The undisputed heirs to Dismember‘s throne (here’s hoping for a reunion after the 2022 Maryland Deathfest), Demonical is back with album number 7, and as expected, there are absolutely zero surprises or curveballs from a band that features former members of Centinex and Grave.   They can pretty much do this in their sleep. Essentially delivering […]

Rampant mimicry is a large part of metal; Whether in the rip-off or homage category. There are 1000s of Cannibal Corpse clones. Just as many Suffocation clones and don’t get me started on Bolt Thrower and Entombed/Dismember. And those bands have their place, especially as the originals flag or call it quits. Some are really […]

Sometimes production can make me overlook average or bad music. I’ll gladly listen to just OK albums if they have a killer guitar tone. Lord knows Ive got some pretty average CDs in my collection, that I retain merely due to the killer Stockholm HM 2 buzz (I’m looking at you Torture Pulse‘s God Leash), […]

I snagged the debut from Denmark’s Heltekvad due to a trio of things; it features Ole Pedersen Luk of Afsky. Second, Eisenwald is pretty reliable when it comes to black metal with the likes of Fluisteraars and Alda on their roster. And third, the heraldic artwork reminded me of medieval black metal bands like France’s Véhémence […]

Here’s a short, tasty review for a short, tasty, 20 minute, 4 song EP from the always reliable FDA Records.  Dead Chasm is an Italian trio with members from a number of mid-tier/obscure Italian acts like Kadaver, Torment, Funest, Stench of Profit, and others. But they have come together to form a very impressive debut […]

Fall Of Stasis: “Pssst you, metal review person, wanna review some symphonic, blackened folk metal?” Me: “Nah , I’m a bit burned out of bouncy folky metal, even the last Ensiferum really didn’t enthrall past the first few listens, *sigh* Fall of Stasis: “What if they had a more slicing, viscous edge like The Black […]

You see that symbol there on the left, emblazoned on the album cover of Crowbar’s new album, Zero and Below? That’s called a fleur d’lis ( Flower of Light), and is regarded as the symbol of the state of Louisiana, the city of New Orleans, and more importantly the logo for that city’s NFL team, […]

It’s amazing what adding a new band member or two can do for a band. After a self-released EP, The Prophet of Disgust, in 2018, Colorado’s Crown Magnetar added vocalist Dan Tucker and guitarist Nick Scott From And Hell Followed With, a decent deathcore band who were actually on Earache Records at one point (and […]

Holy Shit!, Here is a wonderful, unexpected surprise. Back in the mid 00s I was enamored with a band called The Pax Cecilia, who released 2 self-released and free releases with 2004s Ep, Nouveau and 2007s Blessed Are the Bonds, (which I covered back in the day at one of my other review sites Metalreview.com/ […]

Here is one of those rare, blind promo grabs that works out, works out really well, as a matter of fact, as Chicago newcomers Burned In Effigy has delivered an exceptionally competent and enjoyable debut album of neoclassically inspired melodic death metal. Starting as an instrumental duo citing The Black Dahlia Murder, Between the Buried […]

So this release came out in late 2021, but just recently showed up on the TOTD emails, but when it name-dropped the likes of Wintersun, Ensiferum, Wolfheart, and Stormlord, it sure as fuck got my attention, and I had to check it out. I’m very glad I did, as the name-dropping, while a bit heavy-handed, […]

This review is brought to you by Google Translate.  Par le sang versé, the 2019 sophomore album from these epic/medieval French black metallers, snuck into the back end of my 2019 year-end list, but I if were redoing that year’s list, it would have been a top ten, maybe a top 5 release, as I […]

Being a huge New Orleans Saints and LSU fan, I’m generally up for anything from Louisiana, especially musically where the likes of Crowbar, Soilent Green, and Goatwhore are concerned. There’s just something about that swampy, sweaty, moist riffage that appeals to me, so checking out the debut album from Lafayette’s Golgothan ( a literal ‘shit […]

When was the last time you smiled from ear to ear while listening to a metal album? I mean a full-on, ear-to-ear grin, that you ‘felt’ in your soul? For me in 2early 2022, it’s every time I listen to the self-released debut from the self-proclaimed ‘peasant metal’ band from Wisconsin, Pillaging Villagers, a DIY […]

“Then a new sound droned into our ears, the sound, deep, all-encompassing, with no notes in it, just a gigantic faraway surge of doom-like sound. It was the heavies, coming on with a terrible slowness in flights of twelve, three flights to a group, stretched out across the sky. I thought it would never end……and […]

I last heard this Seattle band back in 2016 when I reviewed their second self-released EP, Enduring Creation. However, I wasn’t sure what label they would fit on and what the audience was for their very heavily keyboard-drenched form of technical black-ish metal. Well, 6 years later we have our answer with a match made […]

Every so often a band comes around that makes me just childishly giddy. In the past its been Between the Buried and Me, Blind Guardian, Wilderun, and more recently in the symphonic/blackened deathcore explosion, bands like Sin Deliverance, Until We Die, and Lie to the Silence have added to bands I already enjoyed ( Lorna […]

I had to check and see if this second album from Spain’s customed troupe, Crusade of Bards wasn’t on Napalm Records a few times, just to be sure.  They have ‘that ‘ sort of sound with symphonic, female-fronted operatic bombastic, gothic-tinged metal, and a few heavier elements (gruffs death metal vocals etc) sprinkled in here […]

I had no idea that Nuclear Blast Records founder Markus Staiger had a split with his label last year and had formed a new label, the not so subtly named Atomic Fire Records, with some of his former Nuclear Blast folks. Not only that, they have pulled over some serious heavyweights over with them like […]

Man… now that is an album cover. In the annals of heavy metal/extreme music, the writings of JRR Tolkien have long resided in largely black metal  (Summoning), power metal (Blind Guardian), ‘garb-core’ (Battlelore) and even death metal (Khazaddum). But what the world was clearly lacking was some Tolkien-based, technical, blackened deathcore. Well, here comes Washington […]

So after an absolutely ridiculously good year for tech-death in 2021 with the likes of First Fragment, Obsidian I, Obscura, Hannes Grossman, Inferi, Stortregn, Alustrium and others, it took exactly one month for 2022 to see its first stellar tech-death record. Leiden (suffer or endure?) is the second album from this Tacoma, Washington act who […]

I try and keep myself open to covering things that normally don’t float my boat, hence me taking a break from deathcore and technical death metal to take stab at the third album from the UK’S black/crust act Wolfbastard. But they had a couple of things going for them; ‘Wolf’ and ‘Bastard’ are two of […]

If you have the balls to say “chilling-yet-breathtaking ruminations harken to the golden days of melodic, nature-inspired black metal, back during the mid ’90s. Names invoked include old Borknagar, Kvist, Arckanum, Old Man’s Child, Norway’s Gehenna, and even earliest Dimmu Borgir” in your promotional materials, you had better fucking back it up, and luckily the […]

As I’ve stated many times before in these very pages, I’m very picky about my heavy/power metal. It’s not a genre I generally really enjoy or get into, but I’ve certainly come to appreciate the likes of Blind Guardian, WindRose, Dragony, Fairyland, Thy Majestie, Grail Knights, Pathfinder, Twilight Force,  and the 23 Rhapsody related bands, […]

January of 2020, specifically January 14th, was quite the day for deathcore. You had releases from Worm Shepherd, Fit For An Autopsy, Enterprise Earth, and a new Ingested single, as well as album number four from Connecticut’s Shadow of Intent, one of symphonic deathcore’s top bands As with 2019s excellent Melancholy, which tackled mental health […]