Archive for the ‘Reviews › H’ Category

From the ever improving Blast Head Records comes the second album from Virginia’a Human Infection and from the artwork and lyrics to the vocals, to the song writing and production everything has improved from the solid but forgetful debut, Infest to Ingest. Not that Curvatures In Time will be on an year end lists, but […]

“The demon Abalam is a King of Hell and an assistant to Paimon. He takes possession of a human’s body to encourage the human to commit lust, he would defile humans during the possession and the only way they could escape was death.” Hailing from the Denmark, Hexis (a term related to or meaning ‘possession’ ) […]

The debut album from Italians Hiss from the Moat has been described as blackened deathcore, because that’s exactly what we need in the metal world is another sub-genre.  Well fear not and don’t stop reading now, as I’m here to tell you there’s nary a ‘core element to this one, and if you’re a fan […]

I have not really got into the whole smokey female fronted , cultish, 70s inspired ‘vest’ metal  scene that’s been prevalent over the last few years. Other than the first Serpentcult album and a smattering of Blood Ceremony or Demon Lung, it just has not sucked me in. And it’s a shame, as Texas’s excellently […]

Hateful is Italy’s best kept secret in the Italian Death Metal scene. It’s built its reputation the hard way, without any fancy labels or big guys in the band line-up – solely on the basis of its music. This is not to take away something from the other bands, everyone has worked hard and met […]

Hailing from France, Hypnos is a doomy post rock act that instantly reminds of the likes of Morne and Mindrot, that’s to say they are fucking excellent, and their self released debut album, The Fall is an artfully crafted, elegant and powerful album that any Post Rock fans should check out as well as fans of […]

Germany’s FDA Rekotz has unearthed yet another homegrown band playing the classic Stockholm sound to join country mates  Revel In Flesh, Slaughterday, Lifeless and Wound, by way of Harm and their debut, Cadaver Christi, a fun little romp through Dismember and Grave styled mid range goodness. All of of the above mentioned bands, Harm is the […]

Hope Drone is from Australia, but listening to their music, one could easily mistake them for a band from the U.S. Their 4-track debut EP demonstrates a bleak style of black metal strongly indebted to the Cascadian variety, specifically Wolves in the Throne Room and Altar of Plagues, played with surprising maturity and aplomb. The […]

First off, my apologies to Helcaraxë, for as much as I enjoyed 2012’s Red Dragon, I simply never got around to reviewing it after I purchased it despite really enjoying it as well as all of the band’s prior efforts (2007’s Triumph and Revenge and 2009’s Broadsword). So when Children of Ygg showed up in […]

Helm. The name first crossed my path after a mate filled me in on his night out at a Dead Letter Circus gig, mentioning in passing that “the support band Helm were pretty good”. Sometime later I find myself at a Karnivool gig at The HiFi in Brisbane, and who wound up supporting? Helm. By […]

Since the day that I first gave The Invisible Mountain its first spin in my Hi-Fi last year, Horseback have compelled and intrigued me to no end. I was blown away by the sheer audaciousness and ambition of that album – just four songs stretched across nearly forty minutes of music, each song underpinned with […]

This is a remastered/reissue of the first 2 classic albums from Hypocrisy, the 1992 debut, Penetralia and the 1993 sophomore release Osculum Obscenum. I’m not here to give a history lesson on this legendary Swedish act, but suffice it to say, these 2 albums have become huge influences in the death metal genre, even over […]

Do band names get any more generic than Hell? Metal Archives lists 8 other bands with the name Hell, which unfortunately doesn’t include the spoof black metal band I started with a friend of mine in 9th grade. This project from Oregon popped up on my radar via last year’s stellar split with Thou, Resurrection […]

You know that ominous drone that sets off every record that’s supposed to have a “dark” atmosphere? It’s here. Don’t get me wrong, I love that drone. You hold a note for 79 minutes and put it on a CDr; I’ll buy it, or at least download it from your BandCamp. You know that growly […]

About this time last year, I reviewed the 3rd album from Malaysia war mongering, death metal stalwarts Humiliation, From Strength to Strength, and it was a pretty damn solid affair of Bolt Thrower-y and Jungle Rot styled barbaric simplicity (I still rock the heck out of “Preposition of Violence” on my ipod). Well, the band […]

Huntress, huh. Semi-cool name, female vocals not descended from heaven on angel wings. Worth a shot. Interestingly enough, the music player has labeled Starbound Beast as Blues. This is clearly incorrect…though hoping this album would be interesting and then listening to it has caused a case of the blues. The lowdown: Starbound Beast is essentially […]

Hybrid is an apt name for this experimental Spanish metal act. Melding grindcore, djent, death metal, tech/math metal and jazzy experimental flourishes, the band is certainly adventurous with its sound, and on their second effort it creates one challenging, creative , if at times testing listen. This isn’t Azure Emote levels of crazy experimentation, but […]

I’m usually a little leery of reissues of only 5 year old death metal albums. I prefer my reissues to be of a more classic musk, and frankly I don’t think there was much released in 2008 that really needed re-issuing. However, along comes the start up UK Label Wretched Decay Records and their re-issue […]

‘Ole Steve “Zetro” Souza shot himself in the foot right out of the gate with this one, doing a full-court press to the press that he would re-join Exodus in a heartbeat, all the while trying to get the very stupidly-named Hatriot off the ground. This boneheaded move essentially sucked any sort of validity out […]

Hey, even the most jaded among traditional/power metal fans would be just a little curious when the album sticker includes text like “the leading heavy metal band from South America” and “featuring Tim ‘Ripper’ owns & Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear). And then there is that whole thing about being “for fans of Primal Fear, Dio, […]

Trying to get a reissue some face time in this day and age is a near fruitless endeavor. Chances are, someone out there has the album in question, and probably has gone to great lengths to post it as a torrent. Therefore, the term “reissue” loses some of its muster for a band like Montreal’s […]

The guys from Horna have been silent for quite some time. A cover song on last year’s Emperor tribute, and five new songs since Sanojesi Äärelle in 2008. I thought maybe they had fallen into the abyss, turns out they had, down there on the sixth circle as the house band playing to Emperor Frederick […]

Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve waited almost 4 years, but it’s finally arrived:  the new Behemoth album!  Nergal has thankfully returned back to full health following his illness, and he and his fellow band mates are… wait… what is that?  You’re telling me this is NOT the new Behemoth?!?  Huh?!  Get through the intro, and there’s […]

Hatebreed:  You make this one tough on me.  You see we’ve had a good relationship going on now for almost 10 years.  You’re one of the first bands I started listening to when I got into metal (Joe Hardcore Hater: What?!? Dude hardcore SUCKS!), and your thick guitars and gruff vocals really opened my eyes […]

Darkest Origins is a Split release between two primitive, raw black metal bands- California’s one man act Hæresiarchs of Dis, who has three full length albums under their belt, the last two being on Moribund Records, and the international (US, Croatia and the Netherlands) act Ophidian Forest who have 2 self released albums to their […]