Archive for the ‘Reviews › S’ Category

I like to think I’m the kind of guy willing to give almost any music endeavor a fair shake, whether it falls in one of metal’s incalculable and ever-growing catalog of subgenres, or, really, whatever the hell else happens to invade my ear canals! But we all have our go-to comfort zones, right? To the […]

Occasionally I get an album that paints a picture of the world, angry and frustrated; wishing that shit would just get better while summarily knowing that it won’t and will only get worse. A bleak outlook on humanity is how I would describe Snipers of Babel’s powerhouse “Gabriel”.  After producing the “Redemption” ep and a […]

Ok, here’s another one of those promos I get, where the ‘FFO/For Fans Of” is just too good to be true – like someone was in my head when they wrote it. In the case of Depravity, the debut album from Belgian newcomer Slaughter the Giant, where bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, At The […]

Remember being 17 or 18 years old and thinking you knew everything? And yet, in the same breath, somehow you often found yourself not knowing what the fuck you were doing at all? Equal parts cock-sure confidence and complete naivete. The truth, for most of us, is that when you’re that age, you’re still just […]

Sometimes you stumble across an album that you just know is going to either be a complete and utter hit, or an absolute whiff from listener to listener – there will be no in-between. You either love it like you love your own child, or you want to throw it off a cliff like a […]

The new Spellbook album is not as good as their debut. That could be the review. However, it’s not always so easy to explain. You see, there are still several excellent moments, but where the debut felt like a complete album experience, Deadly Charms feels like a collection of songs. That’s not necessarily a bad […]

Vengeance is a dish best served heavy. And melodic. And epic. OK, I guess I shouldn’t assume “vengeance” as being the first emotion that would come to mind for former Absu guitarist Melissa Moore, who is jumping back into the spotlight after a very ugly and public firing from the band following her coming out […]

Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the oversexed, fast car, jumbo jet, yacht party lifestyle of a playboy heavy metal reviewer and get back to basics. You know, get back to the reason why you have an aircraft carrier full of Ferraris in the first place, check out some underground promos, and find […]

OK so we’ve got, like, 3 months left of 2022? So who knows what can happen between now and then, but whatever. I’m calling it. Blood Empire is the most fun you’re gonna get out of just 4 songs this year. This thing is a goddamn blast. I need more ASAP. Of course, anyone who’s […]

For almost a decade, German duo Slaughterday has been rendering their Autopsy worshiping ( Slaughterday is a song from the Mental Funeral album) tones with  3 albums and a couple of EPs. And with album number 4, even with the word ‘doom’ in the title, they continue that trend with another killer album. With an album […]

I’m sure you’re familiar with the snare crack at the beginning of Cannibal Corpse’s “Devoured by Vermin”, 1,2,3, 4… BLAAAAAARGGGGHHHH! Well, that’s how Sedimentum start off their debut Suppuration Morphogenesiaque, with a quick snare count and then the brutality of “Krypto Chronique II” KICKS (yes capitals) into automatic, 0-60 overdrive. The track slows to a […]

Austrian technical deathcore/technical death metal outfit Spire of Lazarus has been on my radar for a bit now since they released two video game-themed albums under the moniker Dayum. Both 2017s Dark Souls and 2019s Ghost of Sparta (which is being re-released at the same time as this album, under the new name with Reality […]

Bjorn? Sven? Sylvain? David? Bastian? Rasmus? Good, you’re all here. Before we get started; Take off the chauffer’s cap, please Bjorn. We’re talking about Soilwork, not The Night Flight Orchestra. You should have known that. I thought I put it on the Outlook Calendar invite. Anyway, I’ve gathered all of you here to let you […]

Let me just say straight away that this is not a metal album. Its hard to describe what it is, exactly. Argh! Ok, its fair to say I have never done any sort of Classical music review… ever. While this is a Satyricon album, and their name is on the tin. This is part of […]

For metal mastermind Andy Marshall, Saor has been a means of immersing listeners in his beloved Scottish history and heritage through a sprawling, intoxicating mix of incredibly atmospheric black and folk metal, dubbed colloquially by Marshall himself as “Caledonian Metal.” For all intents and purposes, while each of his previous albums certainly had some characteristics […]

It seems like forever ago when Sweden’s Soreption was a contender for my 2014 album of the year with Engineering the Void. The perfect blend of stuttering Meshuggah syncopation and tech death wizardry as well as sudden bursts of orchestral elements just hit m perfectly. However, the 2018 follow up, Monument of the End, didn’t […]

UK’s NWOBHM band, Satan, have been around since the late 70’s. During their long career they changed their name a few times (Blind Fury, Pariah) which may have hurt their long-term popularity. Under the Satan name they have released, 5 albums and Earth Infernal their 6th. In 1986 I picked up their new ep on vinyl Into the Future, bypassing their […]

As someone who has never been about taking any form of metal too seriously, Sacred Son’s Dane Cross has become somewhat of a folk hero of mine. As curmudgeonly as the elite Black Metal crowd can be, it’s still pretty dang impressive just how much hate Cross has stirred up for just living his life. […]

I’m surprised how low profile a release from a band comprised of death metal legend Chris Reifert (Autopsy, ex Abscess, ex The Ravenous) and his new Autopsy bass player, Greg Wilkinson (Brainoil, Deathgrave, ex Graves at Sea) has been. Even for Peaceville. I wouldn’t have even heard of this project if it wasn’t for a […]

New Jersey’s Sentient Horror, previously called Sentience, return with their third album-Rites of Horror. Their 2016 debut, Ungodly Forms, is still their finest and I saw them perform on that tour and they killed it. I love American bands who can emulate the classic Swedish death metal sounds of yore and Sentient Horror do it perfectly. The Crypts Below ep and Morbid Realms album […]

Following up on 2020s excellent second album, Eisenzeit, Germany’s war-mongering death metal cohorts Scalpture (I’m still not sure what a Scalpture is…) return with album number 3, and boy is it a scorcher. Continuing the band’s war-obsessed themes and sound that’s part Hail of Bullets, part Asphyx (especially in the vocal department), and part Bolt […]

I dunno about you, but I love to make a meal out of an appetizer. And I don’t mean like a rich, white housewife going to a restaurant and ordering a side salad as their meal so they can fit into that bikini the 20 year old pool boy loves to see you in – […]

Germany’s Scorpions have been around since 1964. That’s 50+ years.  You can say the band was directly influential in starting the metal scene in Germany.  My start to Scorpions music is their 5th album Taken By Force from 1977. My first album was Love At First Sting in 1984 and that’s still my fave from […]

There’s something that feels a little… I dunno… strange about listening to Sabaton these days. Right? To be fair, it’s not like war hasn’t been a constant part about being on planet Earth. But WORLD War? Jeez, seems sort of… archaic, no? Making bombastic, rousing power metal about heroism and battlefield glory and all that […]

Over the last few years, metalhead jack-of-all-trades Ben Murray (Light This City, Heartsounds, Darkness Everywhere, No Chemistry) has built Creator-Destructor Records into quite the diverse little powerhouse of a label. Representing everyone from legendary punk rockers A Wilhelm Scream, to Beatdown bruisers like Sunami and Kruelty, to filthy Death Metal acts like Dismemberment and Spinebreaker. […]