Author Archive

There’s no question, when it comes to crumbling, monstrous death metal, Dark Descent records simply can’t be fucked with. However, when going out side the realms of death metal, I tend to get a little less enamored with the label’s releases. The likes of Gravehill, Craven Idol and Crypt Sermon, while respected releases in their […]

Here’s one of those reviews, where I wish another writer had taken this off my hands and delivered a slightly more knowledgeable review of a style and album that I’m really not a fan of or familiar with even if released by the mighty Dark Descent Records. DDR has stepped out of the death metal […]

Ive enjoyed watching Germany’s Finsterforst (Dark Forest) evolve from a pretty blatant, if incredibly enjoyable Equilibrium clone  on their first two releases into a more epic, rangy and cinematic mix of Moonsorrow and Bathory, as heard on 2012s Rastlos, where the band delivered vast 20 minute songs and more epic orchestration, clean choirs and mid paced […]

Since 2006’s watershed album, Armada, Norway’s Keep of Kalessin have teased with utter brilliance mired in mediocrity. Truly epic, brilliant songs like “Armada”, ‘Crown of the Kings”, “Dragon Iconography”, “The Rising Sign” or “The Divine Land” littered the last three albums and while 2010’s Reptillian seemed to remedy the peaks and valleys of the band’s […]

So I get an email from Jassem “Darkvain” Alrumaidheen, the bassist, keyboardist and clean vocalist for Divine Disorder, a symphonic/progressive death metal band from Kuwait, requesting a review of his band’s 2014 release, Garden of Dystopia. I normally politely pass on 2014 releases at this point, but the press release he sent got my attention; A host of […]

Comedy and metal are odd bed fellows and the end results can be very hit or miss. I mean before Dethklok you have to go back to Crotchduster and before that possibly Lawnmower Deth ,Green Jelly and even Spinal Tap to find credible examples.  And Arizona’s Psychostick are the very epitome of hit and miss. The balance […]

Considering Daniel Ekeroth is the author of the genre’s bible, ‘Swedish Death Metal’, and expert historian on the genre, the 2012 debut of his band Usurpress , Trenches of the Netherworld was surprisingly mediocre. However, with the band’s second album he appears to have righted the ship, even if taking a little bit of a tangent. Taking […]

It’s always a bit odd writing a review for something that involves someone who writes for this site, or I have a friendship with. Critiquing their music and life work seems more difficult when you somewhat ‘know’ the person. In the case of Wisconsin’s Ara, a technical death metal band featuring our own Jerry Hauppa, a gentleman […]

Despite being a few weeks into 2015, the late 2014 releases are still rolling in. And while the fourth album from the Czech Republic’s Destroying Divinity (yes , the Monstrosity song), isn’t a game changer, and probably would not have adorned many 2014 year end lists, it is a very good death metal album that […]

It would be easy for a casual death metal listener or fan to look at Scarab‘s moniker, imagery, song titles like “Calling Forth the Ancient Spirits of Kemet”, “Days of a Burial Mask”, and “Funeral Pharaoh” and long song runtime and instantly assume these guys are a Nile ripoff. And to some extent that’s true, […]

So here is the first of our new classics feature that is likely to ruffle a few feathers, just as the album’s initial release did back in 2002. The second album from Arizona’s Vehemence, God Was Created. Released in a bit of a dead era for death metal, the album was released on Metal Blade and was one of Metal Blade’s real gambles, being a new, young death metal band amid the label’s roster that included Vader, Amon Amarth, Vomitory, Bolt Thrower and such, and in a time where US death metal was in a bit of a lull. The band had a self-released album, The Thoughts From Which I Hide under their belt, and followed up God Was Created with 2004’s Helping the World to See, but it was the infamous middle album that divided metal fans and critics.

Back in 2007, the UKs Sarpanitum released one of the best debuts from a UK death metal band of recent memory, Despoilment  of Origin. It was released on Galactic Records, the label owned by Leon Macy the founder of fellow UK death metal act Mithras, who also were making quite a stir in the death metal scene […]

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. Well, if that’s the case, Lord K Phillipson and his entourage in The Project Hate, should be flattered as fuck by Canadian Robert Kukla and his band, Arbitrator and the debut full length album, Indoctrination of Sacrilege. Now don’t get me wrong-I have no problem with flattery, homage and […]

I’m not sure what is going on on this album cover, but I’m pretty sure what’s going on with the music: bruising modern grindcore with elements of slam,  death metal and even deathcore. The 15 tracks short sharp bursts and less than 40 minute time plays into the classic grindcore tropes as do the trifecta of […]

There was a time when Belgium’s Shiver Records/The LSP Company were prolific as heck churning out record after record of home grown talent, unusually favoring the chunky, recognizable Belgian sound such as Battalion, Insanity Reigns Supreme, Warbeast Remains, Welkin, Moker, Ordeal, The Seventh and even the odd classic release such as Axamenta’s Ever-Arch-I Tech-Ture. But I had not […]

I’m not sure what was going on over at the usually reliable Mighty Music at the end of 2014. After a couple of solid releases in Solbrud,  Planet Rain and Herod, the label sent me a slew of hard rock releases; Ruinside, Distance, 23 Acez, Annominus, Estate, Saint Rebel and such. And all of it pretty awful; Not […]

There are more than likely going to be two camps when it comes to Southern California’s hardcore bruisers Xibalba. One faction will feel their style of super down-tuned chuggtastic hardcore is the heaviest, most punishing sound on the planet and the counterpoint is that they are knuckle dragging simpletons who cant tune guitars or write songs. And while […]

There are a few similarities between death metal acts Chapel of Disease and Deserted Fear; both German, both of FDA Rekotz, both released solid debuts in 2013 and both recently released their second efforts. The only slight difference is the style of death metal each band plays. While Deserted Fear had a little more modern, chunky […]

The debut Where Distant Spirits Remain, from Glasgow’s Falloch was an interesting post rock/black metal/grey metal opus with Agalloch-ian hues. However it was the work of a duo, Andy Marshall and Scott Mclean, and Marshall since left the band (creating more atmospheric black/Celtic metal with Saor, which I highly recommend) leaving McLean to rebuild, and rebuild he has […]

I first heard England’s  Sylosis when reviewing their 2008 debut, Conclusion of an Age for Metal Maniacs. As I recall is was a pretty average Unearth/All That Remains clone, that left me with fair to middling opinion of the band. Fast forward to 2012 and the band’s third album Monolith (I missed 2011s Edge of the […]

I have reviewed both the first and second albums from Finland’s Decaying, both delivering a stout war mongering style of death metal that delivers a mix of Bolt Thrower/Hail of Bullets and Asphyx (particularity the very Van Drunen-ish is shrieks of Matias Nastolin). And the productive Fins keep producing and getting incrementally better with each release, as the […]

Few bands have elicited as much vitriol from fans as Liturgy and frontman and creator, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix. From the now infamous transcendental black metal interview to black metal manifestos, the guy has been ripped to shred on internet message boards as well as memed to death. And that’s before the guy’s music is even in the picture. 2009’s Renihilation and 2011’s Aesthetica angered black metal pundits as they arguably shaped the current trend of so-called ‘hipster black metal’ that has swatted the hornet’s nest of black metal.

Much like label and country mates Destroying Divinity, the Czech Republic’s aptly named Heaving Earth make no bones about their primary influences, and any death metal fan can quickly ascertain such simply based on the track names, album name cover art and palette. And then you press play and while the instantly recognizable throes of […]

From Germany’s creatively named new-ish label, Go Fuck Yourself Productions, comes the debut from Stockholm’s Obscyria a band trying not to completely wear  their geographical locale’s sound on their sleeve, being old school death metal, but with a bit of a blackened thrash sneer. This the kind of release that Unspeakable Axe or FDA Rekotz should have released, […]

I’ve been waiting on new material from the Czech Republic’s Morbider since 2009s When Darkness Returns, one of the better, if unheralded examples of Swedish death metal of that year (I actually didn’t hear it until a couple of years later) . And while 5 years is a long time to wait just for 4 songs on […]