Archive for the ‘Reviews › S’ Category

Sentient Horror‘s debut 2016 album, Ungodly Forms was a killer release of Stockholm styled death metal that gave the likes of Entrails a run for their money, despite hailing from New Jersey. And now the band is back with a 5 track, 20 minute, stop gap EP between albums, and it shows a slightly different […]

Despite being one of the least productive bands around (at least when it comes to albums), England’s Solstice is still one of the more revered bands in the traditional/Epic/Classic Doom/ heavy metal genre, largely on the strength of their last full length sophomore album 1998′ New Dark Age. Since that release, the band has released […]

Based on the cover, name and album title, I was fully bracing for some thrash metal here, but it turns out Massachusetts’ Scalpel are a death metal band with a fondness of older 90s death metal and East Coast Death metal. There’s not much that needs to much explanation here. Scalpel’s second effort of no […]

As it goes, I found myself in a part of my music cycle where the lowest tuned riffs written by the lowest forms of subterranean life is what I seek.  So I go get lost in the pit of decaying offal that is the Slam Worldwide YouTube channel until I find something new that hits […]

Delaware’s Scorched impressed me when I saw them live, recently on the Morta Skuld and Embalmer tour and they were cool dudes. Kick ass tour!! I picked up the debut album, Echoes of Dismemberment. This album destroys and I immediately recognized a bunch of their songs, from the live show. The singer Matt Kapa gave […]

Though only a 5 year wait, down from the 7 year wait for Old Morning’ s Dawn, Summoning are back with another effort of their now predictable, but effective Tolkien inspired, dungeon synth based black metal and there is very little deviation from the last few efforts. And to many, the minimalist, tinny guitars and […]

While Tomas Lindberg’s other 2017 project and release by The Lurking Fear (which I found to be a real snoozer), might get more press and recognition, possibly  due to the Century Media label or more prominent former and current bands members from At The Gates, Bombs of Hades, Edge of Sanity and Disfear . But the fact […]

Technical death metal. There’s generally two type of people when regarding the sub-genre. Those that don’t like it, considering it nothing more than a noodly-broodly fretboard wankfest that’s more show than substance, and well, those that do. I happen to fall in the latter category and think that tech-death is some stellar shit. Honestly, I’d […]

“This is what happens. It indicates the non-frenzied feeding of a large squalus – possibly Longimanus or Isurus glauca. Now… the enormous amount of tissue loss prevents any detailed analysis; however the attacking squalus must be considerably larger than any normal squalus found in these waters. Didn’t you get on a boat and check out […]

I really want to like these Massachusetts metallers  more. They feature Colin Conway (ex- Cannae), one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever interviewed, and my reviewing brethren Luke Sanders gushed over their last record, 2013s Blood and Black. Throw in a beefy, modern take on East Coast death/thrash metal and you’d think the recipe was […]

Well you may not know but 75% of Spectral Voice are also in Blood Incantation. If you did not know that, well then you learned something new today, so be happy. Spectral Voice have been around for 5 years and their Necrotic Doom ep is what really started making the underground take notice. I saw […]

When you and the crew are hanging out in the basement smoking and watching epic fail videos on Youtube are you the tunes master?  The one who is trusted to wield the aux cable to feed the vibes, facilitating the good times until the last dude is passed out?   Are you getting gripes under breath […]

It wasn’t until 2014s Titan that I got into Greece’s Septiciflesh, which is a surprise considering I’m a sucker for big, epic orchestration in metal. But as with Titan, and even prior releases like The Great Mass that I went back to, Septicflesh remain all fluff and no real substance.  But the fluff, remains some of […]

Last year, I received a demo from San Francisco’s Sentient Ignition, they didn’t want a review, just some feedback from me about their sound. The basic premise of my feedback was they were promising, talented, sounded like Black Crown Initiate, and the vocals needed some work. Well, they wrote me back earlier this summer and sent […]

Ever since Sinister’s killer comeback album, Afterburner in 2006, the band has literally been on fire and playing with as much purpose as when they first began slaughtering listeners in the early 90’s. Syncretism is the band’s 12th full-length. I won’t include the Dark Memorials album, as that is a covers album. Ok, let’s cut […]

I have no idea when the Old School Swedish Death retro movement really got started. With Bloodbath maybe? I do know that it has been running strong for awhile now, but honestly, I never really cared about the retro movement as long as my favorite original Swedeath stalwarts, Dismember, were still (skinned) alive and kicking. […]

Hailing from Massachusetts, The Summoned play a form of noisy, techy/grindy spazzy tech/death metal that recalls a lot of the Black Market Activities/ Ironclad Recordings bands of the early and mid 00s. Much like the recent release from super group Johm Frum, there’s a lot of Dillenger-y, The Red Chord, Animosity, early Between the Buried and […]

It’s amazing to think how much the sound of early Dismember and Entombed have sunk their claws into the hearts and minds of the death metal psyche. That guitar tone alone has spread its dark, evil tendrils to many a guitar player and aspiring band members, so because of this, the disease has spread to […]

“Have Mercy”…and I don’t mean “have mercy” like that faux rocker Uncle Jessie’s cheesy catch phrase from that horribly great sit-com I watched as a kid in the late ’80’s. I mean “have mercy”, as in the new Sacrificial Slaughter EP, Generation of Terror , is going  to rip your ears a new asshole (yeah, […]

Admittedly, with the album name, the more Fallujah ish cover, yet more turnover (veterans Guy Marchais and Kevin Talley have left replaced by young guns Charlie Errigo and Eric Morotti respectively) and the first single “Your Last Breaths” not impressing me very much, I had pretty low expectations for this album. But for album number 8, mainstays Frank […]

Well this is definitely something I have been missing for a while. Awesome! Veteran Swedish melodic blackened death metallers Sarcasm have returned with their 2nd full length album Within the Sphere of Ethereal Minds.  It is interesting that these guys started off way back in ’92 and continued to gradually continue releasing smaller released pieces […]

First things first; hats off to Spectral Descent for being able to pique my interest in such a way that I damn near couldn’t wait to hear their debut album, Descending the Astral Plane. You see friends, like many of you, I love death metal. Love it! Luckily, I was a present and accounted for […]

I’ve been following the development of this project for a while now,  as for a small label and one man band, Dusktone and Scuorn‘ founder Guilian have thrown and a lot of resources and money at promoting and producing this project. And it apepars to have paid off. Touting it sound as ‘Parthenopean Epic Black Metal’, […]

Usually when perusing the promo portal I skip over reissues and re-releases to focus my attention on new stuff. However, upon discovering Willowtip records was repackaging the three full-length albums from UK’s highly innovative extreme metal duo Slugdge and dubbing it The Cosmic Cornucopia, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to delve in and spread the […]

I vaguely remember seeing these guys pop up on my Facebook feed a year or so ago for the video for “Possessed“.  I recall the fairly average metalcore, but loving the female vocals and keyboards of Aimy Miller. So when this promo showed up,  I have to admit along with Miller, it was morbid curiosity […]