Author Archive

Israel’s Total Rust Music has carved out a nice little niche for themselves on the black/doom/sludge genre with a number of quality releases from the likes of Highgate, Lords of Bukkake, Pyramido, Funeralium and such. 2012 looks to be of to a similarly high quality start with a trio of releases by Spain’s Tort, French black […]

PROTEST THE HERO ANNOUNCE U.S TOUR WITH VERY SPECIAL GUEST PERIPHERY JEFF LOOMIS, THE SAFETY FIRE, AND TODAY I CAUGHT THE PLAGUE SUPPORT TOUR SPONSORED BY TOONTRACK, MERCHNOW, and METALSUCKS.COM Closing out the US portion of the Scurrilous album cycle, PROTEST THE HERO will embark on a 24 date coast-to-coast U.S tour starting March 25th […]

Bereft is a Los Angeles based melodic sludgy doom band featuring Sacha Dunable of Intronaut and Graviton, Derek Donley of National Sunday Law and Graviton, Charles Elliott of Abysmal Dawn and ex-The Faceless vocalist Derek Rydquist. Bereft released its first track “Withered Efflorescence” exclusively via their Facebook page in early September 2011 to rave reviews […]

You know if I’m reviewing a September 2011 release here in 2012, it has to be good, and holy shit is this good. Hailing from Norway, Beaten to Death consists of a few of Norway’s veteran players from short lived or middle tier bands like Insense, She Said Destroy, oh and drummer who has played […]

Battle metallers TURISAS will be heading back to North America this spring for “PaganFest: America Part III”, their first-ever US headlining run! Joining the Finnish sextet on their triumphant return to the States is a gathering of bands from across the world: Scotland’s ALESTORM, Rome’s EX DEO, Russia’s ARKONA, and the US’s very own HUNTRESS. […]

A Hope For Home‘s last record, Realis was a decent, if slightly whiny visage of shimmery Christian post-rock. So here they are with album number three, and it’s a vast, beautiful improvement that’s on par with Hands‘ Give Me Rest — as far as gorgeous, introspective Christian metal goes. Now that almost everyone has left or […]

So back in 2010 I reviewed the self-released debut from Portugal’s Karnak Seti, and it was a surprisingly good melodic death metal effort that imbued the the genre’s once hailed stylings and even reminded me a little of Disillusion‘s landmark debut. Well, the band were kind enough to send me the follow-up, In Harmonic Entropy, […]

As usual at this time of year, I get a few CDs for review that came out late the year before. Such is the case with Ahdistuksen Aihio Productions who sent me Ave Maria‘s Chapter I and this, the debut from Finland’s Saturnian Mist. And while Ave Maria left me unsettled but only slightly impressed, Gnostikoi […]

Here’s yet another addition to the growing collection of fine but quirky, experimental German black metal. This time in the form of duo ‘A’ (guitars/vocals) and ‘C’ (drums) and their Ave Maria debut, Chapter I. I don’t have a whole lot of reference points for this act, but it’s safe to say they definitely sound […]

So here’s another reason to own a record player (and a cassette player);  Sacred Plague Records. And one of their recent releases  is the second effort from Chico, California’s Black Hole of Calcutta, a noisy, primal punk/grind/hardcore collaboration featuring members of The Makai, Transient and Mammoth Torta. Named after a 1756 incident where 146 prisoners […]

Blood Mortized‘s self released 2009 debut was one of my coolest old school Swedish death metal discoveries during the genre’s current revival. And though featuring former and current members of Amon Amarth and Crypt of Kerberos, the band didn’t seem to have as high of a profile as some of their contemporaries, but with an […]

Anyone has a Latin dictionary? Here is the impressive debut from Minnesota’s Atrum Inritus and as you can tell from the moniker, album title and track titles like “Aegrus Evert”, ” Sacramentum Exeuntium”, ” Tenebris Descendi” and “Ephemera”, there’s no doubt about what we are  dealing with here: Black metal. While all the above and […]

    Montreal’s monsters of tech-death mayhem, BENEATH THE MASSACRE, have announced their newest album, entitled, “Incongruous,” will be released in the US on February 14th, in the UK on February 20th, in mainland Europe on February 24th and in Canada on February 28th. “Incongruous” was produced and mixed by Chris Donaldson (Cryptopsy) and mastered […]

Graf Orlock has completed work on its new EP, Los Angeles. In keeping with its tradition of using Hollywood blockbusters as inspiration, Graf Orlock has based Los Angeles entirely on Michael Mann’s 1995 film, Heat, starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Los Angeles is the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed Doombox EP, which Decibel Magazine called, “a churning, eclectic barnburner evoking unrestrained […]

Listen, I’ll readily admit to being one of those shallow, close minded types that judges a book by its cover, or a band by its moniker. And quite frankly a band with the name The Gardenerz wasn’t something I was ready to dive into. It’s the same reason I’ve never listened to Weekend Nachos and […]

Well fuck! That didn’t take long! After kicking my ass for a majority of 2011 with the likes of Entrails, Cryptborn, Uncanny, Miasmal, Undead Creep, Corpsessed, Gorephilia and such, Dark Descent Records, a mere two fucking days into 2012, has unleashed yet another gem of awesome old school death metal. Despite the label and PR […]

Despite being around since 1991 and with 6 full-length releases under their belt, Germany’s apparent death metal stalwarts Dead are new to me. But after hearing Hardnaked…but Dead, I can’t say I’m too bothered by the fact that I have missed out on their 20 year history. With a tongue in cheek grooving sense of […]

Swedish tech-titans SPAWN OF POSSESSION have announced the final details for their upcoming third full-length, Incurso — the band’s first album for Relapse Records — which is already one of the most anticipated death metal releases of 2012. Now confirmed to infest North American audiences on March 13th, Incurso was recorded with engineer Magnus Sedenberg […]

Listen, do we really need another interview with Glen Benton ranting about how much he hates Christians as well as his ex-wife? Or Trey Azagthoth calling out fans that don’t like his music as fake fans? Well, how about a (first) interview with an independent, local (at least to me) artist who has released 5 albums in 2011 alone? A young man I decided to meet up with while on a business trip in his neck of the woods and interview him after hearing a number of his albums and being impressed by them. That man is Adam Kalmbach, the lone spirit behind Jute Gyte. And when I met Adam I was a little shocked when you consider the nasty and abrasive nature of albums like Old Ways, Verstiegenheit and his latest effort, Impermanance. Well, spoken, intelligent, unassuming and critically knowledgeable about music, I should be glad the racket he produces is so vitriolic as this Jekyll and Hyde effect would be a terrible thing if it manifested itself outside of his music. A one man black metal act that has Burzum, Leviathan and Xasthur level potential that you all should get to know… please meet Adan Kalmbach AKA Jute Gyte.

I was pretty gutted when Life In Your Way broke up, especially on the heels of 2007s Waking Giants, one of my very favorite records of the years and favorite metalcore records ever.  Well, earlier this year, after a 4 year layoff, the band has mostly reunited (former Wrench in the Works drummer Andy Nelson […]

First- just look at the cover… (courtesy of renowned fantasy artist Daarken whose work you’ve have seen grace games like Warhammer Online and Warcraft games ). FUCKING LOOK AT IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If that doesn’t make flaming metal skulls shoot from your cocks/vaginas, you simply don’t like metal. Second, how in the fuck is Arkansas’s Vore […]

From Blabbermouth.net: David Gold, a founding member of the Ontario, Canada-based black and doom metal band WOODS OF YPRES, was killed last night (Thursday, December 22) in an accident near Barrie, Ontario. He was 31 years old. A memorial service is tentatively scheduled to be held in Gold‘s hometown of Sault Ste. Marie on December […]

Generally, when I’m looking at porn, (I’d Like to think) I’m a fairly typical male. It’s your typical porn stuff, nothing to gross or degrading. But once in  rare while I’ll be in the mood for some thing nasty; some German Bukkake or weird Japanese, submissive ball stomping fetish. Something that makes me cringe and […]

Willowtip has officially signed Sydney, Australia atmospheric death metal band Beyond Terror Beyond Grace.  The label will release the band’s newest album, Nadir, on April 3rd, 2012.  Recorded and mixed by Joel Taylor (The Abandonment, Encircling Sea) at Three Phase Studios in Melbourne, Australia over only two weeks in May 2011, Nadir captures a band […]

  Folk metalers TURISAS will be heading back to North America this spring for “PaganFest: America Part III”, their first-ever US headlining run! Joining the Finnish sextet on their triumphant return to the States is a gathering of bands from across the world: Scotland’s ALESTORM, Rome’s EX DEO, Russia’s ARKONA, and the US’s very own […]