Archive for the ‘Reviews › H’ Category

I was first exposed to Harm’s Way many years ago when I saw them open for Hate Eternal (if I recall right).  I remember being blown away by their energy and their killer beatdown hardcore style, and the nasty vocal style of their oft-shirtless lead man (who looks like he could be a professional powerlifter).  […]

I’ve been a big fan of Malaysia’s Humiliation, brand of war inspired death metal, for a number of years. They release an album every year, along with some splits to boot. The band is always writing new music. As we speak they are writing their 9th album. Their brand of Bolt Thrower/classic Obituary/Hail of Bullets […]

I’m curious. How many metalheads, when asked the question, “What attracts you to heavy metal music?”, would answer with a simple and sound, “Fun”. Yet in reality, isn’t that the brass tax of it all? If the love we have for metal wasn’t, in the long run, “fun”,  would we indulge in it? Maybe it’s […]

After a pretty long dryspell for deathcore, I get 2 releases from Swiss label Tenacity Music- first, the impressive  Swiss bruisers Conjonctive and their female fronted down tuned assault of In the Mouth of the Devil, and this, the second full length album from France’s oddly named Hybrid Sheep, a band I have never heard of […]

Man, it never ceases to amaze me how much Italian Death Metal Bands love the Floridian style of death metal.  Not that is by any means a bad thing by any means and it most certainly has been a busy year for Italian Death Metal with Hour of Penance releasing Cast a First Stone on […]

Holy gargantuan balls of steel, Batman! This is some straight up good shit right here. I  really was not sure what to expect from Holycide and their debut full-length, Annihilate… Then Ask!. Truth be told, I was basically looking for something other than death metal for reviewing purposes  and didn’t anticipate such a blistering and […]

It looks like we have another burgeoning Rogga Johannsson in the making by way of Sweden’s Johnny Pettersson. Not only did he feature in the reactivated Wombath, he is in Ashcloud, Gods Forsaken, Human Harvest, Just Before Dawn, Syn;Drom, Skineater, Vholdghast and produces/mixes or masters in all of those projects. On Henry Kane (The creepy […]

In my year end list for this site, the two albums I put on my “Please Don’t Disappoint in 2017” list were Analepsy (the first glimpses of that one sound incredible), and Hour of Penance. I have been a big fan of Hour of Penance since The Vile Conception and the two LPs following that […]

I have reviewed both of Hellmouth’s prior albums here. And the Detroit band showed great development from 2009s Destroy Everything, Worship Nothing to 2011s Gravestone Skylines, so I was really hoping for another leap in quality for album number three. And while the band seemed to have matured and toned things down a bit there, […]

When you are in a band you normally don’t know whether what you are doing is good, bad, great or awful. In my experience, you are just getting together with your mates and killing it as best you can. Maybe, once you have a chance to make a demo or whatever, you start to realize […]

  As a big fan of Andi Macht’s lead guitar firestorms in German dirt doom kings Black Wasteland, I was all ears to find out he moonlights as bassist for ruthless punk/thrash/old school black metal bastards Hellburst. If Celtic Frost, Saviours, Hellshock, Venom, Discharge and BL’AST had a mutant six-headed baby baptized in an amniotic […]

I have it on good authority from some Minnesota pals, that Hate Beast are a well respected, rising band on the Minneapolis scene. And I have no issue with that intel, but if I’m being honest Hate Beast are not doing a lot for me. First off, if you are called Hate Beast, I expect something […]

  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 […]

Hammerhands takes the atmosphere and vocal stylings of later Tom Waits records but replaces the music with widescreen desert rock and colliding waves of sandstorm sludge/hardcore.  Largo Forte is an engrossing album and delivers with frequent surprises in song composition.  Truly, I didn’t see what was coming at many points on Largo Forte and that’s […]

Tee Pee Records always puts on a helluva duchess and the proverbial mind spread.  Hell, I still listen to Titan’s A Raining Sun of Light and Love for You and You and You on an almost weekly basis.  Why Relapse never seemed to give Titan’s stellar follow-up Sweet Dreams any big sort of push is […]

Hatebreed’s last album, The Divinity of Purpose, was a very hit or miss output for me (with more misses than hits), that made it the only one of their albums that I did not purchase.  Still wary from that last full length I came into their new one a bit apprehensive to say the least, […]

I’m a big fan of symphonic black metal, but the genre has been in a bit of a dry spell. The only decent recent release I can recall is Diabolus Arcanium or Raphuemet’s Well, but those are a little ‘different’.  I am craving something more Scandinavian, melodic and grandiose like the scene on the ’90s (Lothlorien, Embracing  […]

From the fertile, fly-infested breeding grounds of Florida that have delivered unto the Earth the sludge majesty of Cavity, Railsplitter, Dove, Floor, House of Lightning, Consular, Shroud Eater and so many more iron-forgers of the riff hails Hollow Leg. I’m fuckin’ red with embarrassment on one cheek and am deservedly wearing egg on the other, […]

When it comes to death dealin’ doom metal and steroid pumped 70s riffs, never turn your back on the Steel City of Pittsburgh, man.  Spawning some of my favorite riff welders of all-time including Dream Death, Penance, Argus, Molasses Barge, Satanic Bat, Iron Crown, Vulture and many, many more past and present; there’s a tight […]

Holy shit! I’m not sure what I was really expecting from Hemotoxin, being I had never heard them before, and I was going into their sophomore album, Biological Enslavement, completely blind (deaf?) to what they were about; but I’ll be damned if Hemotoxin have not only crafted a righteously, kick-ass album in Biological Enslavement, but […]

I got to Savannah, Georgia’s Niche just a little bit late because if I was quicker on the draw this would have easily been one of my favorite records of 2015.  On Kylesa’s respectable Retro Futurist label, the quartet is accomplished musicians with striking chops, superb songwriting and soaring harmonies that suck you in like […]

Londoners HAG work up a twitchy, Ritalin necessitating din on their debut full-length Fear of Man.  Though I knew virtually nothing of the trio going into this review, it’s without question that I came out as a fan.  The highly melodic, walls n’ waves of My Bloody Valentine-esque guitar squalor that runs lockstep with the […]

Spellbook, the 2012 debut from this Canadian/Balkan one man project was a pretty solid slab of thrash/death/black metal. Not much has changed in 3 years. The sound is a tight, almost robotic (due to programmed drums), death/thrash release with gruff almost Chris Barnes is growls. There’s no wasted sound, no intros, no interludes, and while […]

Transcending Obscurity delivers again with this compilation release from pox-stricken, West Bengal black metal lunatics Heathen Beast.  Trident collects the band’s three EP releases into a full-length serving that’s easily some of the sickest, rawest black metal I’ve heard in a quite bit.  Fans that worship the rotten side of the style like Darkthrone, Burzum, […]

What we got here is the latest release from Chile’s Hellish and one thing you got to give them props or (most) bands for that matter from South America in general that they play this style of retro thrash, is they have that honesty in their approach and just seem to get things right in […]