Author Archive

Brantford, Ontario, Canada based metal band Our Lady of Bloodshed has signed with Northern Storm Records. The group’s debut album “VII” will be released under the label on June 16th, 2009. Our Lady of Bloodshed is currently streaming tracks online at http://www.Myspace.com/OurLadyofBloodshed “We are all very excited about this partnership,” says Our Lady of Bloodshed […]

Holy hell. 2008 saw tech death metal explode with the likes of Origin, Decrepit Birth, Brain Drill, Trigger the Bloodshed, Severed Savior, Psycroptic and such; a year hard to top right? Well, 2009 already has seen brilliant releases from Obscura and Ulcerate as well as solid releases from Inevitable End, Gory Blister, Trigger the Bloodshed […]

Here’s yet another excellently put together, self – released effort, this time from Phoenix, Arizona’s Loren Battle, however, the music isn’t quite as promising as the cover art and self described mix of “beauty and brutality”. What we have here is a very predictable style of metalcore that’s on the heavier end of the spectrum […]

As a deathcore fan, 2009 has been off to a pretty solid start with the likes of Rose Funeral, Impending Doom, Glasgow Grin, Within the Ruins, Earth From Above, etc. However two recent releases in particular have savaged my genitals with the tenacity of an African Honey Badger and I was wearing beehive underpants; the […]

First off, I’m generally not a writer who spends half the review on an albums packaging or artwork, but Defeater’s Travel’s and its multi panel, digipack gatefold packaging emblazoned with no frills, grainy and real, black and white photos is simply superb and a welcome change to the usual over the top colors of the urban […]

(Los Angeles, CA) April 14, 2009 – The Syracuse, N.Y.-based UNHOLY, who will support Earth Crisis and Walls of Jericho on a national tour next month, have posted the Aeron Alfrey-designed cover art for their Prosthetic Records debut, New Life Behind Closed Eyes, on their MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/unholy.  “The cover as well as the interior […]

In an update issued by the band: “We’re proud to announce that we’ve  licensed our own new EP, Doomsday Derelicts from our North American label, Century Media, to be released on our own in-house label Battle Kommand Records for release in North America! The CD will be at press shortly and we anticipate a release […]

DARKEST HOUR, the Washington D.C. powerhouse metal quintet, will proudly release their fifth full-length record, The Eternal Return, June 23, 2009 on Victory Records. The band tapped producer Brian McTernan (Senses Fail, Thrice, From Autumn to Ashes) and recorded at his Baltimore, MD-based Salad Days Studio. Guitarist Mike Schleibaum comments, “To put it simply, this […]

The fact the third full length album from one of Funeral dooms best bands and one of my favorite personal bands came out late last year and I’m just now getting to it should give you a red flag as to what is about to follow. After two absolutely stunning funeral doom albums in O […]

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 […]