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 […]
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 […]
Here is salvo number 5 from Chicago’s Blood of the Wolf (with members of Withering Soul and Kommandant), and like 2022’s IV: The Declaration of War Eternal, and 2018’s II: Campaign of Extermination before it (I missed the EP III: Blood Legend), it’s a ripper of Midwest Blackened/death/war metal. At 31 minutes, Indomitable does not fuck […]
Some pretty good black/death metal has come out this year and last year: Imperishable, Hate, Keres, Black Hole Deity, Chaos Inception, Patristic, Nekodeus, and Proscription, to name a few. But the debut from this international project with members of Drowstorm, Vahrzaw, Vintertodt, Burden of Ymir, Calling of Phasmic Presence (none of which I am familiar […]
I don’t know what YOU expect from a project that consists of Brian Kingsland (Nile, Enthean), bassist Alex Rush (Olkoth, Enthean), and drum legend Derek Roddy (ex-Hate Eternal, ex-Malevolent Creation, ex-Divine Empire, etc). But I know what I was expecting it to sound like, and it sounds exactly like that. Yeah, this debut is blistering blackened […]
The promotional email for the sophomore effort from this Danish act (named after the Hebrew word for wanderer?) stated it was melodic black metal for ‘fans of Behemoth, Hate, Mgla, Belphegor, Anaal Nathrak’. Not sure I could have been lured in any harder if they had a six pack of IPA beer, Crunchie candy bars, […]
It’s no surprise that I love Panzerchrist as much as I do. Their core sound has remained consistent throughout their storied career. Each album has stood as a testament to their brand of brutality that has remained solid since 1999’s Six Seconds Kill. Maleficium Part 2 is the follow up to last year’s Maleficium Part […]
Patristic is a side project of Hideous Divinity guitarist Enrico Schettino. The band name comes from the study of early Christian writings and scholars, and the album name comes from instructions given to a person in preparation for a Christian baptism. He is joined by drummer Nicolàs Petri (Chronic Hate, Mass Carnage, Hellion) and vocalist […]
Occasionally, an album will hit me with such force that I’m compelled (not by the power of Christ) to put finger to keyboard and rave about it. This is the case with Trivax and their revival of violence on The Great Satan (directed at the Ayatollah Khomeini, who is depicted on the cover as Satan). […]
I’m usually a little leery of bands that use the Kult, ‘K’ in their band moniker or album title. However, I also trust almost anything FDA Records puts out, so here we are. Nekrodeus hails from Austria and Ruaß (Austrian for ‘Soot’, but also a slang term for ‘rabble’ or ‘scum’) is their third album […]
Listen, I know. Even though they were founded first, Poland’s Hate sounds like Behemoth circa Zos Kia Kultus, Demigod, Evangelion. I seen them be called ‘Wish’ Behemoth or ‘Temu’ Behemoth, but the fact is, I’ve ordered some pretty cool shit from Wish and Temu. And with the band’s 13th album that’s what you get- some […]
We’re in an age of chaos and confusion. Now, in a musical setting, that can be a visceral experience. Notes colliding into each other at breakneck speed while the drums blast and the bass rumbles the Earth. It’s the basis of Black Metal. Eternal suffering and a veil of darkness lowering onto the desolate landscape. […]
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 […]
When Panzerchrist released Last of a Kind in 2023 I was fucking ecstatic. It had been a long minute since 7th Offensive and their departure from the Metal community was deeply emotional (I know I cried like a bitch… not really but I was sad for sure) so when Last of a Kind was announced, […]
Blackened Symphonic Death Metal is quite a mouthful – would you not agree? Torn from Existence hail from Colorado and have been around a few years and Hearken the Darkened Skies is their debut album. Hopefully, the band is getting this debut out to distros, labels etc..so this Self-Released album can be picked up by […]
I’m a big WWI buff. I’ve even been to Ypres trenches, Sanctuary Wood and laid a wreath at the Menin gate in Belgium. And in my review of the most recent God Dethroned album, The Judas Paradox, I lamented the fact that God Dethroned was no longer focused on WWI, a subject I of course […]
Wow. Here is some really creative, unique black/death metal from a Dutch band I know nothing about other than they have 1 prior album under their belt. The actual ‘Shiva Hypothesis’ is a theory concerning extinction-level events and meteors, but the band is a 4 piece with ties to various other Belgian death metal acts, […]
From the 2007 tech death debut, Of Fracture and Failure, New Zealand’s Ulcerate has been one of the death metal’s most consistently elite bands with 5 albums since. The band has evolved from the pure tech death of the debut into a murky, dissonant, almost black death band (they are on Debemor Morti – a […]
4 years ago I reviewed the debut album, Decay from Glasgow’s Necrocracy and it was a rough and ready, solid release of no-frills, burly black metal. And then out of the blue, the band emails me and tells me about their new digital and cassette-only release they are dropping. So apparently the material on Predestiny […]
There is one single reason I checked out the promo for the debut from this new Italian Black/Death metal project and that is the stunning artwork from the band guitarist Astahrot. My gosh that is killer- for the love of god, put that on a shirt, please! Now onto the music. Keres plays a relentless […]
International supergroup Vltimas released a killer debut in 2019, Something Wicked Marches In, which I reviewed and gave high praises of their stamp on blackened death metal. One of the many things going for that debut was how damn catchy it was – I still listen to that sucker! The same members return with Flo […]
Years ago I came upon the Putrid Death Sorcery debut album from Necrowretch, a French death metal band. I reviewed the impressive album and was able to be in touch with vocalist/guitarist Vlad and interviewed him as well. I have followed this band closely over the years reviewing the majority of their albums and continuing […]
I’m quickly becoming a very big fan of Sergio Gonzalez Catalan, the owner of the new Chilean label Tragedy Productions. Already having 2 killer releases under their belt that will be on my year end list. One is Numeron’s Road to Valhalla and the other is one of his many solo projects, Winds of Tragedy […]
Panzerchrist are stalwarts. Literally, since 1995’s Demo they’ve been putting out their Blackened Death Metal beginning with Six Seconds Kill in 1996, to the utterly fantastic Room Service in 2003 they’ve steadily put out quality God Dethroned meets Bolt Thrower meets Marduk and they all have an orgy where out pops Panzerchrist. On the eighth […]
One of my favorite things to ask people when they wanted to haggle over the pricing at the stores I worked at was “do you think you’re in an open market in Bangladesh”? You might gasp, how dare you ask a customer that?! Then ask yourself if you’ve ever done it… Anyhoo all kidding aside, […]
