Lord K Phillipson, the founder of The Project Hate MCMXCIX, is and has always been one of the most outspoken and opinionated dudes in metal. Ever since we started conversing around 2003s Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate in the Digitalmetal.com days. From the internet, labels to illegal downloads, The man has always had something to say. And right now he has a lot to talk about as the The Project Hate collective has just unleashed their 11th album, Of Chaos and Carnal Pleasures to the masses. Amd yet again the release is a fan funded, digital only release as Lord K continues to spurn the industry and record labels.

Here is one of those releases that makes me pull my hair out. I got the promo late, after my year end list was almost complete, and it’s good enough that it was on and off my 2016 year list, but ultimately barely didn’t make it, and now whenever I listen to it, I wish […]

We are in that weird time of the metal press cycle where I am are still filtering through late 2016 releases and starting to get inundated with 2017 releases, which is a shame as 2016 still has some gems that needed to be heard and covered. One such release is the second release from Virginia’s […]

Aided by the whimper of Whitechapel’s Mark of the Blade, once the genre’s flagbearer,  deathcore appears to be on a hard downswing. Even for me, a staunch fan of the genre, other than a hand full of EPs (Falsifier, Pathways) little has really blown me away recently or even over the last year or so. But here […]

I have it on good authority from some Minnesota pals, that Hate Beast are a well respected, rising band on the Minneapolis scene. And I have no issue with that intel, but if I’m being honest Hate Beast are not doing a lot for me. First off, if you are called Hate Beast, I expect something […]

Despite coverage of this long running Polish act’s last two albums right here at TOTD, I have never heard this band’s take on synth laden, progressive doom/death/black metal. While researching and reading the promo materials, I see Opeth name dropped quite a bit, and to some extent there is some Opeth in here with light […]

I still feel bad about the review I gave Krypts a while back, especially considering how consistent and brilliant Dark Descent Records has been over the years. So I decided to go back and check out the label’s other late 2016 release from US sort of super group, Ruinous. Formed by a trio of guys who […]

When Dan Swano says “One of the best SweDeath projects I have come across in 20 years. The perfect blend of all the highlights from the Swedish scene from 89 to 91. Truly awesome!”, I buy instantly and listen later. And having mastered this release from Sentient Horror (with  mixing assistance from Damian Herring of Horrendous), […]

Back in my early reviewing days, I was all over ‘beauty and the beast’ metal; gloomy goth/doom death metal mixing death metal vocals and angelic female vocals. The likes of Thalarion, The Gathering, Lacuna Coil, To Elysium, Tragodia, Beseech, Draconian, Seventh Moon, The Provenance, Alas and such were my jams. A couple of bands recently […]

Back in 2009 Long Island’s  Painted In Exile released a killer 3 song EP called Revitalized. Riding the popularity of bands like of Between the Buried and Me, Protest the Hero, The Human Abstract, Periphery, Born of Osiris etc, the band was a experimental fusion of shredding metalcore, deathcore, mathcore, jazz, prog metal and even […]

I usually know exactly what I am getting with any Comatose albums sent to me for review. But whoa, I wasn’t expecting the sheer nastiness and brutality that Ritual Theophagy, the second album from Italy’s Blasphemer dropped on me.  Despite being familiar with plenty of other brutal Italian death metal like Logic of Denial, Hour of Penance, […]

Most releases I get sent for review nowadays are produced by a team of big name folks, mixed and mastered by a big name superstar and all done with pro tools and such. Not with the case of Mur, the one man atmospheric/folk black/doom project of Cam Sather. His third album, Heartworn was recorded in […]

Before Horrendous, Unwilling Flesh, Spinebreaker, Terminate, Skinfather, With Burning Contempt and others threw a US made hat into the Swede death arena and made it cool, there was Invasion and Fatalist.  Fatalist were formed from members of Uphill Battle and Exhumed and released an album/demo compilation back in 2009, The Depths of Inhumanity,  that was […]

Prior to this month, I had no idea who Rottweiler Records or Florida’s Death Requisite were. But In comes the ‘here’s some shit for you to review’ email, I see the ‘symphonic death metal’ keyword and I check it out, as I a sucker for symphonics in any kind of metal. So what we have […]

When I received this promo, I questioned the need for another Dave Ingram (Benediction, Bolt Thrower, Hail of Bullets), Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Revolting, Ribspreader, Johansson & Speckmann et al) collaboration, despite my enjoyment of both guys’ previous and current projects, even more so considering they both recently collaborated on two Down Among the Dead Men albums […]

You know how they say your taste buds change every few years? Well I think the same is happening to my musical tastes. The debut from these Fins, Unending Degradation, made my 2013 year end list, but this year, this hulking, cavernous form of Dark Descent death metal just isn’t doing it for me. And by […]

I did not discover Poland’s Furia until 2015 when i got around to hearing Nocel after seeing it littered on a a few 2014 year end lists. So I really can’t talk about the bands past releases and development etc, past that album and this new one, an album that appears to be even more […]

I have to hand it to Germany’s Finsterforst, purveyors of epic, rangy Bathory/Monnsorrow sounding viking/pagan metal. They have taken quite a gamble here with this EP and while it is hopefully a one off effort, it is certainly going to upset a lot of fans. What we have here is a release of 4 new, […]

The word super group gets thrown around a lot, but in the case of Crator, it’s pretty fitting as  Crator features Colin Marston (Gorguts, Withered, Krallice Etc) on bass, Jason Keyser (Skinless, Origin) on vocals and Jon Longstreth (Origin and everyone else) on drums. The only member who I didn’t instantly recognize is guitarist Jeff Liefer, who […]

Amid all the black and death metal I get sent to review, occasionally I get some more off the wall stuff that gets my attention (i.e Duobetic Homunkulus). Here is one such release from France’s Stangala, and its not just off the wall, it’s out of the house and running naked in the yard. I really […]

More often than not, supergroups are a collective of guys or gals trying to get out side the box and deliver something more outside the realm of their full time endeavors as the folks try and spread their creative wings or whatever. But sometimes, one only need look at the members involved and get a […]

You’d think a post black metal band featuring Rob Morey of Fallujah and young upcoming drummer Alex Bent who has performed for Arkaik, Brain Drill, Battlecross and Dragonlord would get a little more attention considering Fallujah’s popularity and post black metal is still relatively popular. But here we are and the band’s debut album, self released […]

Unless You live under a rock, and this is the first time you have ever visited this site or another heavy metal/extreme metal webzine, I’m going to assume you have heard of Arizona’s Gatecreeper, Relapse Records latest heavily hyped darlings. Partly because this is the first new band playing old school death metal Relapse has pushed in a while (let’s […]

Swedish styled death metal is coming from all over the globe now. And adding to Polish bands playing the style like Ulcer and labelmates Kingdom, is the debut album from Eteritus. I have not heard the band’s previous 2014 EP Tales of Death, but Following the Ancient Path is a solid if unspectacular take on the […]

With Finntroll taking their sweet time between albums, Ensiferum going a little bit off the beaten path and Equilibrium’s latest album, Armageddon being a bit of a let down, I have been searching for new and under the radar bouncy, happy folk metal bands to get me by, as the genre appears to be in […]