Skelmersdale England’s death-thrash outfit Machiavellian has posted a video teaser for their new album “The Impossibility of Death in the Minds of the Living” online here. The group’s debut release will surface this spring on Year of the Sun Records. Recorded at Foel Studios in Wales, “The Impossibility of Death in the Minds of the […]

Translation Loss Records are extremely excited to announce the addition of Richmond, VA’s CITY OF SHIPS to their roster!   CITY OF SHIPS has been touring relentlessly since its inception in 2005, promoting self-released EPs as well as CD and Vinyl releases from independent Richmond, VA labels Forcefield Records and the Perpetual Motion Machine. The trio […]

My CD collection is full of albums I ‘like’. Not albums I’m going to revisit and listen to over and over again, but certainly not an album I’m going to trade in, sell or use for Skeet shooting once I’m done reviewing it The second album, Dawn of Reprisal from the UK’s Malefice is one such […]

Maybe it’s the five year wait, maybe it’s the fact I’ve listened to soooo much similar styled noisy, lurching, techy mathcore in the last 4 years, maybe I’ve just turned into a miserable, jaded old fuck. I’m not sure what it is, but after being blown away by 2005s The Design, the follow up, The Campaign, […]

Harpoon is a drum machine based ‘grindcore’ duo featuring vocalist Toney Vast-Binder of 7000 Dying Rats fame and guitarist/drum programmer Dean Costello (the band has also added Lair of The Minotaur bassist DJ Barraca). The term grindcore is relative here-this isn’t pure Napalm Death, nor is it the modern pseudo grindcore (Pig Destroyer, etc) that […]

WHEN AND WHERE Dates: July 31, August 1, and August 2, 2009 Venue: El Rodeo Community Center Address: 451 W. Hueneme Rd., Oxnard, CA 93033 STAGE SOUND / STAGE FURY This year we are pleased to announce that we will have a 2 stage set-up for the first time. The two stage set-up could be […]

Polish death metallers VADER have inked a deal with Nuclear Blast Records. Commented the band: “We are very glad that after so many years VADER finally joined one of the biggest metal labels in the world. We really believe in their potential, experience and famous German reliability. We are pretty confident that the cooperation will […]

Celebrated progressive metal unit CYNIC has announced U.S. tour dates in support of its critically acclaimed new album, Traced in Air. Fresh off of a North American tour with Meshuggah, the forward thinking band will team up with fellow guitar heroes Dragonforce for a twenty city U.S. trek that is set to kick off on […]

Normally, for me to attend a decent metal show I have to either drive 2 ½ hours East to St Louis or 2 ½ hours West to Kansas City. However, once in a while Columbia, Missouri, a mere 30 minutes from my house, will have a decent show at one of their smaller venues (Origin, All That Remain, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me). So once I saw that North Dakota/Minnesota noise merchants Battlefields were going to hit up one of the venues along with former label mates Sleeping In Gethsemane (who by the way are a very cool instrumental metal act) , I had to attend. I also thought I would squeeze in an interview with a band which has released two very impressive albums (2007s Stained by the Blood of an Empire and 2009s Thresholds of Imbalance) that take the typical post rock genre, add some doom, some progressive elements and a sprinkle of hardcore. So on a chilly evening outside the venue I shared some beers and visited with the very amicable trio of vocalist Rusty Steele, drummer Rob Schmidt and guitarist Matt Ricigliano….

French extreme prog act HACRIDE disclose the new song “My Enemy” from their upcoming album Lazarus to be released on Listenable Records by the end of the month. The track is available now on the myspace of the band : http://www.myspace.com/hacridev2 HACRIDE singer Samuel Bourreau talks about this new track : “My Enemy is the […]

After the teasing 2 track vinyl EP, Malevolent Grain, which unveiled a new logo and a second guitarist, (Will Lindsay), the darlings of the American black metal scene return for their highly anticipated third full length album (their second for Southern Lord), and its well worth the wait. WITTR have been called a lot of […]

The reason I decided to review the debut from this North Carolina act and Italy’s The Modern Age Slavery so close together was so readers could get two examples of how to beat a dead horse – on one hand The Modern Age Slavery making deathcore sound even more redundant and tired, and on the […]

I’m usually all for labels signed bands and releasing stuff outside of their usual fare, but Italian deathcore on Napalm Records? Fail. It’s not even very good deathcore at that, making Damned to Blindness an even bigger failure. Sounding like every teenage middle tier American myspace death metal band that’s listened to The Black Dahlia […]

I remember seeing a couple of full page ads for this release in Metal Maniacs, and thinking there’s no way this can be any good- Viking metal from Ohio? But boy was I wrong. Sharing a lot of elements with Oakhelm, Hammer Horde are not only a Viking metal band from the least Viking place […]

Les Discrets, the solo project founded by Fursy Teyssier (Alcest, Amesoeurs) in 2003, steps forth from its Myspace existence into the light of day. “‘Les Discrets’ (engl.: the discreet ones) are those creatures that live in nature and who bring nature to life, the ones who make the leaves move, who put dew on the […]

2007s Eater of Birds was a watershed release for this Colorado duo, firmly putting them in the very forefront of USBM along the likes of Nachtmystium, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Krallice and the long awaited follow up, Gin will further cement the duo as one of the very best forward thinking, envelope shredding […]

The much anticipated second album from Delain is finally here. It is fascinating to witness how the band has evolved! Originally conceived by Within Temptation keyboard player Martijn Westerholt as a studio project, the success of the debut album Lucidity tipped his hand and Delain has since evolved into a full blown active band. With […]

Heralded Indianapolis, IN doom metal masters THE GATES OF SLUMBER have signed to England’s Rise Above Records for the release of their highly anticipated new album and follow up to 2008’s celebrated Conqueror. The as-yet-untitled record is slated for a fall, 2009 release. The announcement is made on the heels of the brightest and busiest […]

Post rock is off to a busy start in 2009 with the likes of Nanda Devi, Tombs, Buried Inside, and the new Isis (which is killer BTW) – already before the start of spring. However the album I was most anticipating in the genre this year, the sophomore effort from North Dakota’s Battlefields as I […]

Let’s get this out of the way first, and put it out there. Inchoate is the instrumental metal brainchild of one man – Brandon Duncan. Brandon Duncan recently designed the new teeth of the divine.com logo and is doing the shirt designs that will be available shortly. First, Mr. Duncan sent me the CD some […]

Hot off the heels of a completely sold-out out tour alongside Drop Dead Gorgeous, Eyes Set to Kill have announced the dates for their upcoming tour with Gwen Stacy, Motionless In White and Belle Epoque. The tour is slated to kick off April 29th in Terre Haute, IN and run throughout the month of May, […]

Southern Lord is proud to announce that three of the label’s artists will be represented in acclaimed film director Jim Jarmusch’s latest tour de force, The Limits Of Control. The film’s soundtrack features music by Earth, sunn 0))) and Boris, all representatives of Southern Lord Recordings.   Responsible for such films as Down By Law, Dead […]

Wow. I did not see this coming. Whereas the debut from Canada’s female fronted metalcore outfit Once Only Imagined, was a complete knock off of In this Moments Beautiful Tragedy, the sophomore effort utterly destroys In This Moment’s second, tamer effort, The Dream with a fierce and impressive evolution in the band’s sound. Though still […]

Human Quena Orchestra (featuring former members of cult Pittsburgh grind/metal legends Creation Is Crucifixion) is bringing their apocalyptic industrial doom nightmare to the Pacific Northwest, California and some spots in the Southwest over the next two weeks – I’ve listed all of their tour dates below. From all accounts, these guys are going to be […]

The last time I heard from Crimes Against Humanity Records was actually the last Desolatevoid album, Self Medicated Psycho Therapy and little has changed on the Desolatevoid camp; bassist Nick Carroll still runs Crimes Against Humanity Records, vocalist Aaron Howard still sounds batshit insane and the band still plys a form of gritty, crusty, in […]