I rather enjoyed this Christian metalcore band’s debut LP, Lay Waste the Poets, so I was looking forward to this follow up, but despite a solid attempt at some Life in Your Way/Misery Signals styled harmonics and shimmering guitar work, once again the curse of the clean vocals and commercial acceptability bring the album down […]

Last year, Indiana’s Demiricous burst on the scene with their debut, (One) Hellbound, a thrash homage in a sea of metalcore and rockstars, and while not my personal cup of thrash tea, I can appreciate the follow up, (Two) Poverty, for what it is: an ode to the Bay Area Thrash scene with a little […]

Quick history lesson for you young’uns out there: Before Shadows Fall had their breakout album, Of One Blood in 2000, they actually released their (far more death metal sounding, and still my favorite SF release) debut album Somber Eyes to the Sky in 1997. That album featured original vocalist Phil Labonte, who, as most of […]

So, in light of Earache recently re-releasing the hugely hyped yet stunningly average debut, Count Your Blessings, from this suddenly popular Yorkshire men, Earache have re-issued the debut EP (both originally released on 30 Days of Night and Visible Music respectively) that got the band signed to Earache in the first place. Yup, I smell […]

Though most may take a look at the band moniker, album title and label and pass this off as yet another Christian metalcore bands trying to clone As I Lay Dying, the fact is with former members of Between the Buried and Me and short lived rock act Terminal in their ranks, Oh, Sleeper are […]

In a nutshell, French newcomers ART 238 really, really like The Berzerker, as their form of industrialized, heavily programmed death metal is a virtual clone of the now maskless Aussies, but aren’t quite up to that standard yet. Churning, down tuned guitars mix with blast beat heavy, (programmed?) robotic drums, deep growls, frenzied shrieks and […]

Despite the promising orchestral, hardcore choir of intro “Enfermeria, Part III: The Recovery”, the second full length effort from political SoCal hardcore stalwarts Underminded is only a slightly above average contemporary hardcore effort. Lying somewhere between the likes of Passion and Dead Hearts as far as emotional, metallic yet melodic hardcore, but with some angular […]

After the rather disappointing follow up to the excellent Mondo Medicale, Impaled, maybe driven by The County Medical Examiners stealing their Carcass worshipping thunder earlier this year with Olidous Operettas, have returned with a sickening yet masterfully melodic vengeance on their Willowtip debut. Despite a slightly underwhelming production, the 11 tracks that comprise Impaled’s newest […]

Well here’s a release that I was not sure I should review, considering this is a metal site, but I also remember that a lot of metal fans are Clann Zu fans, so this solo project from Clann Zu’s Irish half, Declan De Barra, might be of interest. Plus it’s technically on a metal label, […]

The fact this was one of Metal Blade’s recent ‘digital releases’ sort of tells you the labels priority. And I can’t blame them, as Germany’s Machinemade God are a completely by the numbers modern metalcore band that are virtually indistinguishable from Metal Blade’s other German metal core band, Neaera (also digitally released) as well Germany’s […]

First off, if you haven’t not checked out Trap Them’s debut LP, Sleepwell Deconstructor, released earlier this year on Trash Art ! go do so now. The band, featuring former and current members of Backstabbers Inc. and December Wolves deliver Nasum styled grindcore meets Entombed death ‘n’ roll meets Converge and Pig Destroyer modern aggro […]

Ho hum, here’s some straight edge, ankle bearing, angry at the world, every one who isn’t straight edge sucks, hardcore. It’s typically beefy and crunchy and will appease the hoodie wearing masses who enjoy XBishopX, XRepresentX and other XclichedX straight edge hardcore bands. Opening with the now over used “Unleash Hell” sample from Gladiator (there […]

While far from the worst in the recent slew of gimmick laden tech grind death core, Germany’s War From A Harlot’s Mouth is still a fairly run of the mill foray into screaming growling, breakdown heavy pseudo grindcore/death metal played by angry kids with guitars and a love for silly song names. Despite injecting some […]

While no instrumental metal expert or aficionado, I really enjoyed my first exposure to Virginia’s oddly named Souvenir’s Young America. Though superficially they play an expected form of lush, instrumental post rock a la Tides or Pelican, the very subtle injections of an almost Ennio Morricone-like Old Western undercurrent make the affair sound like a […]

So Profound Lore has made up for the recent Caina release with this draining slab of ultra sludge/doom from the UK’s Atavist-and folks imagine playing Iron Monkey’s Our Problem LP backwards and at half speed while having 3 tons of concrete poured on you, and you might be close to Atavist’s take on painfully crawling […]

Ugh. So now the Italians are jumping on the emo/metalcore bandwagon with a blatant Atreyu meets pop punk (Green Day, Yellowcard, etc) rip off in the form of Airway, who with their first full length album (after an EP of course) deliver the expected level of ot Topic teeny core suckage. Folks, unless you like […]

So here it is. Arguably the most anticipated death metal albums of the year from one of the genre’s most respected and revered acts-and if you could tell from the cover art and album title, it’s a true return to form. Personally I found Frozen In Time to be a tired plodding release that reeked […]

I’ve always thought of Animosity as the deathcore/hardcore equivalent of Decapitated; they released their impressive debut, Shut it Down when they were 15 years old, and thought have not yet matched Decapitated’s outputs yet, with the slightly under helming and overly chaotic Empires, the band, with Animal, looks to be rising to the same level […]

Metal Blade/Black Market Activities Either Metal Blade/ BMA have reached the bottom of the spazz/tech/grind barrel or this is some sort of Halloween joke. Chicago’s Dance Club Massacre play the now popular herky jerky, screamy, spazzy form of grindcore as plied by the likes of Destroyer Destroyer, Heavy Heavy Low Low, Arsonists Get All The […]

From ever improving Israeli label Totalrust comes this rather impressive slab of sick French black doom from an act that features members of Heol Telwen, Ataraxie, Hyadningar, Mourning Dawn as well as suicidal German legends Bethlehem. This is 6 tracks and over 75 minutes of scrawling, twisted, painfully crawling doom with a tangible influence of […]

You know that Geico caveman commercial where the caveman goes “Yeah, I have a response..uh…What?”-that’s my response to this album. First off, this Italian band actually has no name or moniker but goes by the logo of a face, much like Prince, the name ‘Illogo’ is merely used for identification purposes and in their own […]

Oh dear, it looks like Profound Lore’s recent streak of excellence (Portal, The Angelic Process, Alcest, Amber Asylum, Cobalt, Atavist) has finally come to an end with the release of the second album from this UK based, ambient one man black metal project. So this Andrew Curtiss-Brignell fellow has a quite a few demos and […]

Ambitious post rocker/shoegazers Rosetta made quite a splash with their debut, The Galilean Satellites, especially with its 2 discs that can supposedly be played simultaneously for a complete experience (if anyone has ever done this, please let me know how it is). So here is the follow up, and much like equally talented and influenced […]

You’d expect a little more from Galy and especially from a band featuring Alexandre Leblanc of Neuraxis/Atheretic fame, but I guess when you are in two highly complex bands, this sort of downtuned, simplified death metal tinged hardcore could be construed as some sort of alternate release of musical desires that you other projects can’t […]

The whole Netherlands/Austrian area is a hotbed of Goth metal, sticking to the simple formula of hot operatic chick A + lush production + synths +competent faceless musicians + a mix of peppy bouncy songs and slower somber ballads = band X, that has produced bands like After Forever, Epica, Edenbridge, Visions of Atlantis, Elis […]