Oslo, Norway — Despite further complications SUSPERIA singer Athera (Pal Mathiesen) successfully underwent open heart surgery on Monday March 16th 2009 at Rikshospitalet University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. Originally scheduled to have a triple bypass operation, surgeons discovered further problems which resulted in the vocalist also having a main artery – which previously ran to his […]

Ventura, CA death metallers Fatalist are in the studio recording The Depths of Inhumanity, their debut album for Ibex Moon Records. Guitarist/vocalist Neil Burkdoll (Dirty Dead, ex-Stump) had this to say about it. “We have been recording four new songs that will be added to the seven songs that make up the Loss recording. These […]

THORNAFIRE STUDIO/TOUR UPDATE Chilean death metal warriors Thornafire are in the midst of recording their sophomore album for Ibex Moon Records, Vorex Deconstrucción. Guitarist Victor Mac-Namara had this to say about the recording process: “We have finished the drums and guitars for our new album. All that is left is the bass, vocals, some arrangements […]

So not only is Earache experiencing a bit of a comeback, the UK Death metal scene appears to be getting very healthy in a hurry: Man Must Die, Detrimentium, Sarpanitum, Trigger the Bloodshed and now Bath’s own oddly named Ignominious Incarceration and their rather impressive debut. I’ll get this right out of the way now. […]

Regain Records is very proud to announce the signing of NYHC veterans MERAUDER! Jorge Rosado (vocals) has issued the following statement: “MERAUDER, the metalcore kings and creators, are teaming up with Regain Records to bring you the long awaited album titled God Is I. This is one of the most important and brutal records we’ve […]

Fully titled Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum : Chaining the Katechon , this Single/EP is one track 22 minutes of typically deviant and caustic yet artfully malignant black metal from one of black metal’s very elite acts. It’s hard to review one 22 minute song, but luckily Chaining the Katechon has various segments and sections […]

On 2007’s The Final Dawn, Ontario’s Arise and Ruin delivered a solid if forgetful slab of thrash based metalcore and now with the follow up, even though the thrash element has been upped and the metalcore sound is virtually gone, Arise and Ruin prove a cool cover and album title does not a great metal […]

Norwegian death metal tyrants BLOOD RED THRONE have finished recording their new album. The album, titled SOULS OF DAMNATION, is the band’s fifth studio album and will be released to coincide with the band’s 10th anniversary. The limited edition first pressing of SOULS OF DAMNATION will include two bonus tracks, plus a special bonus DVD […]

Finally getting a US/Worldwide release after coming out 2 years ago on Japan’s Toy Factory Records, the third album from super group Dimension Zero holds up not only after two years but as an album that would have sounded fresh and energetic whatever years it was released in. For me, the 2002 debut, Silent Night […]

To these ears, Houston’s Scale the Summit, ply an instrumental version of soaring, layered metalcore that’s basically like a slightly more progressive, post rock version of Misery Signals, Life In Your way without vocals. Then why aren’t I enjoying this more? Maybe of course it because I’m generally not a huge instrumental metal fan as […]

Hailing from Michigan (Detroit), Hellmouth are a snarling, gnarly crossover band that meld, punk, thrash and hardcore into a mix that’s a refreshing change from the usual Ferret fare though it lacks real staying power, once the initial burst of feral energy wears off. Citing influences like Celtic Frost, Black Flag, Venom, Black Sabbath and […]

March 18, 2009, The Riot Room, Kansas City, MO It was a night of firsts at the tiny Riot Room; my first pagan/Viking/folk metal show, my wife’s first metal show after 12 years of marriage and my first ever in person meeting with another member of the metal media-Blabbermouth and Outburn’s (and now our own […]

From the label that brought us the excellent When the Deadbolt Breaks comes a grooving, loping doom/sludge act, though this one comes with a thick stoner doom haze and features (former) Metal Maniacs scribe JJ Koczan on vocals. Hailing from New Jersey, Maegashira (some rank in Sumo wrestling I gather) is armed with a beefy, […]

Portland Oregon’s Nanda Devi (named after the second largest mountain in India) aren’t doing anything particularly original or inspiring with their take on the suddenly popular to hate post rock, Neur-Isis styled metal, but it’s a worthy entry into the genre. Five relatively rangy songs (6-10 minutes) and three untitled instrumental fillers make up the […]

WHITE WIZZARD, LA’s high-energy, NWOBHM-influenced metallers – who could be described as a cross between DIAMOND HEAD and VAN HALEN – have signed a worldwide, multi-album deal with Earache Records. WHITE WIZZARD formed in 2007 and shortly afterwards recorded their HIGH SPEED GTO demo, which only made it into the hands of a few select […]

New Album Due This Fall  Shadows Fall have announced the formation of their own label in conjunction with Warner Music Group’s Independent Label Group and Ferret Music. The band will release their 6th studio album this Fall. More details coming soon.  Lead singer Brian Fair has this to say about his bands new venture:  “All of us […]

New York-based extreme metal band BURNING HUMAN has completed work on its debut album, titled Resurrection Through Fire. The record will drop on April 21, 2009 via E1 Music (formerly KOCH Records). Resurrection Through Fire administers ten frighteningly intense tracks of underground death metal that inflict lethal doses of crushing brutality, relentless speed and blast-furnace […]

Oslo City District Court has delivered a verdict on the main question in the GORGOROTH trademark case, which took place at the end of January 2009. The court has decided that King Ov Hell’s trademark registration #243365 of the band name GORGOROTH is NOT valid and shall therefore be deleted. The court states that King […]

UNEARTH AND LAZARUS A.D. TO SUPPORT!!! Bay Area thrash legends TESTAMENT are taking the stage once again for their first US headlining tour in support of the award-winning The Formation of Damnation. The band’s first new studio album in nine years won “Album of the Year” at the 2008 Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards. The […]

Originally released on 625 Thrash Records back in 2007 and now re-released by arguably the original grindcore record label, Texas’s Insect Warfare continue where the monstrous grindcore recent efforts of fellow Texans Kill the Client, Maruta, Captain Cleanoff and Napalm Death, left off. Basically, Insect Warfare is like my mother in law; short, explosive, loud, […]

I really, really wanted to like this; an experimental black metal duo from New Hampshire, from a cult label with a history of solid releases? Cobalt anyone? Even more so after reading lots of positive press including our own Scott Alisoglu and a Nathan T. Birk interview of the band in Metal Maniacs that gushed […]

Hailing from Finland, Folk three-piece (with the aid of some noteworthy session members) Crimfall entered the folk metal fray back in 2008 with their Burning Winds demo. And now with their Napalm Records debut, As the Path Unfolds, those demo tracks as well as eight brand new tracks deliver exactly what you’d expect from a Finnish Folk/Viking band-and more. With the luscious Helena Haaparanta providing an operatic gloss to the expectedly up beat, typically Finnish, blackened yet epic and bouncy fare, Crimfall, like the recent release by Kivimentsan Druidi, Arkona and country mates Battlelore, have given folk/Viking metal some elegance amid the grime and chain mail driven throes typically associated with the genre. From the bombastic chorus of “The Crown of Treason” through the ethnic chants of “Wildfire Season” and Middle Eastern Aura of “Sun Orphaned” to ballad “Aubade” the album covers all of Folk Metal bases with confidence, gusto and an orchestral grandeur. I visited with guitarist Jakke Viitala to find out a little more about one of Finnish folk metal’s newest additions…

If your self released effort gets reviewed here, you must be doing something right, and the UK’s (Bradford) The Belonging show that a self released effort can compete with most label released efforts. I don’t remember much about the bands prior release, Setting the Scene, so it could not have been that good, but on […]

As I start to get to the last of my 2008 releases that I feel worthy of review, I stumbled across the full length debut from Modesto, California’s Better Left Unsaid, a band whose demo, The Silencing, I reviewed and enjoyed at another site. Now on Jamey Jasta’s Stillborn Records, BLU play a form of […]

Whereas the upcoming release, Lullabies For the Dormant Mind from label mates The Agonist is a vital, powerful and stunningly good example of female fronted metal done right, the debut from Wisconsin’s Luna Mortis is little more than a mish mash of styles that while, has some promise simply does not do enough to justify […]