I started my “extreme” metal listening in 2000 with Soilworks crowning achievement The Chainheart Machine. Never really hearing anything like that before I was a total Soilworker. Huge fan! I remember anxiously awaiting 2001’s A Predators Portrait and being thoroughly let down by the change in direction. From there on I have never been able […]

Well, it finally happened. A band has taken doom metal to the Dimmu Borgir level. Finland’s Depressed Mode has a very big symphonic take on crushing doom death. Though normally I would piss myself over this type of thing, Depressed Mode isn’t holding my interest. First off, the band name just kills me. We know […]

So here it is. Arguably the most anticipated death metal albums of the year from one of the genre’s most respected and revered acts-and if you could tell from the cover art and album title, it’s a true return to form. Personally I found Frozen In Time to be a tired plodding release that reeked […]

I’ve always thought of Animosity as the deathcore/hardcore equivalent of Decapitated; they released their impressive debut, Shut it Down when they were 15 years old, and thought have not yet matched Decapitated’s outputs yet, with the slightly under helming and overly chaotic Empires, the band, with Animal, looks to be rising to the same level […]

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how I have never heard of this band until now. Hailing from the Bay Area with origins dating back to at least 1980 when they were originally named Venom (until stumbling into a record store and looking around), they’ve gone through an absurd number of line […]

Say Everything Will Be Fine is a review I’ve been putting off for some time now due to the fact that when I want this brand of metal, I have many better selections to choose from. The style presented here by Venice, Italy’s Bleed In Vain is that of modern Soilwork (post – Natural Born […]

Metal Blade/Black Market Activities Either Metal Blade/ BMA have reached the bottom of the spazz/tech/grind barrel or this is some sort of Halloween joke. Chicago’s Dance Club Massacre play the now popular herky jerky, screamy, spazzy form of grindcore as plied by the likes of Destroyer Destroyer, Heavy Heavy Low Low, Arsonists Get All The […]

The downside to the resurgence of the thrash sound (which I consider a very good thing) is that now you have labels digging back into the catalog to find a bunch of never-were bands, re-release their stuff and try to make them sound like underground legends. Occasionally you find a gem, but usually the re-release […]

 thought Ozzy’s last record, 2001’s Down to Earth, was one of the most underrated records of his career. (When I say last record, I’m not counting the god-awful covers record.) The six years since have certainly given fans reasons to be less than enthusiastic about the self-proclaimed Prince of Fucking Darkness. First there’s the joke […]

Despite the band’s seventeen year existence, I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing any of Pentacle’s old-school styled Death Metal before now. Best described as Classic Death Metal in the vein of early Celtic Frost & Possessed, ‘Under The Black Cross’ is rough, raw & relentless. A concept album based on a WWII Naval battle, […]

The cover record needs to die. I realize it’s an easy way to put together an album quickly and make a few bucks, but can you really name one all-covers record that just blew you away? No, you can’t. That’s because rarely are the covers as good as the original. Still, it seems we’re doomed […]

I’ll admit it took me a little longer to come around to New Orleans supergroup Down’s latest record than it did for their first two. Initially, I missed those big hooks from their second record (the ones that some fans thought were a little too commercial.) Then, there was the mix on this record, which […]

From ever improving Israeli label Totalrust comes this rather impressive slab of sick French black doom from an act that features members of Heol Telwen, Ataraxie, Hyadningar, Mourning Dawn as well as suicidal German legends Bethlehem. This is 6 tracks and over 75 minutes of scrawling, twisted, painfully crawling doom with a tangible influence of […]

You know that Geico caveman commercial where the caveman goes “Yeah, I have a response..uh…What?”-that’s my response to this album. First off, this Italian band actually has no name or moniker but goes by the logo of a face, much like Prince, the name ‘Illogo’ is merely used for identification purposes and in their own […]

Oh dear, it looks like Profound Lore’s recent streak of excellence (Portal, The Angelic Process, Alcest, Amber Asylum, Cobalt, Atavist) has finally come to an end with the release of the second album from this UK based, ambient one man black metal project. So this Andrew Curtiss-Brignell fellow has a quite a few demos and […]

Ambitious post rocker/shoegazers Rosetta made quite a splash with their debut, The Galilean Satellites, especially with its 2 discs that can supposedly be played simultaneously for a complete experience (if anyone has ever done this, please let me know how it is). So here is the follow up, and much like equally talented and influenced […]

You’d expect a little more from Galy and especially from a band featuring Alexandre Leblanc of Neuraxis/Atheretic fame, but I guess when you are in two highly complex bands, this sort of downtuned, simplified death metal tinged hardcore could be construed as some sort of alternate release of musical desires that you other projects can’t […]

First things first – this is a gonna be a really short review, as this really isn’t my cup of tea – I honestly could not make it through this whole album. Actually, I couldn’t make it through a whole song. Why you might ask? The vocals – reminding much of Rush’s Geddy Lee, hitting […]

Overock hail from Italy, and play just that – rock. Rock accompanied by some electronica and bordering on nu-metal at times, I could easily see this being at least semi-huge on radio. Boring, simple and repetitive riffs permeate the disc along with clean, and at times almost whiny vocals, drums that add nothing to the […]

By now, I’m sure most, if not all, metal fans are fully aware of who Dethklok are, though for those not in the know, they are the fictional, animated death metal band from the Adult Swim show, ‘Metalocalypse’ (which by the way, is a great show that pokes a little fun at metal itself, and […]

Nocturno Culto did the mastering of Gallhammer’s debut album, Ill Innocence, so says the press release. I thought their debut album Gloomy Lights was several years back. In any case, three people with no musical experience and no idea how to play their chosen instruments band together to make raw, primal, blackened doom, sound familiar? […]

Black metal for misanthropic Luddites gets another boost from Wrath. Raw, orthodox production values and defiance of modern recording technology are on display once again. Cursing Your Will To Live is album number three in a year and a half, and he managed a split release in there as well. Usually such a proliferation would […]

The whole Netherlands/Austrian area is a hotbed of Goth metal, sticking to the simple formula of hot operatic chick A + lush production + synths +competent faceless musicians + a mix of peppy bouncy songs and slower somber ballads = band X, that has produced bands like After Forever, Epica, Edenbridge, Visions of Atlantis, Elis […]

This tasty little collection from Galy is must have for fans of Fuck the Facts who have simply been unable to keep up with their myriad of splits and such and it just cements how talented and varied this Ottawa act has been over their career. Along with the 21 tracks from their splits with […]

Returning to the forefront of edgy post-hardcore, Oklahoma’s Traindodge expand their sound further on Wolves. Casual fans might think that the ’Dodge reached a career apex with the double-disc The Truth back in 2004, but this new album builds upon those formulas/templates, developing them to a wonderfully mature culmination. Opener “Maze” immediately displays their evolution: […]