Archive for the ‘Reviews › P’ Category

While you might expect yet another clichéd take of breakdown reliant deathcore based on the band name, label and overly dramatic album title, the fact is, once you discover The Plasmarifle hail from arguably the tech metal capital of the world, Montreal, feature former Neuraxis vocalist Maynard Moore and a familiarly tight mastering effort from […]

I can’t say I was very happy to hear back in 2007 that Matt Barlow (then former Iced Earth front man) had stepped into Lance King’s shoes as the new vocalist for Power Metal outfit Pyramaze, one of my favorite bands from Denmark. The reason was that I was really keen on the idea of […]

Here’s one I’ve been anticipating for awhile. Pitch Black Forecast is the new project from Jason Popson, formerly half of Mushroomhead’s vocal attack. While I was curious as to what kind of direction Popson would go in leaving his former mega-band, I was more interested in the fact that the godly Gene Hoglan was to […]

Like Hollow Corp’s recent The Cloister of Radiance album, the third album from Denmark’s The Psyke Project was originally released in Europe last year and now has a stateside distribution. Also like Hollow Corp, The Psyke Project mix harsh, caustic metal with a few injections of post rock, and gain the results, while solid are […]

See, I’ve never been a big fan of the ‘Croptic crew from down under. I enjoy portions of Isle of Disenchantment and most of Scepter of the Ancients, but they just never struck me as a band I could listen to again and again. I saw them live at Summer Slaughter (their first North American […]

As I first heard Milwaukee’s Protestant on their As Dead As We Look release and now their  latest full length, I’m more confident in anointing this group as the heir to the mantle left by Cursed; crumbling, antagonistic and sludgy but intelligent hardcore with a few segments of well placed and thoughtful ambience, all wrapped […]

Could it be that death metal is making a comeback in the good ol’ UK? With Mithras, Man Must Die, Detrimentum, Spearhead, Sarpanitum and now the debut EP from Porkfarm, it appears so…. Compacting enough brutality and savagery into 6 songs to warrant any death metal fans attention, Blood Harvest is a death metal/grindcore mash […]

If you heard Pharaoh’s last effort, The Longest Night, you probably won’t be very surprised by what you hear on this record. Be Gone is a continuation of what the band has always done, an Americanized power metal that pays heavy tribute to both Iron Maiden and Iced Earth. The record opens with a slight […]

I haven’t heard this Belgian black metal band’s previous release, Ultimate Crescendo of Hell, but I understand that they’ve since changed their sound to avoid the Satyricon comparisons they were getting. Odd, considering that a) that’s a good thing, b) they still sound like Satyricon and c) Deathcult Salvation is impressive in its own right. […]

Has 2008 been a great year for death metal so far or what? There’s something for everyone; old school goodness of Hail of Bullets, Dismember, Unleashed. Deranged and Grave, newcomers like Dead Congregation and Detrimentum as well as bands like Hate Eternal, Decrepit Birth and Origin pushing the limits of technicality and brutality. Add to […]

This companion EP to last year’s terrific Fear of a Blank Planet has been accused of being a tack-on, due to the fact that it’s priced as a full release, but only features 4 songs. Those naysayers are even more sour than Steven Wilson’s mood – this is a fantastic release, and definitely not just […]

It’s a well-worn horror cliché that no matter how far or how fast you run, the hulking, machete-wielding murderer behind you will somehow always manage to catch up with you – even while trudging along at a much slower clip. This pretty much sums up Paganus, an extreme-doom act hailing from Finland who’ve crafted an […]

Knowing that Power Quest was formed by keyboard player Steve Williams and bassist Steve Scott after leaving Dragon Heart (now known as Dragonforce, of course) in 2001, you might expect some resemblance between the two bands. The good news, however, is that Power Quest spends less time showing off their technical wankery and puts more emphasis […]

I’m not sure if there are any real porn stars in this band, but I feel pretty safe in saying there probably aren’t any real poets when the best chorus they can come up with for the record opener is the tired, “it’s just rock ‘n’ roll to me,” that’s been used at least a […]

Brilliance often breeds polarity. For example, Kezia, the 2006 debut from this group of young Canadians, split the metal community down the middle, with a love it or loathe it mindset. That being said, of all the non extreme metal albums I reviewed, Kezia seemed to be that rare non death, grind, black, thrash metal […]

The brutal death bug has now even spread its wings over Italy, one of the last places I’d (and I should know) expect to find gore obsessed lunatics concocting gory, slamming death metal. What’s more the bug has bit hard, as Putridity join the likes of Vomit the Soul, Septycal Gorge, Stench of Dismemberment, Vulvectomy […]

This band is pretty unstoppable at the moment in terms of output as Martyr Immortal follows not that long after the formidable ‘Vicious Skin,’ and split with Frightener. Even more impressive is that ups the intensity and class of their prior material but shows them expanding their darkened palette further to create an even more […]

With the break up of I Killed t he Prom Queen, Parkway Drive become Australia’s most prominent metalcore act, and with their second full length album, Horizons, cement the fact musically. While the much maligned metalcore genre gets its share of hate, when performed at a top notch level, I find it thoroughly enjoyable and […]

The sound Irish metallers Primordial have developed over the last few albums is actually a lot like Ireland (namely Eire); it’s sweeping, rugged, majestic and also barren and beautiful at the same time. There’s also a sense of sadness and loneliness built into the fiber of both band and land. Nowhere is this more prevalent […]

This is my first exposure to Norway’s Pantheon I, the new-ish project of former 1349 guitarist Tjalve (André Kvebek) but I must say I enjoyed the bands mix of traditional and experimental black elements into one, above average, polished and slightly forward thinking slab of blackened extremity. With longer than usual songs and extended segments […]

The latest release from Prong is in some ways refreshing. They’ve dropped most of the industrial, mechanical influence they adopted on Cleansing and have gone for a return to the sound of <i>Beg to Differ</i> or Prove You Wrong. In other ways it’s disappointing – mainly that it’s not as interesting as any of those […]

Despite the band’s seventeen year existence, I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing any of Pentacle’s old-school styled Death Metal before now. Best described as Classic Death Metal in the vein of early Celtic Frost & Possessed, ‘Under The Black Cross’ is rough, raw & relentless. A concept album based on a WWII Naval battle, […]

You’d expect a little more from Galy and especially from a band featuring Alexandre Leblanc of Neuraxis/Atheretic fame, but I guess when you are in two highly complex bands, this sort of downtuned, simplified death metal tinged hardcore could be construed as some sort of alternate release of musical desires that you other projects can’t […]

There are very few bands that leave an indelible imprint on my psyche and move me to the point of tangible ‘uncomfortableness’. Australia’s Portal is one of those bands. While some may construe the band’s atonal, muddy and chaotic form of grimy death metal nothing more than structureless noise, I personally find the band’s material […]

After being chewed up and spit out by the Major Label grinder, metalcore pioneers Poison The Well return to the ‘independent’ scene with their fourth full length album for the far more appropriate Ferret Music. And while the band is still a far cry from their seminal The Opposites of Decemberdebut, their return to the […]