Well, honk my hooter, this debut album from brand new tech/dm band Delirious Compulsion knocked my slippers right off my pathetic feet. The band is made up of individuals from the United Kingdom / United States / Czechia / Switzerland. My brother Dakota Rivera provides the putrid vocals, and I was blown away to see […]

The thing I love about a pepper? A pepper has range. A pepper can be much deeper and more complex than a lot of folks are willing to explore and give it credit for. Sure, a pepper can certainly provide spice – at times, alarmingly so – and if you do happen to be one of those […]

Poland is a literal hotbed of Death/ Black and Folk Metal. Their most notable outputs are Behemoth and Vader (among others), but you can add Varmia to the mix of solid extreme music bands from the region. I last spoke about them with high praises for their EP Prolog (2023) and Nie nas widzę (also […]

Inoffensive, paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter, and lacking heft are usually not descriptors I bestow upon albums I enjoy. However… They still apply here. So, what I’m saying is that Colors in Grey by Oathbound is not for me. This is for the metal-curious folks. I’d imagine this gets rotations on Sirius Octane along with all the other […]

I sort of enjoyed the two prior releases from Sweden’s cosmic black metal act, Lightlorn; the debut EP, These Nameless Worlds, and the 2023 debut full-length, At One with the Night Sky. I own both physical CDs, and they fill that early Deafheaven, Soul Dissolution, Alkhemia, Vallendusk, Numeron, Vela Pulsar, Spectral Lore styled melodic/atmospheric black […]

So quite a bunch of things have been swirling around the Exodus camp over the last few years. First and foremost, Goliath is the long-time thrashers’ 13th album and first for new label Napalm Records. I am a huge Exodus fan and have reviewed their last several albums and have seen them live a bunch […]

Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a super heavy, metallic hardcore/beatdown,  ‘not quite deathcore/slam’ bender with bands like Orphan, True Temper, Misery Whip, Beyond the Styx, Glassbone, Unfazed, Braces, Grounds For Assault, Silverlake Murder, Hounds of War, Traitors, Nailwound, Pintglass, Mugshot, No Cure, etc. But when this came across my desk, I thought it […]

Like a bolt of lightning piercing your eardrums, Texans Necrofier have returned to deliver their blistering third full-length called Transcend Into Oblivion. Twelve saber-toothed tracks of prime USBM, and let me tell you friends and neighbors, it’s a fucking wild animal. There’s nothing better than a solid banger Black Metal album, and that’s what Necrofier […]

When seeing the band name Axe Dragger…I wonder why they did not choose the name Axe Dagger??? Anyway, you must scream in your highest power metal voice.. AXE DRAGGGGGEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! From their bio: American heavy metal supergroup Axe Dragger (featuring current and former members of Fu Manchu, Pantera, Dark Funeral, and Pentagram) team up with Metal […]

After covering 2020s Old Old Death back in 2020, I missed 2023s Fandens Skall, Tulus’s 4th effort since reforming in 2007, after the band’s successful  Khold offshoot. As I stated in my review of Old Old Death, Tulus and Khold are/were essentially interchangeable in terms of sound and style; simple, cold, riff driven Norweigian black […]

It’s okay, Lamb of God. You changed your logo, and along with the artwork for the new album, Into Oblivion, it looks like an early 2000s Geocities website. Am I bitter about it? No, of course not. It’s not like a certain writer for this distinguished online tome has the LOG from Wrath tattooed on […]

I rather enjoy Italy’s Dusktone Records; they have a solid offering of symphonic black/death metal bands/releases (The Gloomy Radiance of the Moon, Voland, Obscura Qalma, Svartghast), that I enjoy, as well as a very solid stable of reissues and compilations (Einherjer, Stormlord, Aborym, Spite Extreme Wing, etc). The latest of their offerings that has caught […]

The social media algorithm did its thing with Unverkalt. I can’t recall exactly which app, but an ad popped up showing them. I saw the band photo and the fact they’re on Season of Mist, which naively led me to believe they are a symphonic metal band, which is usually not something up my alley, […]

Oh man! This brings back memories. I spent my formative years for music absorption in England circa 1990-1993. During that time I discovered Carcass, Bolt Thrower and so many other killer Death Metal bands that my brain was rotting from all the sickening gore I was exposing it to. I was also a Punk kid […]

Norway’s Bizarrekult are back with their third album, Alt som finnes, with the band remaining intact with Adv on drums, Bizarre on guitars, bass, vox, D on vocals, and Ignat Pomazkov on guitars. I reviewed their sophomore effort in 2023, Den tapte krigen, and I really enjoyed their approach to black metal as well as […]

Listen, I know I’m late on this one. I know it’s a pretty high-profile release from a revered band with a tragic backstory. But truth be told, I have not really heard much of this post-Windir act past 2006’s Pitch Black Brigade. In fact, I had no idea they were still active, let alone released an […]

LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR: Chicago Destroyers Return With First Album In Sixteen Years, I HAIL I, Set For May 1st Release; Title Track Streaming + Maryland Deathfest Set And Release Show Booked Stream LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR’s “I HAIL I” HERE.   Chicago’s savage trio LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR will deliver their monstrous fifth album – their first in […]

Serpent Icon is a brand spanking new melodic death metal project (they aren’t even on metal-archives yet), formed by Tobias Dahs (King’s Winter, ex Living Abyss), but he’s joined by some notable guys in the scene: vocalist Christian Müller (Night In Gales) and drummer Hartmut Stoof (Gloryful, Symbiontic). And this is one of those rare […]

Band name from the early Grave demo and 4th album title – check. Intro song named “Into the Grave”- check. Gothic font logo- check. So I’ll give you one guess what the debut release from Ataraxy’s Santi Racaj sounds like? Yeah, though hailing from sunny Spain, this is 100%  Grave worship, so HM2 buzzing death […]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to start this review for Slagmaur and their fourth full-length album Hulders Ritual. The main reason I picked this album is that Black Metal luminary Snorre Ruch (Thorns), one of then liminaries who helped invent the Norwegian Black Metal style and forged a legacy borne in the fires […]

If you were listening to black metal in the mid-90s to the early 2000s, you might be familiar with Germany’s Solistitium Records. They were pretty productive in that time, releasing records from bands like Isvind, Helheim, Darkwoods My Betrothed, Tsjuder, Horna, and even Behemoth’s earlier albums. They went on hiatus in 2006, but reactivated in […]

I’m going to start this review with a gripe. In press materials for Sylosis’ new album, The New Flesh, main man Josh Middleton said something that I always sneer at. He stated that there’s not a lot of “good” metal out there nowadays. I think he meant that the mainstream type of metal I review […]

Long-running Floridian death metalers Monstrosity return with their seventh full-length album, Screams from Beneath the Surface. It’s been eight long years since they released their last album, The Passage of Existence, which was an amazing album, and I loved the artwork as well. The band has made some odd choices in album covers, such as […]

So, I’ve never done meth. Lets get that out of the way. Nor have I ever found myself at a point of thinking “you know what might be fun? Crack cocaine.” My brand of self-destructive tendencies (and mental illness!) have certainly taken me to a number of dumb and regrettable decisions in my life, make […]

International brutal tech blackened/deathcore/death metal band Phasma, returns with their 3rd album – Purgatory. With six songs, the band goes the simple route. They name each tune with a Roman numeral. The first song starts with some growls, beatdown deathcore, then right into a terrific blast beat. The above explanation of the various genres the […]