The debut from this Sydney Australia progressive folk-metal act was ambitious, but didn’t quite reach its potential. Fire:Water:Ash was a bit too wandering and unfocused for its own good. The maritime themed follow-up however, is an improved effort that sees the act fulfill the promise of the debut. Though hailing from Australia, the influences of […]

Bizarre Swedish black metal buzz band GHOST will dispense its debut directive Opus Eponymous in North America on January 18, 2011 via Rise Above Records.  The release of the album will assist the abhorrent agents in spreading their “unholy gospel” and “tricking mankind into believing the end is ultimately a good thing via the ever […]

Miami, FL’s MARUTA have finished up work on their new album, and second for Willowtip, entitled Forward Into Regression.  A release set has been set for February 22, 2011.  Germany’s Power It Up Records will be releasing a gatefold LP version.  A release date for the vinyl is TBD.  Vocalist Mitchell Luna comments, “So we […]

 Kings of Swedish death metal AMON AMARTH have just announced the title of the band’s forthcoming album as Surtur Rising. Due out in the spring of 2011, Surtur Rising marks the group’s 8th full-length studio release and undoubtedly one of 2011’s most anticipated releases by fans and critics alike. Surtur Rising is the follow up […]

MULTI-TALENTED ARTIST’s RECORD DESCRIBED AS “A JOURNEY THROUGH SOUND” TOMMY ROGERS, lead vocalist, keyboardist and founding member of the award-winning North Carolina progressive rock band BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME (also BTBAM) will release his debut solo album Pulse on February 1, 2011 via Metal Blade Records. The versatile front man and multi-instrumentalist, who not […]

I’ve always been partial to promoting local (Missouri) bands, especially talented ones like O’Fallon’s black metal tribe Harkonin. Now fittingly signed to Australia’s Battlegod Productions, Harkonin have released the follow-up to 2006’s solid Ghanima, complete with topnotch artwork and packaging. The end result shows a more controlled and mature band, replete with more of an […]

Incantation is the new black. If mimicry is the highest form of flattery, Incantation have to be drowning in flattery considering the rather sudden rash of supposedly old school death metal acts that are plying a form of their trademark style. It’s a style I never cared for when Incantation played it 15 years ago […]

Horror metal supergroup DENIAL FIEND has posted a video preview of their upcoming full-length release on their official YouTube channel and Facebook page. Recorded at Mana Studios, the long awaited follow-up release to 2007’s They Rise, Horror Holocaust, is due out in early 2011 on  Ibex Moon Records. The video features a clip of the […]

         Celebrarating their 25th Anniversary of all original members Chicago’s murder metal pioneers MACABRE  unleash their brand new studio album entitled “Grim Scary Tales” in Europe on January 31st, 2011 by Hammerheart Records & in North America on February 8th, 2011 by Willowtip Records.  The album explores the history of murder from […]

I’ll get right to it, after one full-length (2007’s The End of All You Know) and a couple of splits, California’s The Makai have somehow rendered one of the most brilliant pieces of music I’ve heard with Embracing the Shroud of a Blackened Sky. Now I know most regular readers of this site know that […]

Reactivated Swedish death metallers DESULTORY are set to release their long-anticipated new album, Counting Our Scars, through Pulverised Records later this month. The full-length — their first since 1996’s Swallow The Snake — was recorded, mixed and mastered by Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studio (Watain, Unanimated, Deströyer 666 etc.) in Alvik, Sweden and features the meticulous cover […]

Australian progressive folk metallers Ironwood has unveiled two tracks from their new album Storm Over Sea for free digital download. The tracks, Share the Burden and Will to Live, are available via the band’s website as well as Myspace, Facebook, iLike, and Reverb Nation pages.  “These two tracks represent the extremes that Ironwood runs to,” […]

Nuclear Blast has to be happy: The last couple of months have seen the label release new albums from Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir and now, Cradle of Filth. Three of black metal’s forefathers in the early ’90s, now grown and developed far beyond their roots into metal’s biggest acts ― regardless of what genre you lump […]

Hate Eternal is working on their fifth studio album (second for Metal Blade Records) and follow up to Fury & Flames once again at Erik Rutan’s own Mana Recording Studios. JJ Hrubovcak has been added as the band’s bassist and the devastating combo of Erik Rutan on guitar and Jade Simonetto on drums is at […]

After ripping my face off with 2009’s Unconsecrated Australia’s The Red Shore return with a new label, a new vocalist and a new drummer ― yet none of those changes stop The Avarice of Man being as completely devastating as the band’s debut. Despite the fact the band will be lumped in with the current trend of […]

As much as I like Facedown/Strikefirst Records and their quality―consistent Christian metal―none of the 2010 releases have blown me away. Sure, the likes of Impending Doom, In the Midst of Lions, As Hell Retreats, Onward to Olympas, Letter to the Exiles and The Burial are all solid, but I have to go back to the […]

I really wanted to like this heavily promoted debut record from System Divide. And why not? It’s got Belgian metal stalwart Svencho De Caluwe (Aborted, In-Quest, Leng Tche) on vocals and he’s joined by his hotterthanheck wife Miri Millman (Orphaned Land) and former Abigail Williams guitarist Mike Wilson. The thing is, the band’s effort to […]

I really like what Russia’s SFC Records is doing; becoming the European/Eastern European equivalent of Unique Leader/Unmatched Brutality Records: Releasing a quality mix of brutal and technical death metal, that has good production values, good packaging littered with unreadable monikers like Cephalic Impurity, Human Parasite, Fetal Decay, Ruptured In Purulence and Leptotrichia. Not to mention […]

After reviewing and enjoying the debut album from Jaldaboath, I thought it might be entertaining to conduct an interview with Sir Jaldabaoth, the Grand Guitarist Inspector and Grand Sovereign Songwriter General of the self-proclaimed Hammering Heraldic Metal act (aka James Fogarty). Feeling that such issues as his split with The Meads of Asphodel, fellow British metal acts, cross cultural comedic boundaries and their current album Rise of the Heraldic Beasts warranted serious investigative journalism. Of course I should have expected that a knight responsible for crafting such songs as “Bash the Bishop” and “Axe Weilding Nuns” would not turn out to be a typical journalistic foray, and quickly descended into an uninformative but amusing episode of Black Adder…

After a critically acclaimed debut (2008’s …Of Frost and War), Dutch supergroup (members of Gorefest, Asphyx, Thanatos and Houwitser) left fans wanting after a strange digital only EP last year, but have now fully satiated fans with a full-length follow-up that continues the quality of the debut. Though still a war themed album, On Divine […]

EARACHE RECORDS is proud to announce the worldwide signing of the Canadian cult metal act, WOODS OF YPRES. Formed in 2002, WOODS OF YPRES have earned critical acclaim for their ever-evolving, envelope-pushing mix of blackened doom metal. Most often compared to bands such as AGALLOCH and TYPE O NEGATIVE, WOODS OF YPRES toe a thin […]

If you are only recently getting into Amorphis and their somewhat resurgent last three albums, (Eclipse, Silent Waters and Skyforger), you must grab this 20th anniversary retrospective album, to see just how really fucking good Amorphis were on their first three albums. Coinciding with the recently released Forging the Land of a 1000 Lakes DVD/CD, […]

Austria’s Heathen Foray are a new act to me. Being relative newcomers to the Viking metal scene, but already they have released two quality albums: 2009’s Passage and their stellar new effort, Armored Bards. Like easy comparison Amon Amarth, Heathen Foray use the backbone of crunchy, melodic death metal and deeper vocals to deliver their Teutonic […]

As the intro “I” and a song called “Wounds, Bloodstains and Richochets” scrolled across my iPod and well produced, synth driven metalcore/melodic death metal thundered into my ears, I wondered to myself, “Wow, Bleeding Through have another album out already? Didn’t they release their self tilted album earlier this year?” Then I began to notice […]

As I expressed here, Woe’s debut album, A Spell for the Death of Man was one of the best USBM releases of the last few years. So I was curious how Chris Grigg (no longer known as Xos) would deliver a follow up now residing on a legendary black metal label and having a full […]