Around since the early 90s, main man Ares and his band Aeternus delivered some pretty classic, folky black metal albums early on in their career with Beyond the Wandering Moon and ….And So The Night Became. They were also one of the first bands to blend death and black metal and have the term ‘blackened […]

I love Black Metal, the rawer the better, and the more tortured and vile the better. The raw hate of the Black Legions in France, True Norwegian Black Metal, the fact is that every country has it’s own vital scene, using their traditional influences to carve their own niche and get that legendary status that […]

Is this déjà vu?  I think it may.  Six years ago Hammerheart Records reissued these Pestilence albums in deluxe 2 cd slipcases.  The bonus content was fabulous and not only did I buy all of these, I purchased an album cover shirt for each of them.  I even did some reviews on Teeth of the […]

Look, I am, by my own admission, a long-winded individual. Especially so when talking about heavy metal, but with The Garden, the eighth full-length album from Finnish “Beauty &/vs the Beast” deathly doomsters, Hanging Garden, I simply don’t need to be. The straight up truth is that when it comes to The Garden, I’m just […]

Kansas’s technical death metal powerhouse Origin return with their eighth full length record Chaosmos. Paul Ryan, Mikey Torres, Jason Keyser, and John Longstreth waste zero time pummeling the listener with the opening track “Ecophagy.”  The track starts off with a strong hook and then proceeded to get progressively more technical as the track goes on. […]

Portugal’s Analepsy return with their second full length album Quiescence. Having been five years since their last release it is quite immediate that the production values and song writing have both stepped and slammed up. Opening things up with “Locus of Dawning” the guitars fade in with some cool layering and harmony. I can hear […]

The undisputed heirs to Dismember‘s throne (here’s hoping for a reunion after the 2022 Maryland Deathfest), Demonical is back with album number 7, and as expected, there are absolutely zero surprises or curveballs from a band that features former members of Centinex and Grave.   They can pretty much do this in their sleep. Essentially delivering […]

Greece’s Hail Spirit Noir are one of the most original and weirdest bands out there.  Really out of the box, non-linear type of music.  I have enjoyed their different types of albums, and while they started out as some avant-garde black metal band and their musical influences continued to expand and morph into some Twilight […]

I was fortunate to review the first 4 Pestilence albums when they were reissued through Hammerheart Records, as well as the last Pestilence album – Hadeon, which was also released on Hammerheart Records.  I went into this review as objective as I could possibly get.  I say this because I love all the Pestilence albums […]

Poland’s Azarath return with their 7th full length album, Saint Desecration.   Founded by Inferno, drummer of the mighty Behemoth.  Azarath play a fun style of black death similar to the likes of Krisiun, Immolation, and also country mates Hate.   Things open up with “Death, At Will” which starts with a nice clean guitar part before […]

There are two veteran, bigger, supergroup -ish acts vying for this autumn’s top, high profile Swedish death metal release; the second effort from LIK (featuring Niklas Sundin of Katatonia)  and the sixth album from Demonical, featuring current and former members of Centinex, Grave and others). And the clear winner is Demonical. I really enjoyed 2018s […]

All hail Hail Spirit Noir who hail from Greece. These gentlemen caught my ears and eyes when they released Oi Strigoi all the way back in the “before times” in 2014. I was, and remain a big fan of that album, so I was excited when they released Mayhem in Blue in 2016. While I […]

Oh, Forgotten Tomb. I’ve never forgotten you. How could I, baby? You gave me 2015’s Hurt Yourself and the Ones You Love. I purchased it on a whim in a record store that sadly no longer exists simply because the cover grabbed my attention. When gazing at the cover, one could easily dismiss it, call […]

In Mourning strike me as the type of band that know what they’re good at, and stick to that formula. Much like bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, or Cannibal Corpse, they’ve found their sound and don’t really ever deviate from it. This approach can be a double edged sword. While their newest album, 2019s […]

I reviewed Baltimore’s brutal death metal band, Visceral Disgorge’s sophomore album, Slithering Evisceration, recently and stated how much I loved the album and how they are one of my favorite brutal death metal bands.  I interviewed singer Travis Werner some years back and I was and still am a tremendous fan of their 2011 debut […]

Baltimore’s brutal death metal band, Visceral Disgorge, burst onto the scene in 2011 with their scorching debut album-Ingesting Putridity.  I was an instant believer and reviewed the album, gave it high marks and interviewed the singer Travis Werner.   After meeting Travis at a local show and witnessing their brutal live performance we struck up […]

When you deliver an debut album that arguably reinvigorated melodic death metal in 2004s A Celebration Guilt, expectations tend to pile on and pile up, and despite a Children of Bodom like trajectory, founder and brainchild James Malone has largely responded well with subsequent albums, maybe with the exception of 2010s more rock based Starve for the […]

I’m always excited to see local metal bands from here in Missouri get some recognition or sign to a decent label. St Louis’s Cast the Stone were formed in 2002 and I crossed paths with bassist Derek Engemann at a few Sounds of the  Underground/Summer Slaughter/Harkonin (another great St Louis act) shows in St  Louis  at […]

When Centinex split up in 2006 (but since got back together), members went on to form and help out with two intertwined acts, Interment and Demonical. Both have delivered solid efforts of Swedish death metal with Demonical having released 4 albums and Interment, two. Centinex and Demonical founder Martin Schulman has revamped the lineup since 2011s Death […]

France’s Aosoth released one of the greatest black metal albums I ever heard in 2013-IV: An Arrow in Heart. It made my best of list and I interviewed them as well.  Nice dudes, creating some dark and brutal music.  There were a few death metal elements on the album and it was just fantastic.  Fast […]

Poland’s Azarath return with their sixth studio album, In Extremis.  Founded by Behemoth’s drummer Inferno, Azarath play a style of blackened death metal a kin to Krisiun, Behemoth, and maybe Diabolic to throw an American band in there. In Extremis opens up with “The Truimph of Ascending Majesty” which opens up with cackling whammy bar […]

Swedes In Mourning have made a solid impression over the past five or six years. Their brand of melodic death has matured greatly in the past three albums that they’ve released, and with The Weight of Oceans (2012) the band were being lauded as possible heirs to Opeths death metal throne. Rightfully so, because Afterglow […]

I have always been a death metal fan, from the moment I first heard it all them years ago – the textures, the percussiveness, the shear brutality. But I have been very slow and finicky about black metal. I was never taken in by the undergrounder-than-thou shit, which I found to have the same amount […]

Despite being around since 1991 and releasing 8 decent eight albums, Sweden’s Centinex were always sort of an after thought in the Swedish death metal scene of the early 90s, especially since after the first couple of albums the band sorted of cleaned up their sound to be more melodic and with a blacker sheen. The […]

“This should not be seen as a gathering of two humans playing music, for it doesn’t simply stand for “music” but a real Communication between an incarnated being and vibrations coming from a non-manifested paradigma where the Essence of what has suffered thousands of incarnations and names wanders eternally through the halls of it’s last […]