The folks over at Deepsend Records really like their chunky Danish death metal, and particularly if it’s a band that features members of once respected Danish death metal acts. In the case of The Cleansing you have current and former members of Usipian, Iniquity, Corpus Mortale and Panzerchrist. And with label mates  Spectral Mortuary, you get […]

I really hope you readers appreciate what I do for this site, because I’m pretty sure that listening to Blut Aus Nord‘s latest effort and De Magia Veterum‘s latest album in close succession for review purposes, I’ve exposed myself to irreparable mental and psychological damage. Damage, that may require long term treatment and anti-psychotic drugs. […]

There’s a good reason it’s taking me so long to review notable 2011-albums from Blut Aus Nord and De Magie Veterum; you simply have to be in the right frame of mind and have some mental patience to punish yourself aurally for that long. In the case of France’s Blut Aus Nord it’s bracing for […]

As much as I love what Dark Descent Records has done in 2011–and will continue to do so–they have to have a blight on their record at some point right? If I’m being brutally honest, for me it’s the second album from Philadelphia’s supposedly legendary death metal act Goreaphobia. Listen. Just because you formed in […]

So we have a one man band called Ov Hollowness from Canada, on a label called Hypnotic Dirge Records, with long songs and titles like “Desolate”, “Winds Forlorn”, and “Drone”. I’ll give you one guess as to what style of music this is. Emocore. Just kidding. The best (in my opinion of course) of Hypnotic […]

Reviewing a Christian metal album is always like swimming in shark tank with a chum jockstrap on. Well…IT’S FEEDING TIME BOYS!!! But I try to stay the course and be objective as I can, and most readers probably don’t realize that I’m actually a devout (?) atheist, so my many Christian reviews aren’t some thinly […]

I’ve followed the UK’s The Belonging for a while now, from their slightly forgetful 2005 debut, Setting the Scene, to 2009’s Ashes of a Fallen Throne, where the band took an improved step into impressive blackened war metal. And now, in 2011, with their third follow up, we’ve got yet another quality self-released album. Continuing their […]

I really like what former doom merchants, Southern Lord, is doing with their crust/hardcore of late;  excellent releases from the likes of  Nails, Acephalix, Masakari, Black Breath, Planks, Summon the Crows, Sabarante, and this, the fucking blistering debut of All Pigs Must Die. Featuring Kevin Baker (The Hope Conspiracy) on vocals and Ben Koller (Converge) […]

Despite all the attention that post-rock influenced black metal or East Coast and Pacific Northwest black metal gets, there’s a few nice little unsigned, independent, more obscure USBM bands lurking in the sunny depths of California. Notably Lake of Blood and this mysterious new act, Leucosis. With only six myspace-friends and three of them notably […]

I’m not entirely sure how to describe the second, self-released album from Italy’s Laetitia In Holocaust. I mean, if the moniker and the cover art–a group of giant insects gang banging the planet earth–doesn’t clue you in the level of weirdness contained on Rotten Light, I’m not sure I can help. Falling ever so generally […]

If you need something to tide you over until Entrails‘ new album comes out later this fall, you have two solid options right now: Demonical‘s Death Infernal or the debut from Italy’s Undead Creep. Both will satiate fans of classic Swedish death metal, rendering damn fine examples of mid-range, buzzing, d-beat, Stockholm styled death metal. […]

Everything about this band and release initially screams utter pretentiousness; the moniker, the EP title, the artwork, the song titles, the horn rimmed glasses and hipster looks and the limited vinyl only release — though a mp3 download code is included. None the less, contained withing this 16-minute little gem could be the start of […]

Lavadome productions is proud to announce the signing of Slovakian Death Metal marauders, PERVERSITY, for the release of band’s upcoming fourth album, “Ablaze”, due out on August 31, 2011. “Ablaze” is about to prove what PERVERSITY’s revitalized and exhilarating line-up is capable of. An intro plus nine tracks deliver skillfully executed, unrelentingly bludgeoning death metal […]

When I first got this EP for review, I wasn’t overly excited; rather uninspiring band name, silly EP title, from a label known for brutal death metal. Then I discover that the vocalist and founder of Mordbrand is non other than Per Boder. Yes, the same Per Boder who formed the short lived  God Macabre. […]

Man! It’s been just a killer year as far as Swedish, Stockholm styled death metal is concerned! Not only do we have 2011 releases by the likes of Brutally Deceased, Revolting, Ribspreader, Miasmal, Feral, Morbus Chron and Undead Creep, but we’ve seen reissues from Furbowl, Toxaemia, Utumno, and Uncanny too. Also, I’ve been going back and discovering other recent […]

Norway’s FESTER has just completed the recording of their first studio album in 17 years! EntitledA Celebration of Death, the album is targeted for a late 2011/early 2012 release through Abyss Records. This is FESTER as you’ve come to know them: Cold as ice and mean as Hell! Original member Bjørn “Tiger” Mathisen has recruited […]

American black metal outlaws BAHIMIRON are ready to unleash their wolves to the flesh of Christ with Rebel Hymns of Left Handed Terror this fall on MORIBUND RECORDS. Set for release on October 25th, BAHIMIRON‘s Rebel Hymns of Left Handed Terror will contain nine hymns of rabid bestial nightmares, all in devotion to total death and the fiery […]

The debut EP from Finland’s Gorephilia was a victim of circumstance. Released earlier this year around the same time and on the same label as Corpsessed‘s debut EP,  it got kind of steam rolled by The Dagger & the Chalice. Which is actually a bit of a shame as Ascend to Chaos, while certainly not […]

Try as hard as I may, I simply can’t get into California’s Gravehill and their brand of blackened thrashy death metal. Even residing on Dark Descent and featuring an ex-member of Morgion/Keen of the Crow and current members of Exhumed (Matt “Hellfiend” Harvey to be specific, whose recently reissued thrash death project, Dekapitator shares a […]

From the band’s 2004 The Miseries Never Cease EP to their self-titled, self released 2007 debut album, I’ve long championed The Living Fields as one of the most criminally unsigned bands in metal. Well, the unsigned part was rectified with the band signing with Candlelight Records, and though this album took its sweet sweet time […]

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Imagine, metaphorically speaking, that two high speed trains are careening towards each other on a unavoidable collision course. One train is Origin‘s ultra technical, brutal, but intelligent form of death metal. The other train is Sigh and their over the top orchestral symphonics and theatrics. BAM!!!! They collide, each train melting […]

Underworld Records has set August 15th as the date on which EXCOMMUNICATED debut album Skeleton Key will be unleashed. Compositionally dynamic, atmospherically insidious, and impossible to forget, this is Louisiana blackened death that lacerates the soul and burns into the brain. A dark treatise on the medieval Catholic Church, Skeleton Key is that rare metal […]

All Shall Perish‘s sophomore album, The Price of Existence was my favorite album of 2006. Unfortunately, their 2008 follow up, Awaken the Dreamers was a bit of a let down. In part due to the precedent set by the prior album, but also due to some more commercial moments, clean vocals and even ballads. So […]

Candlelight Records will continue its previously launched classics series confirming releases from DISCHARGE, EXTREME NOISE TERROR, and THE VARUKERS. New to the series, the label will release Disensitise and War Is Hell from DISCHARGE on August 23, followed by Holocaust In My Head by EXTREME NOISE TERROR on September 27 and the 2CD The Damnation […]

OK, I reeeeeally need to revisit Incantation. Not only have I been enjoying the likes of Corpsessed, Gorephilia, Blaspherian and such, but the current wave of old school death metal has even got Century Media on the band wagon with the excellent Sonne Adam. Profound Lore Records has simply decided to truly dig into the […]