It seems to be a week for female-fronted bands for me. First the Missbehaviour compilation, then Arch Enemy, now Widow. Though I’m not familiar with their previous album, On Fire is the band’s second album, following up 2004’s Midnight Strikes. The band came together over their love of horror, and that love is evident just […]

Truth be told Atreyu, is the meekest of the Hot Topic ‘metalcore’ triumvirate (rounded out by Avenged Sevenfold and Bleeding Through), being easily more accessible than their peers but having just enough metal seeping into their punky, hardcore laced, catchy visage to be more respectable than Silverstein or Thrice. Still, Atreyu and their ilk remain […]

What hurts this album is already known. There is no “Scrape.” But how was “Scrape,” musically speaking, different from any of their other songs? It’s just the memorable video that will forever haunt the men of Unsane. What a shame too, because Blood Run is my favorite album of theirs because every song stands out […]

A while back I wrote a review for a pretty bad album by Hellfire that said listeners might find some 1980s nostalgia in it, but here’s a much better way to get your fix of ’80s style melodic metal. This is the third album for Finland’s Thunderstone, and it will certainly conjure comparisons to fellow […]

Boy did Victory Records need this. Bayside? Hawthorne Heights? The Black Maria? Give me a break. Not only have Victory broke their heinous un-metal streak with a killer slab of furiously melodic metal, Undoing Ruin is one the first anticipated US ‘core’ albums of the year that actually improves on its predecessor as the likes […]

So what exactly is Sognametal? Well, it’s the name of this DVD, but more importantly it’s the name Valfar gave to his special symbiosis of folk and metal. It’s important because this DVD is a tribute to the Sognametal and the man and behind it, with the added chance of the band he created disappearing […]

Poor old Metal Blade, they can’t catch break. Hoping to bottle the magic of their prior albums, they signed Unearth, The Red Chord and As I Lay Dying, in hopes of riding the hype their debut albums garnered in the metalcore scene. Alas though both, The Oncoming Storm and Clients were over hyped and under […]

Discounting Moonsorrow’s (for me, mildly disappointing) album, its been a pretty barren year for great Viking metal, with even a few rotten eggs thrown in (fellow Germans Iuvenes, Suidakra), so when I finally got my hands on this Germans band’s highly regarded album, I was giddy, boy was it worth the wait. Part Ensiferum, part […]

For many years now, Portland, Oregon has been lucky to have indie prog-popsters 31Knots residing within its boundaries. With three critically-acclaimed releases on Michigan’s 54’40’ or Fight! Records, the band’spearheaded by multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Joe Haege’has moved to the Illinois-based Polyvinyl label and released two excellent discs. 2004’s The Curse of the Longest Day EP was previously […]

The French seem to have found a niche with expansive avant-garde post hard-core noise with the likes of Comity, Amanda Woodward, Bumblebees, etc, but this has to stand out as the best yet. This is soooo damn good folks that I’m not sure simple words can convey its brilliance. With feet firmly planted in the […]

While I enjoy a certain few instrumental bands such as Pelican, Keelhaul, Electro Quarterstaff and Tides I generally like my music with vocals. But Trephine presents a rather interesting take on instrumental mayhem, with a rather eclectic style of instrumental metal. Forsaking the norm of expansive atmospheric droning, Trephine, like Dysrythmia, takes a more spastic, […]

Few bands can claim to have the recent adversity of Soilent Green (the tragic death of bassist Scott Williams), and it shows on this album as Soilent Green is as angry as ever. Admittedly, Soilent Green’s last album A Deleted Symphony for the Beaten Down, had a ‘samey’ quality about you just had to enjoy […]

Quite frankly, the angelic soprano singing over metal riffs is getting a little old to me. Most of the time the bands that are doing it are doing it in an attempt to offer something different (at this point, it’s not really) and the vocals don’t really jibe with the music. But I know there […]

After a four year hiatus, Philly’s All Else Failed return with a revamped line-up and a renewed energy to follow up their Archetype album.  And while certainly a solid album of metallic discordant, chaos core and hints of other more commercial ingredients, I’m not quite sure there’s room for All Else Failed at the top. […]

I’ll admit it. This was easily one of my most anticipated released for 2005, and upon looking at the cosmic album artwork and equally celestial song titles, I had some pangs of disappointment as I braced for a cyber/space metal style change from one of my favorite bands. However, upon hitting play and being greeted […]

I was excited on so many levels when it was announced a while back that Century Media was allowing Nevermore to have Enemies of Reality remixed and remastered by none other than Andy Sneap himself. You see, the original release of Enemies of Reality was a strange one indeed because the release prior to this […]

As the regular visitors to the site might have already realized, I’m not the biggest fan of the current hard/metalcore wave. Too many bands, inflation, no one’s happy, yadda yadda – you get the idea. Far from being original, Canadian Hollow Ground do at least something right to these ears. 6 songs, 12 minutes of […]

Ouch! Originally released in 2002, Eternal Endless Infinity has been re-mastered and re-released on Napalm Records with new cover art and additional demo versions of three tracks. Perplexing indeed, considering it wasn’t an interesting or viable release the first time. Actually, as far as I’m concerned, Visions of Atlantis should have enjoyed making a demo […]

Wow, this is good. Formerly known as Natt, a gothic metal band with female vocals, this Norwegian band is now a far more impressive beast with a darkly progressive and avant-garde black metal lean that imbues visions of Arcturus, Solefald and Lunaris.The first thing you notice when “Joyless Trance of Winter” fires up is the […]

It’s rare I make any personal connections to any bands in this business as I deal mainly with PR and label folks. I may do an interview with a band, but that’s the last time I generally talk to them ever again. With a few exceptions (Tomer Pink from Subterranean Masquerade. Lord K from The […]

“Napalm Death is pissed off, Long live Napalm Death!”. I must admit, I’ve never really been a huge Napalm Death fan other than Harmony Corruption. I only own their early catalogue to earn scene points and frankly after Fear, Emptiness, Despair, Diatribes and Inside the Torn Apart efforts, I gave up on them all together. […]

I’m always uncomfortable reviewing re-released ‘lost classics’, especially when I never heard it first time around. I had to dig up this Quebec thrash band’s biography to find out who they were, but apparently this lot was hot shit in the Canadian Metal scene but due to bad label distribution, this 1986 album never truly […]

Germany’s Fear My Thoughts complete they shift from rumbling metalcore to melodic death metal that was hinted at on last years ambitious The Great Collapse, and while Hell Sweet Hell is a solid album, it just doesn’t leap out at me and I still prefer the band’s more extroverted stylings of V.I.T.R.I.O.L. That being said, […]

We all know that death metal isn’t exactly a forte of the Finns, but here is Finnish black/death metal supergroup of sorts, named after a desert in South America and featuring current and ex members of Funeris Nocturnum, Swallow the Sun, Machine Men and Sotajumala. And its pretty fucking good. With this group of band […]

I’ve enjoyed listening to Aborted’s transformation from cold Floridian death metal clone to a menacing, groove filled, Belgian Carcass homage, and with the The Archaic Abattoir, Aborted have released the album that Impaled’s Death After Life should have been. Backed by Tue Madsen’s (Mnemic, In-Quest, Ektomorf, Heaven Shall Burn) massive sound replacing Goremageddon’s slightly mechanical […]