I can’t say I’m overly familiar with the Lithuanian blackened doom/sludge scene, but the debut, Dugne (seabed? bottom of the sea?) from Deprivacija certainly holds some promise if the rest of the scene is as competent. 6 songs, 55 minutes, a gritty, feedback laden, gravelly guitar tone and delivery despondent slower, crawling riffs and pained raspy screams will give […]

Suppressive Fire is a new, slightly blackened 3 piece death/thrash metal band from North Carolina, and while I’ve never been a huge fan of black/thrash, Suppressive Fire lean a little more to the thrash side and their war laden themes and imagery had me more intrigued than I usually would be with something this style. With […]

Recalling the glory years of Scandinavian 90s melodic death metal, Finland’s Suotana  and their debut album hearken back to an era of early Children of Bodom, Norther, Lothlorien, Ensiferum, Kalmah and such. Big, epic, keyboard drenched, catchy, bouncy slightly blackened melodic death metal is the order of the day, and while there is nary a […]

Spellbook, the 2012 debut from this Canadian/Balkan one man project was a pretty solid slab of thrash/death/black metal. Not much has changed in 3 years. The sound is a tight, almost robotic (due to programmed drums), death/thrash release with gruff almost Chris Barnes is growls. There’s no wasted sound, no intros, no interludes, and while […]

The US and mainly fertile Floridian death metal explosion of the early 90s is stuff of legend; Death, Cynic, Atheist, Obituary, Deicide, Nocturnus, Malevolent Creation, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and the Morrisound ‘sound produced some of the best death ever, that to this day is considered seminal and whose influnce is still going well over 25 years later. Well in 1993 a band called Brutality released Screams of Anguish on label monsters Nuclear Blast, and while it arguably juuuuuust missed the genre’s peak its more classical based style insured that it rubbed shoulders with some of the classics of the day.

Despite the founder Mika Mage originally hailing from Finland, Finnish moniker and album based on the Kalevala poems, Nihilistinen Barbaarisuus hails from deepest , darkest Philadelphia and  have ties with some other USBM bands such as Shadow in the Crypt and others. However, despite a real, honest attempt at early 90s European symphonic black metal, the album […]

One could argue that the 2015 debut album from super group  Gruesome, Savage Lands, is the current pinnacle of early Death worship, to the point where they actually almost recreated actual songs from Scream, Bloody Gore, Leprosy and Spiritual Healing. But also tucked away in 2015 was the second effort from California’s Skeletal Remains, who […]

Back in 2013, I was impressed by the second album, The Next, from Mexican guitarist Antonio Freyre and his gathering of International musicians including bassist Mike  Poggionne (Vile, Monstrosity, Lecherous Nocturne) , drummer Timo Häkkinen (Sotajumala) and Phil Tougas of Zealotry/Vengeful/Chthe’ilist on guitars delivering a dizzying chaotic, Canadian take on death metal that imbued Cryptopsy. With the only change being Josh Smith (Monumental […]

Back in 2000,  along with Trauma, Lost Soul were super close to being mentioned with the same breath as Vader, Yattering, Behemoth and the then new Decapitated as Polish death metal elite. 2000s Scream of the Mourning Star was released on the US on the mighty Relapse, 2002s Ubermensch and 2005s Chaostream (For the record, “Godstate” is […]

Sure, there have been some great Death and Chuck Schuldiner homages in 2015- notably Gruesome and Skeletal Remains. But what if the spirit of Chuck Schuldiner was implanted into something  a little less obvious and something a little more cavernous? And what if that something was a sort of super group featuring George Kollias (Nile, […]

In this time of progressive experimental and genre/boundary pushing music, there’s is something to said for some straightforward, blasting black metal in the vein of the classic 90s Scandinavian style. Even is said release is Italian,, on a Korean label and over an year old. Sicily’s Krigere Wolf have one other release under their belt, […]

You can count on a few things in this world; death, taxes and Comatose Music releasing quality, brutal death metal.  And new act Abhorrent Deformity bring a little experience with them on their debut is drummer Matt Green who has session and live drummed for slam gods Kraanium. And though not as purely slam or perverted as Kraanium, […]

Finland’s Cosmic Church is the brain child of one Luxixul Sumering Auter, who plays all instruments and does all vocals for this project that has 2 full length albums and a large number demos and EPs, of which Vigillia is my first exposure, but I will certainly be going back to the artists back catalog based […]

Past Forest of Equlibrium, I consider myself a more casual Cathedral fan. The band’s later, Sabbath-y 70s, psychedelia being a occasional guilty pleasure when I want something grooooovy man. And though swansong The Last Spire was a pretty solid release, I really don’t feel drawn to Cathedral’s discography, so when Lee Dorrian announced the band was […]

After telling us about his Kentucky roots with 2012s Kentucky, and then his move to Minnesota with last years Roads to the North, Austin Lunn appears to have settled down and is down dealing with the most fitting season for his style of organic, naturalistic and atmospheric black metal- Autumn. And I gather autumn in […]

Based on the cover and album title, I was fully expecting some black metal here. But of course, being on Comatose Music, you know exactly what this is. Some brutal slamming death metal from the depths of Indiana. This is the band’s first release since 2012’s Omnipotent Asperity, a release I since picked up based on […]

Let’s be brutally honest shall we? Sure Grave’s first three albums are certified classics, and while there’s some division over Hating Life, I’m willing to say that other the overall excitement of the band’s reunion in 2002, the post Jorgen, post “Back From the Grave” glow might have worn off . And other than 2012s Endless […]

After 2011s solid debut of symphonic black metal, No Closure, I just assumed after not hearing literally anything about them for 4 years, these Chicagoans were falling to the same fate of some many metal bands, just one and done. But out of the blue from those fine folks at Clawhammer PR, this album appears. And […]

After 2012s simpler, Stockholm death metal based The Chills, this US death metal act emerged from a creative cocoon that was last years Ecdysis, a better, more creative and more challenging band. And only a year later they have returned with Anareta, (a greek astrological term for a ‘destroyer’), and it continues the more progressive, experimental […]

Stomping into view with a sound somewhere between Dying Fetus and Blood Duster, Finland’s creatively named Cumbeast is finally delivering album number three after a 7 year wait. I vaguely recall crossing paths with these guys  somewhere in my journalistic endeavors, but they didn’t really stick with me, but the aptly named Groovy Massacre certainly does. With […]

Considering the band name, logo,  album’s title and cool cover art, I braced for some ‘brootal’ death metal. However, what I actually got was some sharp if derivative Germanic  melodic death metal/metalcore in the vein of the label’s 00s stuff like Feast For the Crows, Six Reasons to Kill, Deadsoil the american sound of the time […]

 del·uge ˈdelyo͞o(d)ZH/ noun 1.a severe flood. synonyms:  flood, torrent, spate. “homes were swept away by the deluge” verb 1. inundate with a great quantity of something. “he has been deluged with offers of work” synonyms:  inundate, overwhelm, overrun, flood, swamp, snow under, engulf, bombard. “we have been deluged with calls” Hailing from France, the debut from Deluge is cut from the […]

In this ‘journalism’ gig you run across hundred of people and bands. I’ve done countless interviews, got countless emails and Facebook messages and so forth, but you rarely make a connection. Something more than just the grinding wheels of music and reviewing/interviewing. However, sometimes you do make a deeper connection and dare I say, friendship. I like to think I made one such connection with Nathan Gearhart, the vocalist for the re-activated Arizona Death metal band, Vehemence.

So back in 2004 I compared Vehemence’s God Was Created to Entombed’s Left Hand Path, granted, a brash comparison by a relatively younger , inexperienced me. However, I do stand by the fact the album is fantastic, and it remains one of my top 25 albums of all time. And the track “She Never Noticed Me” […]

So this a the French death metal band with a very similar name to the long running Italian death metal, Antropofagus band huh? Well, Ok, but the results are the same; damn solid tech/brutal death metal, although these guys are not quite as brutal and have a little more quirk and experimentation to them. I […]