Author Archive

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 […]

Last Poem/First Light, the 2013 debut from these NYC blackgazers, was a gorgeous affair, layering dramatic (and real) orchestration and choirs on top of a Deafheaven-y black metal backbone. Since signing on with Prosthetic Records, the band is reaping the rewards, and has increased the orchestra size from 10 to 30 for their second release – which is a full-on […]

There’s been some pretty odd band names this year (Mutilatred, Dysrider,  Famishgod, Meatwound, Neurotic November, Weak Aside). There has also been some fine old school Swedish death metal (Morbid Vomit, Wombath, Mass Burial, Entrails, Abscession, Infected Chaos, Skelethal, Feral, Cult of Endtime). Belgium’s Torturerama have the honor of being on both lists. However, it’s the second one they might […]

I’ve been having a hard time putting words to paper about the fourth album from Germany’s Thormesis. You see, when Freier Wille – Freier Geist, (Free will- Free Spirit) is actually playing, I’m enjoying the hell out of its super melodic, sometimes black n roll , airy, bouncy take on black metal. To the point where I’m […]

Expiation, the debut from Italy’s Synapses was a fine slab of controlled tech death metal that focused much more on deliberate grooves and shuddering rhythms rather than the sheer tech death onslaught of many of their peers (Hour of Penance, Logic of Denial etc). Now, three years later, Devoutness has dropped, and while the focus is […]

More likely than not, you have already decided if you will like or purchase Deafheaven’s new album, regardless of this review. Am I right? I mean, you either loathed or loved 2013’s watershed album, Sunbather (full disclosure – it was my top pick for the year), or you simply don’t care for the band’s style, the ‘hipster’ […]

I won’t rehash the love already shown by this site to France’s tech death masters Gorod and their prior albums. You can see our previous gushing, by myself and Jordan Itkowitz, right here. The question I have for you, loyal reader, is this: can death metal, specifically tech death metal, be happy? Playful, even? We know […]

So all we need now in 2015 is a release from Anathema, and have it return to the Crestfallen/Serenades sound and all will be right with the world, right? In fairness, while Paradise Lost, one third of the seminal UK doom triumvirate received much deserved praise for The Plague Within,  and rightfully lauded for a ‘return’ to form, […]

Not content with dropping the reissue of debut, Winterborn on us earlier this year, former Before the Dawn and Black Sun Aeon founder Tuomas Saukkonen is already dropping his new project’s second album on us to fuck up 2015 year end lists everywhere. Whereas the template of the music is still heavily rooted in his past along […]

New to me, Elffor is the long running side project of a Spaniard by the name of Eöl, who also plays keyboardist in Numen and Suffering Dawn. He has been releasing albums since 1998, and this expansive 2 disc compilation from South Korea’s Fallen Angels Productions covers all 6 albums and throws in a couple of […]

I kinda dug, Disgust, the 2012 debut from Indiana’s Yellowtooth, founded and fronted by Peter Clemens who has served in more death metal bands like Invasion (an underrated US band playing Stockholm styled death metal before it was vogue) and Nocturnal Torment.  It was a groovy, crusty slab of southern drenched death/doom/stoner metal, and the follow […]

Hailing from Indiana, Psychomancer are a death metal band who toiled on the scene in from 1997 to 2011, then broke up after two albums in the mid oos. Well they are reformed and have released a new EP on the home state label owned by Yellowtooth’s Peter Clemens. I wasn’t familiar with the band […]

I don’t claim to be any sort of Slam aficionado or expert, but a few releases have slammed the shit out of me recently; Bloodscribe’s Prologue to the Apocalypse, Abominable Putritidy‘s The Anomalies of Artificial Origin reissue, Dysentry’s Fragments, Whoretopsy’s, Never Tear Us Apart,  Cumbeast’s eclectic Groovy Massacre, and this, the fourth album from Norwegian stalwarts, Kraanium. Much like […]

Falsifier and Born Hanged, the first two EPs from this UK downtempo/deathcore act have become the Sermon of Mockery among deathcore fans, being the holy grail of deathcore collectors  and reaching stupid prices. So Black Tongue have parlayed that and their prior Infant Annihilator infamy (whose releases also go for high prices) into a deal with […]

I had zero expectations for this album. Considering the label’s recent out put, that cover, the moniker and album title that reads as ‘mediocrity’ at a glance. However, with this sophomore effort, these Swiss vets (who have toiled in DarkRise since 2003) have actually , along with Epsilon’s Zu Richten and Tomb of Finland‘s Below the Green, are bringing a […]

So South Korea’s Fallen Angel’s productions has been around since 2010, and based on my recent package from them, they have a pretty distinct niche for international, simple, middle ground, lo fi black metal (Pest, Elffor, Dark Plague, Kvalvaag, Skoll, Krigerewolf, Catacumba) and even some home grown nihilism (Taekaury), but one of the bands more recent releases, […]

You have to hand it to Blast Head Records, they certainly haven’t locked into a singular style for their releases and bands. They got pretty well most genres covered from brutal death metal (Hate Division, Nebulous), epic black metal (Valdrin, Eternium), grindcore (Nervous Impulse) and even Swedish death metal (Morbid Vomit). They also like to […]

OK Mighty Music, THIS is more like it!!!!!!!!!! After a slew of awful rock, Mighty Music has released something that I more expect from the label. Some chunky, beefy European death metal by way of Austria’s Epsilon (formerly known as Side Y)and their second full length album. These guys are new to me, but I like what […]

Wisconsin’s Jungle Rot have been toiling in the US death metal scene for over 20 years now. But the last few years, since the band signed to Victory Records in 2011, has seen a second coming of the long running act. The three albums for the label (2011’s Kill on Command, 2013’s Terror Regime and this year’s Order Shall Prevail), sees the band at the very top of their game, aging like a fine wine.

I’ve been rather enjoying this current run of lighter, melodic, sometimes folky, sometimes ‘Cascadian’, sometimes ‘post’, artsy black metal influenced arguably started by and influenced by the likes of Wolves in the Throne Room, Altar of Plagues, Deafheaven, Alcest and Agalloch a few years back. Recently, the likes of Vattnet Viskar, Ghost Bath, Downfall of Nur,  Alda, Soar, Wiegedood, […]

While trying to find a video/sample to put into my reviews of Alda’s Passage, and Crom Dubh‘s Heimweh, I keep seeing YouTube suggestions for songs from a band called Vallendusk. Well, eventually I clicked on one of the songs from the band’s Pest Records 2013 album, Black Clouds Gathering, and I was hooked. And not just […]