No time like the present. Whereas some bands spend way too long working on their material and refusing to release it to the outside world until its ready, others, like Arizona’s Knights of the Abyss just lock, load and get right down to it. What’s more astonishing in this case is the massive change in […]

A curious development here, these long islanders have decided to abandon their former guise of bombastic, technical metalcore (with gargantuan breakdowns and odd experimental ambient forays) in favour of this much more stripped, direct approach. The feeling that manifests with Villains, is that is very much a classic love/hate scenario. Either you will feverishly gorge […]

This review is going to start off with a weird comparison, but here it goes. I cannot help but feel that there is a kindred spirit between Terror and Cryptopsy on their latest full lengths. Even if they occupy totally different musical spectrums, there are a series of factors aligning them on their new releases. […]

Dwelling on the past will never, ever change anything. Sulk all you like but when a band that was so important and so vital in the formation of modern day death metal comes along with a record so alien to their former glories it can be a bitter, bitter pill to swallow. Even if the […]

And so the omnipotent metalcore behemoth keeps rolling and seemingly unable to even slowdown a morsel, in fact, as more and more predict the sub-sub-sub genre’s extinction, more and more bands mushroom forth, prolonging its life. Given, the quality is becoming lower and lower but it is still amazing that a) there are plenty of […]

Believe it or not, in fact, you probably won’t, but once upon a time, Century Media put out some of the damn hardest hardcore albums in existence. Such classics as Merauder’s Master Killer, the superlative Kickback’s Forever War, and Turmoil’s The Process of, not to mention a slew of others that have gone on to […]

Three years is a long period of time in general, but in music, it can feel like an eternity. Its bad enough when most bands make you wait two years, which is the accepted and often standard gap average between albums (unless you’re Shai Hulud, Metallica, Tool, etc) but three can begin to stretch the […]

Bands outside the dominant demographics of heavy music (obvious internal Mecca’s being New York, Florida, Boston, Gothenburg, Quebec, etc, etc, countries there is no need to list we all know the whose who) usually fall into two divides. The first is that they take their influences (which can be easily detected) and compose thrilling pieces […]

With Siege of Amida losing its crown jewel (Whitechapel) to that all encompassing mega metropolis (Metalblade for those not in the know), it made sense to ensure that their next deathcore monolith was firmly propelled into the consciousness of the metal spheres, and disregard what reception was received, which so far has been positive in […]

Celebrity record labels have the tendency to make me smile. Especially when high profile ‘rock,’ personas have set up these little profit centres to peddle soulless tripe far more banal then their own recorded output (I won’t point any direct fingers at anyone) and then see these ventures and their rosters dissipate into the long […]

Yet more stomping, grizzly and of course brutal death metal from Italy’s Permeated Records. I’ve been fond of this release since its availability and have often found myself returning to it on a regular basis. It’s certainly a good alternative to the big guns in the death metal over ground (who themselves have been on […]

The brutal death bug has now even spread its wings over Italy, one of the last places I’d (and I should know) expect to find gore obsessed lunatics concocting gory, slamming death metal. What’s more the bug has bit hard, as Putridity join the likes of Vomit the Soul, Septycal Gorge, Stench of Dismemberment, Vulvectomy […]

This band is pretty unstoppable at the moment in terms of output as Martyr Immortal follows not that long after the formidable ‘Vicious Skin,’ and split with Frightener. Even more impressive is that ups the intensity and class of their prior material but shows them expanding their darkened palette further to create an even more […]

Death metal boomed last year, big time. Seriously, the amount of great death metal albums I came across in 2007 was astounding and what’s more so is the variation that has been provided. Virtually every sub-sub-SUB genre of death metal has been favourably represented whether it be straight up blasting death metal, total guttural slamming […]

Absolute primal filth. That’s the best way to describe this raggedy, raucous filthgrinder from Poland who put energy, attitude and sheer swagger above any technical musings or to following what’s hot into this, their debut record. Damn, this is so vigorously filthy (that word again) that I can just envisage the smallest basement in a […]

Trustkill and hardcore. That’s got to be a joke right? Well apparently not. In fact it seems that when everyone’s former ‘favourite,’ label isn’t releasing garbage by too many bad bands to name they are unearthing the odd gem, although this is becoming scarcer and scarcer as the years pass on by. Having said that, […]

A horse that has been consistently flagged is how common place the amount of just out of high school/college males bulging with excess testosterone can continue making incomprehensible band logos, oddball names, flashy merch and their by now standardized racket branded as ‘Deathcore,’ i.e. the amalgamation of death metal and metalcore (although sceptics and those […]

No Candelight. This is not good. This is bad, bad, bad and you are so naughty for putting out this nonsensical drivel alongside the new Obituary record, seriously, shame on you. Funnily enough Hemlock are taking their influence from a time when Obituary were at the peak of their popularity (i.e. the mid 90s). References […]

What’s the deal with that cover art? It leaves one wondering whether Full Blown Chaos now desire to be Manowar because with those lions, that ominous Conan clone poised in his throne, it instils that fear…and the record hasn’t even been placed in the CD player yet. Fortunately ‘Fire Fight,’ firmly quashes any fears of […]

Age certainly, no, definitely hasn’t mellowed Madball, this, their sixth full length hits as hard as any of their back catalogue and sounds just as vibrant and hungry as they did when Set It Off, dropped in 94. Now Madball being Madball, there are zero surprises to be found here, no whinging clean vocals, no […]

In what seems to be a blink of an eye, The Warriors have already returned with their third album, not much more than a year after Beyond the Noise. Once again a new record equates to a development in sound and style and whilst Genuine Sense Of Outrage, is a much more aggressive record then […]

As the deathcore genre becomes ever more burgeoning and ever more hated by them (the haters, shit talkers and internet dawdlers) who demand that the bands plying this style stop ‘breeing,’ claim they write poor death metal and have too many shitty metalcore breakdowns etc. But of course, their salient directive is that these bands […]

Celebrity records labels. Now there’s a good gimmick and a good way to inflate further the ego of said celebrity and their bank balance (providing you find the right cash cows that can be milked bone dry). However in the case of Trevor Phipp’s (Unearth)Ironclad and Guy Kozowyk’s (The Red Chord) Blackmarket Activities, scouring myspace […]

Now this is what I’m talking about. This is real progress right here. No trendy zeitgeist clamoring, no superfluous adornments that pose as surrogates for progression, no sir, this is the real thing, pure, honest, progression. Seeing that Despised Icon have been making an unholy racket for a while now and furthermore seeing that this […]

Ok. Christian hardcore history lesson time, don’t even try to scurry away from this one, this shit’s mandatory, and you’ll feel all the better knowing the ins and outs of those rockers screaming for Jesus once your through with this review. As the Christian scene continued to expand and diffuse through the latter part of […]