Long-running California thrash metal band Sadus returns with their sixth album, The Shadow Inside. I was a long time fan of the band’s earlier works and their demos and first three albums, Illusions, Swallowed in Black, A Vision of Misery and they contained the type of technical and hyper-speed thrash that melted face worldwide. I […]
Shade Empire, if nothing else, is a band who has time and again shown a willingness to let their sound morph and mutate into new forms, almost with every single release. When they entered the chat back in 2004 with their debut Sinthetic, they brought with them a Melodeath attack akin to fellow fins’ Mors Principium […]
So here it finally is…. the new Suffocation album, and notably the first release without original vocalist Frank Mullen, since the band formed in 1990. While other members (other than the other lone original member, guitarist Terrance Hobbs), have come and gone, Frank and Terrance have been there since day one, so this album is […]
This long fairly long-running Norwegian black metal band is new to me, but when I saw references to the likes of early Arcturus and Borknagar in the promotional blurb that came with it, I had to check it out. And Ye gads the blurb was correct! And indeed, eccentric symphonic black metal with a quirky […]
Everything about the UK’s Svalbard can be characterized, in one way or another, as high-freaking-impact. Even when the band is taking a brief respite from their usual full-speed-ahead musical approach – a high-octane mix of Post-Hardcore, Metalcore, Black Metal and D-Beat that rarely (if ever) pulls any punches – they’re still likely coming at you face-first […]
I didn’t discover this French one-man (Ardraos) melodic black metal project until the third album in 2019, Hic Regnant Borbonii Manes. However, I really enjoyed it (honestly, I’m not sure how it didn’t end up on my 2019 year-end list) and I have been eagerly awaiting its follow-up. The mix of completely over-the-top, busy, shredding, […]
With a moniker like Sodomisery, I blind-clicked on the promo for the band’s second album fully expecting a brutal death metal album full of ass, blood, and guts-filled lyrics with gurgled vocals. It was not that. Pleasantly so. Then I dug into the band a little and found it a more melodic Swedish death/black metal-based […]
Germany’s Sulphur Aeon has been dark for a few years now after churning (literally) out three superb albums of murky, majestic, Lovecraftian death metal since 2013, that had them being uttered in the same breath as the likes of Portal, Ulcerate, and such. But after a 5-year silence since 2018’s The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos, […]
With a name like Satanic Tea Co, it must be good, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that without a doubt, A Celestial Beating is a massive EP wrapped in an adorably evil box. It’s a small box, to be sure, 13.63 minutes of Brutal Death Metal that feels like a much bigger album […]
I’m only going to write the words Suicidal Depressive Black Metal once, so from this point, I’m going to use the acronym SDBM. You’ve been warned, constant reader. Shining was my introduction to this shadowed genre, I went through a devastating loss in 2013 and SDBM became my refuge. Bands like An Autumn for Crippled […]
As the days and months and years keep piling up, it’s become more clear to me than ever that the idea of growing “mature with age” can mean two very different things: There’s the literal, more widely recognized notion where time and experience allows you to take stock of the things that actually matter in […]
I am unsure if the death metal world was clamoring for a reformation and subsequent new album from defunct NY death/doom metal act, Sorrow, who broke up in 1993 but here are some historical references about my connection to the band, or their other projects; The band started in the late 80’s under the name […]
It almost seems silly to type the phrase “old-school deathcore.” It means bands such as All Shall Perish, Despised Icon, and Suicide Silence, at least in my view. I’m sure it means something different to others. Nowadays, with the awareness to know I am sounding like an old man yelling at clouds, it’s symphonic deathcore […]
German Christian death metal band Sacrificium has been around since the 90s, released their debut album in 2002, and have released 2 albums since then, with 2013s Prey for Your Gods being their last offering. And I say this because up until Oblivion, I had no idea these guys even existed- even in the Christian […]
So, a little personal life update that no one asked for – I’ve been in the process of trying to cut coffee out of my daily routine. Let me be clear, this isn’t a battle against caffeine addiction or anything like that – when I was drinking coffee it was usually one cup every morning, […]
When listening to the latest full-length from Sermon, I am reminded of a few bands. Namely Tool, Enslaved, and Soen. I used to be a huge Tool fan, but now just feel like they believe their shit doesn’t stink. I am still an Enslaved fan, but Soen doesn’t do it for me. Sermon does. This […]
Many bands choose the self-released route nowadays, and I’m opting to believe Shores of Null is one of them. They’re far too consistently superb to not have attracted some attention from the larger metal labels, such as Century Media, Season of Mist, or Nuclear Blast. Their 4th full-length, The Loss of Beauty reinforces this. Their […]
There is only 1 Suicide Silence album I do not have in my collection and if you guessed it was their self-titled affair from 2017 you would be correct. I am not a fan of that album or the musical direction they went in. I was especially disappointed in it after they released the great […]
War is hell. It has the power to change borders and boundaries, tear nations apart and displace millions at a time. What India’s Sarcoptes has done with Prayers to Oblivion, is break down five aspects of war to create fifty minutes of thrashing, blackened military insanity. It’s an album that seems daunting at first, the […]
2018 saw the release of the debut album Warning Blast, by international band Siege of Power. I mean with a band name, named after one of the best Napalm Death songs ever-you cannot go wrong. Featuring members of Asphyx, Autopsy, Grand Supreme Blood Court, Hail of Bullets, Infidel Reich…I mean I can go on and […]
Two years ago, I reviewed Sanguisugabogg’s Tortured Whole debut album and previous to that I reviewed their Pornographic Seizures EP. With their debut album, I said “Sanguisugabogg’s blow-up throughout the underground metal scene is really only just the beginning”. And that is precisely what happened with the band right after the release of the debut. […]
Okay, first and foremost, hats off to Mr. Teeth of the Divine himself, Erik Thomas, for sending me Shroud of Despondency‘s latest album, Air of Abrasion for review. Having no experience with the band I wasn’t sure what to expect. I damn sure wasn’t expecting from Air of Abrasion to turn out to be one […]
Sirrush (a dragon from Babylonian Mythology) is a new-ish Italian black/death metal band from Italy, They have been around since 2011, though Molon Labe is their first full-length album, and I had to review it as it tackles one of my favorite historical events of the Classical Age- The Battle of Thermopylae. No matter your […]
When it comes to this modern world of cavernous, old school death metal – I have to admit, I’m a little bit picky. I think there’s a handful of bands that do it super well (Witch Vomit, Spectral Voice, Dead Congregation, to name a few), and I think there’s A LOT of bands that, even […]
San Antonio, Texas-based Scars of the Flesh seem to be playing a dangerous game calling their newest release, In Darkness Alone, a bonafide full-length album. Okay, maybe I’m overexaggerating a bit, as the nine-track affair sets at the fifty-one minute mark, but that’s counting the four (four???) bonus songs attached to the five original compositions […]