fickle about how they burn their disposable income each month (providing […]

Maroon – Order

What’s this? Another Vegan Straight Edge monolith on Century Media? Unlike Earth Crisis though, Maroon are virtually unrecognizable from the maniacs that unleashed “Captive in the room of the conspirator” and “Antagonist.” Back then it was all about the new school sound forged by Day of Suffering, Arkangel and to an extent Earth Crisis (oh […]

Earth Crisis – To the Death

Despite being world’s apart musically, there is one thing that ties Earth Crisis to the band of one of my previous reviews (Victims’ Killer), this being honesty. It’s a quality that has been apparent in Earth Crisis since their inception, even when they besmirched their legacy musically in 2000 when they put out Slither they […]

Victims – Killer

Just imagine if there was some form of accolade such as a cup, a medal or a trophy of any form in the hardcore universe for possessing a diverse roster. If such an award existed then Deathwish would be a serious contender for the title as they show once again the breath of their artist […]

Too Pure To Die – Confess

 Are you ready for this? You better be, because it’s going to be a massacre. Whilst I firmly believe reviews should never be a platform to launch personal diatribes against an artist, I have to admit that its going to be hard to not bitterly lay into Too pure to die here. Not just because […]

Born from Pain – Survival

It’s all in the name. Survival’s predecessor War, was bathed in a rugged, omnipotent glow, each piece striving forth like an all encompassing, battle scarred and therefore battle hardened piece of war machinery that was ready for yet another bout of onslaughts. Survival, as the title connotes, is fervently desperate, this time each piece zips […]

Dead & Buried – Bear Witness

Dead & Buried’s last record The Company I Keep, remains stuck in my mind due to the horrendous typo that was plastered and the CD sleeve, rather then company, you had ‘comany,’ fortunately the printing press had remembered to put the music on there. From their inception they have always been a solid band, writing […]

Thy Art is Murder – Infinite Death EP

Look out, deathcore is now even in Australia. Admitted, its getting silly now. How many more bands, hold on, let me stress that, HOW MANY MORE bands will keep writing and writing these songs? Seriously? Well I don’t know, and you can call me crazy, but for some reason unbeknown to me, I keep listening […]

Gallows for Grace – A Process for the Destruction of Tomorrow EP

Aussie deathcore Part 2,  actually, this could even be the same review as Gallows for Grace, like their Australian brethren (and brothers in crime) Thy Art is Murder, play shredding, gruff deathcore, with plenty of chug, grunts and blazing Paul Waggoner wannabe runs to make lads and lasses in their asphyxiating garments cream until the […]

Loyal to the Grave – Still Climbin, Still Believin

And guess what? Still listening. I won’t make this a secret, this was in my top 10 back when it was originally released in 2006, it still gets a lot of play and it will continue to get a lot of play until their next record drops, even more so with this re-issue with added […]

Call to Preserve – From Isolation

Its an interesting technique that Facedown have been employing, that being nurturing a band on their subsidiary Strike First and then ushering them forward into the big league if you will. Call to Preserve were a band I passed up on when Unsinkable, surfaced, can’t recall why, put something just didn’t pull me in. So […]

Gorevent – Abnormal Exaggeration

Time to readdress the balance, it has been far too long since I did a death metal review and it was too tempting to simply let this one be untouched by my esteemed colleagues. Gorevent rule. Simple fact and I know that I have stated this a million times but, for me, you cannot do […]

Energy – Invasion

Round 3 with Bridge 9, and yet again evidence that the palette within their roster is expanding ever further as a release of this ilk would have been unthinkable in the label’s formative phase. Even more unthinkable would be that the label would even consider releasing a record by a band that has artwork like […]

Crime in Stereo – Selective Wreckage

As with Ruiner’s newest release, Selective Wreckage, (its all in the title) serves as a collection of lost and missing recordings, accumulated onto one piece of yummy plastic which nullifies the need to hunt down 7 inches, tapes and whatever other formats this tunes originally appeared on. So again, as stated, Bridge 9 has really, […]

Ruiner – I Heard These Dudes are Assholes

The most annoying thing about hardcore, is when the really, really, really good bands implode, be it musically or literally, there is nothing more infuriating, upsetting and just downright disheartening. On the upside, there are always new bands itching to replace their fallen peers and carry on pushing on that sound, it may not be […]

With Dead Hands Rising – Expect Hell

What a title. It just conjures up the image of Russell Crowe leading his hordes of battle scarred legions in the opening of Ridley Scott’s bloody master piece ‘Gladiator.’ What’s more, With Dead Hands Rising’s new opus wouldn’t be a bad soundtrack to accompany the mayhem that unfolds in those opening scenes, the band even […]

Cold World – Dedicated to the Babies Who Came Feet First

Hardcore and Hip Hope are two musical spheres that share a multitude of similarities whilst simultaneously also sharing a myriad of massive differences. However, there are given certainties, both are cultures, both are lifestyles, both are identities, if you are hardcore or hip hop, you let everyone know about it via all aesthetic accompaniments. Whilst […]

Burning Skies – Greed, Filth, Abuse, Corruption

Now this band is really rolling. After the misfire of their stodgy Lifeforce debut ‘Murder Within the Means of Existence,’ Burning Skies cut the fat, and unleashed the absolute bestial Desolation, in 2006. This, their third release for Lifeforce is even better, showing growth in a number of key areas that needed to be developed […]

Misery Signals – Controller

On the surface, it would appear that Ferret has become the anathema of every indie music fan; that being a capitalistically driven monolith intent on peddling the lowest common denominator drivel and casting it off as music that is ‘innovative,’ ‘vital,’ or that has ‘integrity.’ Fortunately, Ferret, unlike Victory hasn’t descended too far into the […]