England’s brutal blackened death/thrash metal band, Craven Idol, return with their scorching follow-up to 2013’s outstanding Towards Eschaton album.  Hopefully you did not snooze too long and missed their 2010 ep, Ethereal Altars, which was also phenomenal.  The Shackles of Mammon boasts longer songs this time around, with the average song length, in this 8 […]

Marquee Records owner, Armando Pereira truly knows his metal music.  No disrespect to Finnish thrash metal band, Angel of Sodom, but I had never heard of them, up until recently.  Upon gazing out the album cover for Divine Retribution you would think this is more geared towards classic or power metal, but no, it’s thrash […]

I’ve been a fan of Colorado’s Call of the Void, since their 2013 Dragged Down A Dead End Path debut and then the band following it up with Ageless in 2015.  Both releases on Relapse Records.   COTV play a blistering combination of crusty grind, with some hardcore/punk influences.  Super aggressive and pissed off music.  […]

Condition Critical hail from New Jersey band and play a brutal form of thrash metal. They do have some death metal elements with some snarled vocal tones every so often and some of the riffs, but by and large they’re thrash.  They have been essentially nicknamed and aptly so, Demolition Hammer Jr.  Due to Demolition […]

California’s Condemned are back after 6 long years with their 3rd brutal offering, His Divine Shadow.  Original member, guitarist, Steve Crow, had to replace a lot of members years ago.  I saw them live on their tour with Wormed, and Cognitive, a few years back and they ripped the place apart.  Guest vocalist, at the […]

Finland’s 2 piece monstrosity, Lantern, return with their second abum, II: Morphosis, after four years since their debut, Below.  If you’re lucky enough to have the Subterranean Effulgence ep, in your collection, consider yourself lucky, it’s a great release.  Opening with “Black Miasma”, I am noticing some Dark Throne type of sounds going on here.  […]

Patrik Svendsen, vocalist and guitarist for Norway’s Tonic Breed recently contacted Erik from TOTD to request I review their Outsold Album.  Erik passed along the information and before long Patrik and I were in communication and he graciously sent me their debut album, On The Brink of Extinction and Outsold, their newest album.  No offense […]

Finland’s Gorephilia return with their second full-length album, after 5 years.  Their first official release was the outstanding  Ascend to Chaos ep in 2011, which they bested a year later with their debut album, Embodiment of Death.  Severed Monolith has a very Morbid Angelish sound to it.  I am reminded of Morbid’s Blessed are the […]

Russia’s Ossuary Anex came into existence in 2008, and 4 years later released their debut, Awakening on the now defunct SFC Records.  I really enjoyed their debut and even reviewed it on aatruk.com.  They now return with Mutilation Through Prayer and it’s a killer follow-up album.  The band wears their influences on their sleeves.  Internal […]

Finland’s Rotten Sound released the best grind album of 2016, with Abuse to Suffer.  Hopefully you were one of the lucky ones who picked up the limited edition digipak which contained a couple of extra songs.  Regardless Rotten Sound continue to push the boundaries of extremity and keeps it interesting all the while.  Hell, it […]

Germany’s Kreator really needs no introduction and despite a few mishap albums in the 90’s, for me, remain the best German Thrash Metal act to this day.  I will venture to say I remember when Endless Pain was released in 1985 and 1986 brought about my favorite album by them, Pleasure to Kill.  ’92-99, is […]

Like Rogga Johansson needed to form a new band??  I feel his best are, hands down: Revolting and Putrevore.  Well go ahead and add Minotaur Head to the mix too, at the top! I named this release as the best doom/death release for 2016, in my best of list, on this site.  So Rogga grabs […]

When Soulburn reformed in 2014, I was pleasantly surprised at their return album after 16 years, namely The Suffocating Darkness.  To this day is still one of my all time favorite blackened death/doom albums and yes I have heard all the great albums and own most from 30 years prior.  Soulburn incorporated alot more black […]

  In their short existence, Malaysia’s Humiliation have released a ton of material. Pretty much an album every year coupled with numerous split 7″ releases on a yearly basis.  With Honourable Discharge being the 7th full length in the Humiliation  war camp you know what they bring by now. Concentrating on heavy, meaty riffs and […]

2011 saw the release of Disma’s debut album, Towards the Megalith, which, for me, is one of the finest death metal albums.  Combining brutal death metal, with a fair amount of doom-death and a heaviness that most bands dream of but never achieve.  Disma’s debut mostly contained reworked demo/7” songs, so I am looking forward […]

England’s Anaal Nathrakh have been kicking the snot out of extreme metal fans worldwide, since the late 90’s.  I was late to their camp, due to the impossibility of being able to afford every release.  Thanks to Graham Landers, from Deepsend Records, for recommending them to me some years ago.  I remember getting a Christmas […]

Germany’s Revel in Flesh, have been one of my favorite death metal albums for quite some time.  Their 3rd album, Death Kult Legions was their best album and so they return a few years later to leave many other bands, in the dust, once again with Emissary of All Plagues.  With Dan Swano, at Unisound […]

In 1987 Death firmly put the stamp of the death metal genre on the map with the release of their debut Scream Bloody Gore album.  I received it on vinyl as a birthday gift that year and it is an album all us old bastards have memorized front to back.   Once again Relapse Records […]

Talk about one of the most anticipated metal releases for 2016. The hype for Hardwired… To Self-Destruct has been through the roof.  I preordered this special 3cd edition some time ago and it never reached me.  My post office could not find it and it was never delivered, yet I paid for it.  Score: Rini […]

BRIDE OF INSECT In 1990 Richard C, owner of Wild Rags Records, in California took a chance on Nuclear Death.  A primitive grindcore outfit, out of Arizona, fronted by a female vocalist, who played guitar and bass.  Extreme female vocalists doing grindcore, was not something that was going on during the 80’s/90’s.  Not released on […]

It’s rare I get to have the pleasure of reviewing all the releases from an active band.  Cognitive are one such band.  I reviewed their ep, The Horrid Swarm and interviewed guitarist Rob Wharton several years ago.  The band dropped their self-titled debut 2 years ago and I was pleasantly surprised to hear more technical […]

After a long hiatus, NYDM act Dehumanized finally took up shop again and in 2012 unleashed Controlled Elite, an exceptional brutal slammin’ death metal album.  4 years later, not content to rest on their laurels Dehumanized packed their crap went to Joe Cincotta’s NY studio and have recorded Beyond the Mind. This is 10 songs […]

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nervosa when their debut album, Victim of Yourself dropped 2 years ago, on the allabouttherock.uk site and review their album.  The ladies were accommodating and I felt that they had released such a strong album, how could they top it a mere 2 years later?? Well, they did!  These ladies thrash […]

Brazil’s, Marquee Records, is one of the elite labels dealing with reissues. Owner, Armanda Pereira, knows the love and respect needed for a true reissue. With that being said I will say Austria’s Miasma were kind of a one hit wonder releasing an obscure album in 1992 on Lethal Records. For some reason the record stores […]

Vektor have been around since 2003 and are defined as progressive thrash with sci-fi elements. I never heard them until 2015, but this past year picked up all 3 of their outstanding albums.  2009 Black Future and the 2011 follow-up Outer Iisolation are great starting points. I agree with their musical description and they are […]