There’s was a nice little run on under the radar technical death metal to finish 2012 and start 2013; relatively new or obscure acts like Inanimate Existence, Devolved, Ophidian I, Scent of Death, and  Nebulous aren’t household names in technical death metal, but if you are looking for some solid examples of the genre from […]

If you go and find the review I wrote for Thrawsunblat’s second opus Thrawsunblat II: Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings you will ascertain how enamored I was with the trio’s eloquent take on folky, misty black metal. A project that once involved Woods of Ypres’ David Gold, it has been kept alive by Joel Violette, who performed on the tragedy stricken Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light.

It would be easy to dismiss Thrawsunblat as a Woods of Ypres side project, but that would be a disservice to the folks involved, even if the spirit of Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold ( who tragically died in 2011) lingers austerely in the eves of Thrawsunblat‘s misty, cascadian hues.  The band consists of […]

Despite hailing from Poland, Ulcer do not play ‘Polish’ styled death metal and simply ape Behemoth or Vader, instead choosing to ape another region- Stockholm. Yup- Ulcer is the latest (through they’ve been around since 2006 and have one album already under their belt) in the current old school Swedish death metal revival, and like […]

Spain isn’t exactly known for its burgeoning brutal/technical death metal scene (Wormed is the only one that immediately comes to mind), but neither is Greece and they gave us Sickening Horror, Scotland unleashed Scordatura earlier this year and Iceland gave us Ophidian I last year also. So here is veteran but hardly prolific act Scent […]

Back in 2010, the self-released debut from Australia’s Norse took me completely by surprise and ended up being on my year end list. It was a blistering, feverishly good example of black/death metal that was befitting the album name. Well the follow up was released late last year, but it only found its way into […]

I had pretty low expectations for this release; Victory Records, the cliched moniker, and names like Emmure dropped in the Victory records press releases. However, this Parisian metal outfit surprised me with a pretty solid release of modern djent-y metal that has a lot more depth and style than many of their hardcore based peers […]

As I have said a few times before, If you are going to send a self released 4 song EP for review (we get a lot of demos), you’d better be really good and stand out to get some coverage, and luckily for Virginia’s With Burning Contempt, their debut 4 song demo made it into […]

After toiling away in the Mid West death metal scene for over a decade and 5 albums, Chicago’s Jungle Rot released the best album of their consistent, if unspectacular career last year in Kill on Command. And even though it was an album released on their much maligned home town label, Victory Records, it was […]

Ho Hum- another semi super group plying old school Swedish death metal and amazingly this one doesn’t feature Rogga Johanssen, though it  sounds just like one of his many projects  and does feature one of his other projects’ cohorts- namely P.Myrén (Paganizer, Facebreaker) and R Karlsson (Facebreaker, Edge of Sanity, Scar Symmetry, Devian, Incapacity) – […]

It would be easy to lump Sanctium in with Be’lakor; they are Australian, play a form of progressive melancholic  Opeth and Insomnium styled melodic death metal and they really good at it. However, this band actually has ties to some other Aussie bands, like Switchblade, Bane of Isildur and most notably, impressive  doomsters Myraeth, who […]

Having not heard these guys before, but with them being from Denmark, featuring members of Cerekloth and Undergang and residing on Deepsend Records, I was fully expecting yet another slab of powerful, chunky Danish death metal a la The Cleansing, Dawn of Demise or Corpus Mortale. However, Deepsend threw me a bit of a curveball. […]

Virginia-based melodic tech-death metal masters, ARSIS, have announced Unwelcome as the title of their upcoming fifth full-length album. The follow up to their 2010 release Starve for the Devil, will be released on April 30, 2013 in North America via Nuclear Blast records. “At this point ARSIS has more than a few releases in our […]

After finishing 2012 on a killer note with the likes of Gorephilia, Maveth, Desolate Shrine and Paroxsihzem, Dark Descent Records is off to an equally killer and equally Finnish start to 2012 with releases from Vorum and Krypts. One could argue that the Finnish death metal revival is almost equal to the Swedish revival of […]

Back in 2001, The Netherlands’ Centurian were on the cusp of death metal stardom after releasing their furious second album Liber Zar Zax.  However, the band stalled and disappeared for over a decade. But the members kept sharp and involved with notable acts like Nox, Severe Torture and recently, Infected Flesh. So now, three of […]

So as we start to get a little further into 2013, a lot of reviews are going to be late entries from 2012, and I’m trying to limit them to ones worth your while or ones that grabbed my ear. And I was surprised to find that one such release is the self released debut […]

“We continue to storm forward with no real sense of direction or purpose. We repeat ourselves, retell the same lies and never change. We all have become stagnant and entitled.. We know better, but we do it anyway. We are greedy, lazy and tired. We are destroying everything we’ve worked to preserve and shitting in […]

I wanted to like the debut from Pittsburgh’s Abysme so much more.  It’s got the founding member of Funerus, Brad Heiple in its ranks and it’s a dusty old school Swedish styled  death metal record with a classic Nihilist guitar tone and loose sloppy Autopsy influenced riffs. However, the song writing never quite matches the level […]

I probably don’t have to expand on the style of this album assuming you can see the cover art, see the band moniker and the label and song titles like “Lithographies of Recurrent Splatter”, “Impudent Dissection of the Perfidious Idol” and “Fermentation of Prosthetic Remains” . Power metal this is not. Infected Flesh were a […]

Kansas City’s Torn the Fuck Apart (hitherto known as TTFA) don’t like religion, particularly Christianity and all things Christ related. One look at the cover art, the album title and song titles like “Bashed in Prophets”, “Decapitated Disciples”, “Father of Filth” as well as the numerous samples from movies and TV (Louis CK, George Carlin […]

  Swedish Death Metallers ENTRAILS finish recordings on new album and announce album title and release date! Swedish death act, ENTRAILS, have completed the recordings for their much anticipated upcoming third album, Raging Death! The album was recorded in different studios: the drum recordings took place at the Racetrack studios while the basis recordings were […]

Definition of PINNACLE  ;  the highest point of development or achievement Definition of BEDLAM; A place or situation of noisy uproar and confusion. So, basically the highest achievement in a noisy uproar and confusion? Yup, Id say that about covers it. Four albums into their comeback from a 6 year hiatus and some pretty legendary […]

Candlelight Records today confirms the worldwide signing of PESTILENCE. The celebrated eastern Netherlands-based band is currently preparing to enter the studio to begin work on their seventh studio album, titled Obsideo. The album is expected to be produced by vocalist/guitarist Patrick Mameli and set to feature ten new songs. No release date is set as […]

Ok, will someone please explain to me how this isn’t an Asphyx record? It’s the trio that released the legendary The Rack (Eric Daniels, Martin Van Drunen and Bob Bagchus) two of which went on to form the post Asphyx band Soulburn, as well as a  current member of the the new Asphyx (Alwin Zuur) […]

What happens if you take the devastating, brown note heft of The Acacia Strain and mix with Christian ideals? You get Pittsburgh’s Those Who Fear, that’s fucking what. So now let me continue and  tell the three of you that will actually read this even more. Ive said for a few reviews now that Facedown […]