Vildhjarta releases new single, “+ sargasso +” – taken from new album, ‘+ där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +’ + där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + album artwork   Swedish progressive metal pioneers Vildhjarta have built a career defined by mystique and groundbreaking artistry, consistently defying expectations. The band has established an identity rooted in […]

Mantar of course means half man/half centaur. Don’t try to add it up, just trust me. Your guess is as good as mine which member of the duo represents each part, but they’ve been slitting throats with their blackened sludge/punk metal hybrid for over a decade. Since their official debut, Death by Burning in 2014, […]

Finland’s Admire The Grim, are a new melodic death metal band that leans heavily into their country’s fairly rich history of the genre. On their debut album, Resist they deliver a competent if by-the-numbers album of shredding, tightly played, melodeath that fans of Children of Bodom, Kalmah, and such should definitely appreciate. Fronted by Katri Snellman […]

When Håkan Stuvemark contacts me I listen!  He’s in a zillion bands.  Most notably, for my liking is: Wombbath (my review forthcoming), Rex Demonus and Consumption.  We’ve been in touch for like 5 years now and I did review the first Consumption album back in 2020, Recursive Definitions of Suppuration and loved the music and […]

Finland’s Havukruunu ( ‘coniferous crown’) first got on my radar with 2017’s Kelle Surut Soi, but in 2020, they obliterated my radar with 2020’s Uinuos syömein sota, which was my clear-cut favorite album of the year. The funny thing is, we have never actually reviewed them! Well let’s fix that together, shall we? The word […]

Listen up, fans of early Gatekeeper, Terminal Nation, Fuming Mouth, Kruelty, Acephalix, Vastum, and Xibalba take fucking note. You need the debut from Arkansas’ Open Kasket in your life, right fucking now!!! Open Kasket plays a form of meaty, girthy beatdown/hardcore-driven death metal that lumbers and slopes with bad fucking intentions at every turn. With […]

“After hearing the chainsaws on a daily basis, we knew it was time to act”, says musician-turned-activist Sylvain Demercastel, “because the buzzing is only getting louder”. It’s no secret that the rainforest is essential for us to live. It’s been referred to as the lungs of the Earth for very good reasons; but due to […]

I actually got this promo in the fall of 2024. I immediately enjoyed it, planning on doing a review for its early 2025 release, but as usual, life, other promos, and work got in the way, and I forgot about it. But here we are, and let’s get to it. Adorned with a wonderfully 90s […]

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this is 4/5 of Swedish tech death legends Spawn of Possession, reborn: Guitarists Jonas Bryssling and Christian Muenzner, vocalist Dennis Röndum and bassist Erlend Caspersen. And they welcome into the fold, the new dude, Odius Mortem drummer KC Howard. I loved Spawn of Possession and felt their final […]

There are so many highlights on this album that it’s stupid to reduce them to a review, especially one coming from a writer such as myself (read: a shitty one). For once this isn’t about me, but the new album from The Ukraine’s Jinjer, called Duél. I’m this close (damn, look at how close my […]

Being a near-40 year old who grew up in the Northeast, it probably comes as little surprise to you that the American Metalcore and New Wave of American Heavy Metal movements of the early ’00s played a pretty pivotal role in my music fandom. While I certainly cut my teeth on the usual suspects of […]

LEAD SINGLE ‘AMPUTATE’ SET FOR RELEASE ON MARCH 14th WITH NEW VIDEO Inverted World Album Artwork For over 35 years UK death metal legends Cancer have been delivering some of the most brutal and uncompromising music in the genre. Now, they return with Inverted World, their highly anticipated follow-up to 2018’s Shadow Gripped. Set for release on April 25th via Peaceville Records, the album […]

The last few weeks have been a political nightmare for the USA. In order to keep this focused on the task at hand; I won’t be discussing politics but I will say that Outrage is the soundtrack for this upheaval of Democracy. In this case, I’m reviewing the new slab of raging Grindcore that is […]

Canada’s Thrash Legends Sacrifice returns with the sixth album, the aptly named Volume Six.  It’s been a minute since their last one, The Ones I Condemn, was released in 2009, that was their comeback album and I guess this would be considered another comeback album? Suffice it to say I interviewed this very same band […]

A few months back, I ran into Mark Kloeppel, one of the guitarists for Misery Index, and Missouri act Cast The Stone, Ive ‘known’ him and fellow Cast The Stone member Derek Engemann from various shows I’ve attended in St Loius over the years. We got to talking about Scour, the black metal band he […]

New year, new Metal. Blood Storm is one of my favorite bands to come out of the Philadelphia scene in the 90s. Ancient Wrath of Ku and The Atlantian Wardragon are classic albums that if you’ve never heard them, I’ll wait while you go listen… okay I’m back. Badass, right? They put out their last […]

This Italian death metal band, Shrieking Demons, has come up with an album cover that is insanely awesome and it’s the first thing that drew me to this debut album, The Festering Dwellers.  They released an EP in 2021, Diabolical Regurgitations, which was ok, however, this debut album is a lot of fun. 10 songs […]

Sometimes, an album contains all great songs, no filler, no skips. Sometimes an album has a few good songs. Sometimes you buy an album because you saw one good video on MTV Headbangers Ball in the 90s, and the rest is terrible. Sometimes an album has one really killer song that makes the whole thing […]

I’ve grown a mammoth-sized chubby for Tech-Death in recent years. I covered oodles of it last year and this one is already shaping up to be a brutal year for Tech-Death. Allow me to introduce Fleshbore. These four crazy lads from Indianapolis have crafted a solid, beat down that will have your fucking brain leaking […]

Scotland’s Folk/Pagan Black Metal band Saor, under the sole guise of Andy Marshall, and guest musicians, return with Amidst the Ruins, their sixth album.  This is their most adventurous and most expansive album to date. The 12+ minute title track leads the charge, opening this terrific album, with a long blast beat which has other […]

It’s usually a good sign when an album contains a church bell tolling in the distance: “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica and “Warriors of Modern Death” By Emperor and of course Iron Maiden’s “Hallowed Be Thy Name”. That’s just three that come to mind and yeah, there’s so many others but I’m here […]

2024 was a stellar year for German black metal. Albums from Asarhaddon, Opus Irae, Chaos Invocation, Kanonenfieber, Suffering Souls, Dauþuz, Far Beyond,  Stiriah and Servant were all damn fine releases. But at the tail end of 2024, Mavorim released an album that I never really got to spend too much time with before the year ended, and it’s […]

2025 is a new year, right? I’d imagine this new year for those of us in the United States is kind of like opening a gift of jars in the mail, thinking “Oh, cool someone sent me these to support my growing interest in canning.” Of course, you open the first one and it’s farts. […]

Finland is not the usual place where brutal slam death metal is released from.  Yet here we are with the debut album from Putrid Defecation.  The band has slung together some splits and ep’s over the last several years however Tales from the Toilet is their debut album.  The band lists this as a full-length […]

Germany’s Obscura needs no introduction. They have resided near or atop the tech death heap since 2009’s Cosmogenesis. For me, they peaked with 2016s Akroasis, but all of their albums have been excellent, including their last effort, 2021s A Valediction, which saw former members Christian Munzer (ex-Necrophagist, ex-Spawn of Possession) and fretless bassist Jeroen Paul Thessling return […]