Detroit’s death/doom mongers Temple of Void has parlayed 3 solid albums (notably the last 2 efforts,  2017s Lords of Death and 2020s The World That Was on Shadow Kingdom Records) into a deal with heavyweight label Relapse Records. And as you’d expect on a jump to the ‘majors’, the band has upped the ante, but […]

The whole idea behind bands releasing splits is, generally, a fairly straightforward business decision. Two or more bands come together to share production and distribution costs, and provide one-another with a platform to get more exposure through all involved parties’ established fanbases. The bands, the fans, everybody wins. That said, it feels like the potential […]

I reviewed Eldritch Horror‘s 2015 long awaited debut album Untouched by the Sun here 7 years ago. Time flies. And what a debut that was. Harnessing old school death metal calling to mind the 80’s and not surprising since they’d been underground monsters since yet 80’s. Finally seeing the band live a few years after […]

Very little is known about French Black Metal collective Deathspell Omega. Its members are unknown, there was a singer change due to a change in Satanic views; add to that absolutely no live performances… ever. France has had a solid output of Black Metal over the years with Anorexia Nervosa, Blut Aus Nord, Mutiilation, and […]

Color me impressed. Finnish death metal troupe Enragement and their third full-length album, Atrocities, came totally out of left field and left me battered, bruised, bleeding, and ultimately begging for more. Seriously friends, this is some wonderful death metal that really does capture the majority of how the band themselves describe their sound and approach, […]

I was once a metalhead elitist and gatekeeper, too. This strange thing happened where I grew the fuck up and resigned to just let people listen to what they want and enjoy their lives. Unless you listen to Five Finger Death Punch. In that case, please don’t reproduce… but since you probably already have, good […]

Question: name a Swedish death metal band that has been around for over 20 years, and has released 14 consistently good albums in that time span? Chances are you were not thinking of The Project Hate MCMXCIX, the brainchild of one Lord K Phillipson, a gentleman whom I have conserved with over the internet over the years since the third album, Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate. His supporting cast has changed over the years (though he has been finally locked into a stable group of hired guns for a while now), but one thing remains; the absolutely monstrous albums he and his troupe kicks out.

And what makes it even more impressive is that the last 6 albums have been donation funded, paid for by fans of the project, via ‘donation experiments’ whereby fans can donate money, and upon a certain amount being reached, he commences assembling his musical avengers and recording the album and sends those results digitally to those that donated. There is even a limited CD run if the fans, again want to pay for the whole CD-making process.

Sharing 3/5 of its members with new, very popular deathcore act Crown Magnetar, you’d be forgiven for simply assuming Detroit’s And Hell Followed With was a new, flash in the pan band that sounds exactly like Crown Magnetar. And they do play deathcore, so you’d be partially correct. However, let’s not forget that AHFW were […]

Every day it seems, the world further blurs the line between what’s considered crackpot conspiracy, and accepted reality. The notion that some secret, Satanic society of ultra-powerful lizard oligarchs are the true masters and gatekeepers of the Earth’s wealth and resources seems, to many, like an absolute truth. I don’t personally subscribe to this particular […]

I’ve reviewed Long Island, NY’s Day of Doom last several albums and Doomed is their sixth album and they streamlined their approach opting for shorter songs and drummer Rich Hervey is leading the charge again. “Provocation of Iniquity” begins this 10 song 38 minute album with what sounds like people talking, explosions and buildings collapsing as the air horns […]

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 […]

After a particularly long day at work, I enjoy coming home to the only place where I can hang my void for the night. I, Voidhanger Records understand this well. They get me. That’s probably why I like most of what I hear from this label, despite it not getting a lot of coverage here. […]

Writing a review is a bit like dissecting a body. The initial sentences are like the first incisions, same with the opening tracks of an album. An album opener should plant the flag for the sonic terrain about to be navigated. This can be applied liberally over genres, but with a Black Metal album it […]

I think we can all agree that Willowtip has been one of the most consistently reliable US-based extreme metal labels around since they kicked out the Creation is Crucifixion/Fate of Icarus split back in 1998. From legendary bands like Rune, Watchmaker, Defeated Sanity, and Impaled, to recent bands like Hath, Cathexis, Contrarian and Ominous Ruin, […]

A dear friend of mine once gave me one the most profound pieces of advice I’ve ever been given in life: If you could choose one thing to have in life – choose fun.

Sounds simple enough, right? But life, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, doesn’t always (or even often) make this so easy. In truth, we’re all just doing our best to try and get by and, when we can, find whatever time is left over to surround ourselves with the people and passions that make life worth the effort.

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 […]

You don’t want to know what I had to do to get a deathcore review from the hands of the boss man, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I won the first annual Teeth of the Divine Knife Fight Championships. Whether he was a willing or knowing participant is irrelevant. I still won and […]

I was just recently randomly listening to  Unsane, Insane, and Mentally Deranged, the debut album from Sweden’s Murder Squad, an early 00s supergroup featuring members of Grave, Entombed and Merciless with a guest appearance from Autopsy’s very own Chris Reifert. And I thought to myself, ‘Man. I have not heard a homage to Autopsy delivered […]

I love Morbid Angel, so do the guys in Azaab (pronounced “aa-zaab” which roughly translates to “cataclysm”). This isn’t a bad thing at all, and they show this love in the form of their debut album Summoning the Cataclysm. Yes, I read their bio, and Morbid Angel, Vader and Decapitated are among the bands mentioned. […]

If you consider yourself an Emperor fan, there are 2 releases this spring/summer of 2022, that you need to be aware of. If you are a fan of the more technical,  latter, Prometheus, IX Equilibrium era stuff, then the upcoming release from Sweden’s, Katharos, Of Lineages Long Forgotten, will be right up your alley. However, […]

For a couple years now, I’ve been praising the French for their rise to prominence in the Traditional Heavy Metal scene. It’s still not necessarily a numbers game, but the quality in the limited product is undeniable. Obviously, much of this is owed the genre’s continued growth in popularity, but bands like Herzel and Tentation […]

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 […]

France’s Hurakan (the Mayan god of wind, storm, and fire?) has apparently undergone a bit of rebirth from their first two more brutal death metal/slamming death/tech death albums, which feature songs titles like “Brutal Slamming Shit”, “Intergalactic Moo Moo Imperator”, “Xenometh” and “Transdimensional Whorehouse Spaceship”. They have changed logos, and now jumped on the more […]

I reviewed Watains’s Trident Wolf Eclipse in 2018. Being new to their music back then, but knowing about them for years, I went into their music with fresh ears. I really enjoyed that album as well as their prior releases. They play a pretty high-octane style of black metal but mixed in with their melodies and metal influences […]

Spacefaring hype beast, John Goblikon is back with his musical band in tow after an almost 4 year layoff since the aptly named Welcome to Bonkers back in 2018. And not much has changed from this hard to pigeon-hole, but fun as fuck band, as they still play a sort of melodic death metal with […]