Author Archive

Much like how they opened the year with the killer trio of releases from Corpsessed, Lie in Ruins and Lvcifyre, Dark Descent Records is closing out 2014 with a slew of more stunning releases from Horrendous, Phobocosm, Sempiternal Dusk, and this, the most twisted of the lot, the debut from Finland’s Swallowed. While Finland’s death metal […]

Anyone who has read my work over the years at this very site or my other past outlets know that I have a a Skogskyrkogården cemetery cross sized boner for anything Swedish death metal. And 2014 has been a banner year for the style and tone with killer releases from the likes of Brutally Deceased, Incarnated, Putereaon, Ending Quest, Just Before Dawn Entrails demo collection, just to name a few. There’s is something about that timeless guitar tone that keep on living despite its age as evidence by the endless revival of the style.

Andrew D’Cagna of Nechochwen and Obsequiae has another passion apart from his excellent folky grey/black metal projects, and it’s old School Swedish death metal. And Eihwaz Recordings, the sub label of Bindrune, where the other projects reside, has allowed Andrew to release Between The Living and the Dead, an fine homage to the style that stands toe […]

As expected from the fickle metal community there has been both a lot of hype and hate towards the debut release from this one woman black metal project from Denmark. From the elitist ‘no women in black metal’ to ‘Deafheaven suck’ crowd and those that think this is the future of black metal. And as is normal, the […]

First off, many thanks to Paul Shaw, the owner of Blast Head Records, for recommending this band’s debut EP, Song of the Crippled Bull awhile ago. I instantly knew these progressive death metal-playing Pennsylvanians were onto something special, and now the debut full-length cements that fact. For those lamenting Opeth‘s swing away from death metal and […]

While I’m sure upcoming reviews of the new Obituary and At the Gates albums  will get well deserved traffic and attention, it’s releases and the opportunity to do reviews of releases like this that keep me interested in metal and this whole reviewing thing. Hailing from Chile, Siaskel’s debut album will more than likely be one of […]

Despite an impressive lineage from some of Canada’s best technical death metal bands like Atheretic, Neuraxis and Vengeful, the debut from Phobocosm plays more like Dark Descent’s typical, cavernous, devastatingly heavy doom/death sounds of  Binah, Lvcifyre , Lie In Ruins and notably Corpsessed and it rules. But was there really any doubt? With a crushing Colin Marston mix, Deprived […]

10 years after Onwards to Mecca, one of the elder statesmen of New Yawk death metal, like Pyrexia last year, has reformed and are giving it another go on Unique Leader records. And like Pyrexia’s Feast of Iniquity, Imperium is a relatively successful reunion, if still in the shadow of Suffocation and Dying Fetus all these […]

So, if like me you were underwhelmed by the last Triptykon record, here is another Swiss metal act to fulfill your needs for controlled, slower, moody and progressive dark metal that is a real undiscovered gem in 2014s metal releases. Contradiction is Schammasch’s second album albeit my first introduction to this trio, but it won’t be my […]

Panopticon and Bindrune Recordings is a match made in heaven. A label that has released some truly special atmospheric, organic and naturalistic metal (Falls of Rauros, Nechochwen, Blood of the Black Owl, Obsequiae) finally releasing a more accessible and wider CD release of Austin Lunn’s 5th album under the Panopticon banner, a project that personifies organic, atmospheric and naturalistic. […]

Here’s another early release from the UKs fledgling Rotten Music, who brought us the creatively named Facefuck. This time is a Polish band called Vomit Your Brain, and this EP compiles the band’s first 2 demos into one 6 song, 18 minute slab of  no frills, slammy brutal death metal. Less grindcore  and toilet humor […]

I don’t now a whole lot about Finland’s black metal duo Ordinance, other than it’s a couple of guys who have served in or helped out the likes of Algalzahanth, Night Must Fall and Slugathor. Now I know that the band’s debut album, Relinquished, released on a double LP containing 3 20-minute plus “sides”, broken into […]

Adding some deathcore to Unique Leader’s well documented tech death onslaught, comes the UKs self described ‘politicore’ activists Acrania (a fetal birth defect) bringing the absolute heavy to the fray. Listen, if you don’ t like pig squeals, ‘reeeee’ styled inhaled growls, tons of bass drop laden breakdowns and some rudimentary if effective blasting, I’m […]

There is so much superficially wrong with the debut EP from Australia’s not so subtly named Facefuck that screams ‘godawful goregrind’; the name the cover, programmed drums, frog burp vocals, the logo, the song titles (“Indiginous Ectoplasmic Rectal Invasion”, “Infected Labial Secretion Obsession”), the over use of samples (including  some  from the movies Scary Movie […]

From the usually more death metal based Blast Head Records comes the debut from Denver’s Doperunner and its blistering mix of punk, grindcore and sleezy, Southern blackened sludge. It’s a volatile, fun release that plays like a mix of Nausea, Soilent Green and Eyehategod or Iron Monkey. The 14 grindcore length tracks deliver an ample […]

I have to admit, past the Chris Barnes era, I am hardly a Cannibal Corpse fanboy.I mean I reviewed 2009s Evisceration Plague, and have steadily picked up used versions of Gallery of Suicide, Bloodthirst and Gore Obsessed over the years, but I have not even heard 2006s Kill or 2012s Torture. It’s not that don’t care […]

Back in 2012 these yanks released, The Chills, a damn fine Stockholm styled death metal album that made it into the top ten of my 2012 year end list. I was curious as to how the band would follow it up and keep up with the retro trend that’s been top notch since and especially here […]

Here is the debut, 6 song EP (after a couple of demos) from one man Swedish death metal act Putrified. A. Death (also of black metal act Infuneral) plays all of the instruments, performs vocals and does a pretty good job of it as well as capturing the essence of old school death metal with a heavy dash of […]

And so Wisconsin’s own Protestant have once again subtly morphed styles  a shade, once being a pretty standard hardcore band, going a bit more crusty and sludgy , then getting intensely and darkly melodic.  Now, the band is embracing the current blackened hardcore trend, except they are taking the black metal side much more seriously, to the point […]

With an band moniker that’s a homage to Gorement and their classic 1994 album, The Ending Quest, you know exactly what Sweden’s Ending Quest is delivering on their debut; HM-2 styled, mid range, old school Swedish death metal goodness. And in a year that has delivered some really top notch examples of the style (Brutally Deceased, Putereaon, […]

Storming in from the windy city with war mongering bluster comes the debut from this Chicago black/death metal outfit comprised of a number of the scene’s veterans who have been in or played with the likes of Sons of Famine,  Corpsevomit, Gigan, Lividity, Enmortem, The Everscathed and Nachtmystium. It’s got an expected local scene sound being rough […]

Canada’s Hypnotic Dirge Records is really carving a niche out in the style of the label’s namesake, and their three early 2014 releases from Epitimia, In My Shiver and Russia’s one man project Windbruch are no exception. No Stars, Only Full Dark is the second album from sole member Illuzii Optice, who performs all of […]

If you have “EPIC FUCKING BRUTALITY” emblazoned across the inner sleeve of your album, you had better fucking follow through and luckily Virginia’s Solace of Requiem do on their impressive, fourth effort, Casting Ruin. Though their fourth album, this is my first encounter with the band  (Richard Gulczynski, Jeff Sumrell and Dave Tedesco- also unfamiliar to me despite […]

Switzerland’s Eluveitie (‘The Helvetian’ in Gaulish for those interested) , have been around for a while now but it seem like only yesterday that they burst onto the folk metal scene with 2008s ‘Slania’. Despite having released their debut Spirit two years before it was ‘Slania’, released by Nuclear Blast that put them on the map, mixing melodic death metal and folk elements such as the hurdy gurdy, Mandola, Tin whistle, Low whistle, Gaita, Uilleann pipes and Bodhrán as well as a Celtic theme. And while the rap on the band was that they were simply Swedecore with folk elements the band has powered on to be one of the more consistent and recognizable (and still difficult to spell/type!) names in folk metal.

So in summation: band forms, band does a couple of demos under Nihilist moniker, band changes name to Entombed, then releases two certifiably classic albums (Left Hand Path, Clandestine). Then release a third divisive album, Wolverine Blues (which has actually grown on me in my older, wiser years). Then things get a bit odd with a  […]