Any band using a Michael Moorcock character is OK in my books and where Moorcock sought to invigorate the cliche-ridden, stagnant, Conan knock off fantasy realm, France’s Yyrkoon seek to invigorate death metal, and do so with a measure of success. If like me, you were (or will be) disappointed by Behemoth’s strangely pompous Demigod, […]

Boston drone duo 5ive have excreted yet another EP, this one containing no new 5ive cuts. Instead, they’ve re-released their two tracks from 2005’s vinyl-only split with Kid 606, recycled nearly the same album cover art, and tacked on two remixes of ‘Soma’ by Godflesh/Jesu mastermind Justin Broadrick that bookend the brief (by 5ive standards), […]

With former members of now defunct act Serberus, expectations were high for this Colorado band’s second album of self titled battle metal. Instead though, despite some fine individual performances the end results is nothing more than the usual Scandinavian influenced black metal, and while it might satisfy the most heavily corpse painted and spike ridden […]

METAL!!! I’ve got absolutely NO business liking this album. By all rights, due to the Rob Halford/King Diamond-like squeals of Cam Pipes alone I shouldn’t have even made it past the first song. However, a few things not only keep me listening but actually end up making this a damn fine METAL!!! album. First, to […]

Founded in 1996 as a side project of Screaming Trees bassist Van Conner, Valis once boasted such membership as Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters and Tad bassist Kurt Danielson. Teaming up with his guitar-slinging brother Patrick, the band released their debut ’98 EP split with Kitty Kitty (Patrick’s full-time gig) on the sorely missed Man’s Ruin […]

Better late than never I suppose, but after purchasing this album (see not we reviewers are not always promos whores), I have a new addition to my top five albums of 2004.Hailing from Finland and caught in the vast net that entails melodic death metal, Insomnium are essentially what Amorphis should be now. While melodic […]

‘Trailer-core’ was only term I could come up for this hazy Southern slab of fuzzed out, earthy metal. Equal parts sludgy, hazy doom-rock and groovy southern hardcore, BBTP have released an album that comes across as Crowbar and Floodgate meets Eyehategod and Down while in a Jack Daniels and Darvocet induced stupor and simply oozes […]

So former Ensiferum guitarist/vocalist Jari Maenpaa forms this solo project with the help of some session musicians (including Rotten Sound drummer Kai Hahto), and ends up delivering a debut album that instantly rises to the top of the Finnish metal heap, equaling his former bands pomp and grandiose scope while injecting the technical gregariousness of […]

At first glance, Age of Silence seems like yet another post-black metal band with all the usual suspects (cough, Hellhammer) in place, and upon first listening, as Lazare’s powerful and unique voice guides the opening neoclassical narrative, the comparisons to Solefald seem totally unavoidable. While many of the elements of the individual member’s other bands […]

“Sybreed sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard…literally. Unless of course you’ve heard a hybrid mix of Meshuggah, Nine Inch Nails, Placebo and Fear Factory, all taking place on a sonic landscape that reminds you of the Matrix – complete with visceral screams of human suffering and the never ending madness taking place here on Planet […]

I am certain that up until this point in time, I would never, ever consider using the words ‘tough’ and ‘Swiss’ in the same sentence, but the latest burly offering from Switzerland’s Cataract has prompted the impossible. After the solid but more metalcore laced Great Days of Vengeance album and Martyr’s Melodies EP, Swiss straightedge […]

In my view there are few bands in death metal as emotionally gripping or with as complete a line-up as Amon Amarth. They have developed a sound completely effective and original within the established genre, and 2003’s Versus the World proved it with otherworldly vocals, into battle drumming, thick bass, and guitar leads to push […]

So in a year that sees albums from not only legends Grave, Entombed and Dismember, you’ve also got ‘supergroups’ Bloodbath, Murder Squad and Chaosbreed throwing in their respective homage to the Sunlight sound. And now comes another ‘supergroup’ giving suitable homage to ‘that’ sound and it consists of four unequivocally qualified heathens ready to deliver […]

The Swiss have really latched onto the droning ambiance and ebbing builds of Isis, Cult of Luna and Neurosis with the likes on Zatokrev, Overmars, Impure Wilhemina and Vancouver (which features members of Impure Wilhemina) making a name for themselves on home shores. Signed to the usually grindcore and death metal based death metal Deepsend […]

Sometimes you just know if an album is going to be good. Based on Disillusions The Porter EP, I just had a hunch this German three man project was on to something special. And they are.Essentially rooted in melodic death metal, Disillusion add so many nuances of other genres, to pigeon hole them is unfair, […]

Lets acknowledge that the depravity factor was been toned down significantly. The imagery and lyrics are tame compared to Hell Injection and the music is more controlled, less chaotic, less hyper, and slower in pace. Apparently they no longer want you to think your daughter will get tortured if they move in next door. The […]

Let’s start off by saying I was a huge Black Sabbath fan and an even bigger fan of the Sabbath update known as Candlemass. Now we have Candlemass updated. The highlight of this disk is most definately track eight. “Solitude” is a personal favorite, and Naahz’ vision has done it justice. Cover songs rarely impress […]

The bad/good/bad M.O of Crash Music again confuses me with this, a solid melodic death/black metal album hot on the heels of the god-awful Single Bullet Theory album. I know melodic death metal died eons ago, but its ghost often rises with a quality appearance and Colorado’s The Mandrake is one such example. Not bereft […]

I generally don’t care for most Southern Lord bands, but LOTM had a few things going for them that piqued my curiosity before I even listened to it; Greek Mythology as the central lyrical theme, a very cool Minotaur’s maze etched into the CD, 2 members of 7000 Dying Rats (Steven Rathbone & James Barracca), […]

Wow, Level Plane is on a tear of late what with Anodyne, Coliseum, and now this. And while most of you will instantly dismiss this as yet more “core,” watering down an already saturated US scene, many of you open to the noisy post-hardcore stylisms of Mastodon, Anodyne, Swarm of the Lotus and Burnt By […]

3XM doesn’t waste any time bullshitting and gets right down to business hacking up bodies and pissing on corpses on this now cult gore-grind platter, a blood-soaked splatter-fest that features more porn references than the back room of your local video store and enough psychotically-motivated violence that this band would have been banned damn near […]

It’s amazing what a great production can do. This band’s debut album Behind Inquisition hinted at a perfectly blended array of grinding death metal and metalcore, but was rendered pretty flat because of a subpar production. Now as the genre is burgeoning to the point of saturation, WDHR have timed this nice little EP perfectly […]

When I first picked up the new (and the band’s first) Demonoid CD, titled with an original name Riders of the Apocalypse, prejudiced views and harsh opinions stormed my head filling it with negative images. The neatly done artwork displaying quite traditional images of destruction and hatred along side with the band name (that asks […]

I wonder if my wild imagination as a kid and the countless of hours watching Robotech (yeah yeah, I know that it’s watered down from the Macross series) in the ’80s did the damage or what, but I grew a perversion for Japanese metal bands, especially those that played something resembling thrash metal. It seems […]

So here is the follow up to 2002’s artfully sublime Reflection of the I from Norway’s heralds of classically laced metal. For those that don’t know, Winds is the brain child of one piano progeny Andy Winter, who has garnered the aid of some of Norway’s most respected extreme musicians to help him deliver his […]