Archive for the ‘Reviews › P’ Category

If Satyricon weren’t boring they’d be Panchrysia. I hadn’t heard of these Belgian black metallers until recently so I had a peek through their back catalog. I was surprised to find how familiar the riffs were. After two releases with an oppressive, Zyklon-esque production, 2008’s Deathcult Salvation adopted more of the cold, clinical style of […]

Save for your factory-produced, target market-oriented teen pop sensations, all bands are ‘underground’ at some point or another. Doing some research into this band from Boston, it seems like quite a few people have high hopes for Protean Collective  breaking out to a wider audience, and after hearing their self-released album ‘Divided‘, I can see […]

The one-man death metal band just keeps on gaining credibility, the trail having been blazed by the likes of Shawn Whitaker (Insidious Decrepancy), Shaun LaCanne (Putrid Pile), and Peter Hasselbrack (Bloodsoaked). Thirst for Revenge’s Annihilation of Races (Comatose) tickled a few of my fancies as well. Welcome now A.Death, the man responsible for Putrified’s Neurotic […]

Other than Mithras, Sarpanitum, Trigger the Bloodshed, Fleshrot (RIP) and Detrimentum, I’m not very familiar with the better of the brutal/tech death metal scene coming out of the UK, but here is Hull based newcomer Parasitized and their impressive debut 6 song EP. Though released independently back in 2010, fledgling Canadian label Blast Head Records […]

Almost four months into 2012 and I’ve finally found my first candidate for this year’s top 10. The band in question is Sydney, Australia’s Paradigm, who I’d never heard of before this – and chances are, from the meager exposure out there on the metal web, you haven’t either. However, If you’re a fan of […]

There are some bands out there that really don’t need a review. When you hear the name, you know it’s going to be quality. Pharaoh has become one of those over the years. But, since it’s my job here, I’m going to give you a review anyway. Pharaoh is dependable. So much so that I […]

There’s a very fine line as a critic between liking something and disliking something. A production issue, a vocal issue, a song writing issue or any number of things that can sway an opinion between praise and disappointment. Case and point; 40 Watt Sun’s largely revered album, The Inside Room and Pallbearer‘s debut album. Both cathartic, […]

After the awesome old school Grave worship of Lavadome’s first release, Brutally Deceased‘s Dead Lovers Guide, I was excited to see yet another Lavadome release in my mail box, this time from Perversity, a relatively long running Slovakian death metal band. And while I was a little disappointed that this wasn’t more old school Swedish […]

Wino is back. After Shrinebuilder, Wino teamed up with longtime friend and guitarist Jim Karow, drummer Matthew Clark and former Meatjack bassist Brian Daniloski to bring the stoned heavy in a new band, Premonition 13. Now, if the name Wino means anything to you, you can go ahead and skip the review because this is […]

Been searching for a modern counterpart to Mercyful Fate? Hell, even if you haven’t, if you call yourself a fan of King Diamond‘s work, you need to hear Portrait. Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae is the group’s potentially unintentional homage to the King, minus some of the creeping horror skulking around most Mercyful Fate/King Diamond material. […]

As fans await the follow-up to 2008’s Be Gone, Pharaoh offers them a little teaser with this six-song EP featuring two new tracks, two rare tracks and a couple of covers. It’s not the four-course meal we may have wanted, but it’s a nice little appetizer. The new tracks are the title track, “Ten Years,” […]

Up until a few months ago, I had never heard of ‘slam death.’ Not a big surprise, since my death metal tastes run more towards tech or melodic, and I was never that into Suffocation to begin with (who, I understand, are kind of the granddaddy of the subgenre). Yet, out there are entire blogs […]

Pyramido’s 2009 debut Sand was a decent, if repetitive, exercise in heavy rock sludge. Salt, their sophomore release, improves on Sand in nearly every way, featuring a wider array of influences and more variety. There’s still a problem of running riffs a little too long and the throaty, hoarse roaring vocals are at times overbearing […]

With 2005’s The Gathering Wilderness, Primordial turned the tide and rose from minor obscurity into everyone’s playlists. Two years later, To the Nameless Dead refined the band’s sound even more. Some bands become content and start to follow a formula, but with Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand, Primordial once again thrusts their sound forward, much […]

Among the few facts you can find about this Ukrainian trio online, is that they refer to their music as “aesthetic grind”. My pet peeve about bands inventing their own “one band” genres notwithstanding; I suppose the implication is that Painful Defloration is more concerned with artistic considerations than their genre brethren, which would be […]

I usually cover a lot of black metal, tech death and the like for this site, but finding a great power/progressive album is a real treat. It’s also rare, because I tend to be pretty picky about the vocals. I like a strong balance between beauty and brawn, with just the right amount of bravado, […]

I had no idea Protest the Hero was dropping a new album, so when this showed up in my mailbox, I was like a small child on Christmas. Now, I know that Protest the Hero are a like Between the Buried and Me, in that they are a pretty divisive act with one side thinking […]

While labels like Deathwish Inc, Bridge 9, Epitaph and Victory are often considered the preeminent contemporary hardcore labels, the fact remains that Halo of Flies actually has one of hardcore’s very best bands tucked away on their label;  Milwaukee’s DIY act, Protestant. Having released numerous vinyl, splits and 7” records I was happy to see […]

I enjoyed this one. How’s that for a bare bones, straight forward assessment devoid of all the fluff and metaphor of the typical critical review? But I’m sure I’ll still end up tossing in some metaphorical blather anyway in some desperate attempt to be clever. Singapore’s uniquely <ahem> named Pyscho brings an effective mix of […]

What’s better than a silly, semi-profane band name? Apparently a misspelled silly, semi-profane band name. At least that seems to be the theory of this German band that longs to bring back the 1980s glam scene. To be honest, after seeing the name of the band, I was kind of hoping that this record wouldn’t […]

Residing on the same label that has or had the likes of xRepresentx, OnexChoice, xTyrantx on its roster, there’s no surprise in what Seattle’s Parasitic Skies―despite the lack of an x in their logo―play; tough as nails, straightedge metallic hardcore. No frills, no melodies, no trendiness. Just a beefy (no pun intended) vegan beat down […]

I’d never been the biggest fan of Profanatica, although that had as much to do with my limited exposure to the act as any kind of outright distaste of the sonic pungency. While it’s not like I’m a loyalist now, the last couple of years gave me a new appreciation for Paul Ledney’s (Havohej, ex-Incantation, […]

Denmark’s Pretty Maids have spent the better part of 30 years putting out their brand of melodic heavy metal music. Always striking a balance between barn-burning metal aggression and near-AOR catchiness, the band has been arguably one of the more consistent bands in our beloved scene. Never quite achieving the success of contemporaries like Def […]

Rise from Ruins is the debut release from melodic death metallers, Posthuman, hailing from the Netherlands. The album really does contain some solid death with fierce guitar work and also brings in some atmosphere with futuristic-sounding keyboards. The album starts out with an interesting intro in which you hear the news on the radio broadcast […]

When I started writing for the now-defunct Digital Metal (around 2002), France seemed like an insular metal nation. There weren’t too many Tricolore-bands that I could mention by name. The bands that did get some airtime, were marginal and quite frankly, seemed to require an exquisite taste simply because they were very—lack of a better […]