After hanging out with David Mikkelsen, from Undergang, during their recent US tour, he mentioned he was also in Phrenelith, from Denmark and their debut album, Desolate Endscape was out on Dark Descent Records, but that the music was different than Undergang. Obviously on Dark Descent Records, for me is going to be an immediate […]

Ok, Dark Descent Records has been hitting slam dunks all over the place, this year with their releases.  Now Unique Leader Records, is getting pretty close, with their outstanding releases and will it be DDR for the fourth time claiming label of the year, in my year’s end best or not?  While it remains to […]

I am new to the Diabolical Messiah camp.  The band hails from Chile and have been around for a whopping 18 years.  Their first album, Satan Tottendemon Victory!!! was definitely a good starting point and now 7 years later they plunk us over the head with their second long-player-Demonic Weapons Against the Sacred.  Not only […]

Well this is definitely something I have been missing for a while. Awesome! Veteran Swedish melodic blackened death metallers Sarcasm have returned with their 2nd full length album Within the Sphere of Ethereal Minds.  It is interesting that these guys started off way back in ’92 and continued to gradually continue releasing smaller released pieces […]

Has it really been 15 years since Colorado’s Excommunion released Superion? I reviewed the album for digitalmetal, and the review has been lost on the mists of time, but I recall really liking it. The two members (Christbutcher- bass/vocals and less creatively named Kyle Spanswick- guitars/vocals) have since blown up in Nightbringer, releasing 5 fine […]

England’s brutal blackened death/thrash metal band, Craven Idol, return with their scorching follow-up to 2013’s outstanding Towards Eschaton album.  Hopefully you did not snooze too long and missed their 2010 ep, Ethereal Altars, which was also phenomenal.  The Shackles of Mammon boasts longer songs this time around, with the average song length, in this 8 […]

Finland’s 2 piece monstrosity, Lantern, return with their second abum, II: Morphosis, after four years since their debut, Below.  If you’re lucky enough to have the Subterranean Effulgence ep, in your collection, consider yourself lucky, it’s a great release.  Opening with “Black Miasma”, I am noticing some Dark Throne type of sounds going on here.  […]

Finland’s Gorephilia return with their second full-length album, after 5 years.  Their first official release was the outstanding  Ascend to Chaos ep in 2011, which they bested a year later with their debut album, Embodiment of Death.  Severed Monolith has a very Morbid Angelish sound to it.  I am reminded of Morbid’s Blessed are the […]

I still feel bad about the review I gave Krypts a while back, especially considering how consistent and brilliant Dark Descent Records has been over the years. So I decided to go back and check out the label’s other late 2016 release from US sort of super group, Ruinous. Formed by a trio of guys who […]

You know how they say your taste buds change every few years? Well I think the same is happening to my musical tastes. The debut from these Fins, Unending Degradation, made my 2013 year end list, but this year, this hulking, cavernous form of Dark Descent death metal just isn’t doing it for me. And by […]

For me, Sweden’s Vanhelgd , are a lot like label mates Undergang; a bit of an anomaly to me. They seem to be critical darlings, I enjoy and own all the albums, but never seem smitten with them. When I’m listening to them, I’m truly digging the big Finnish crumble meet old school Swedish must, but never crave […]

I get the sense that Dark Descent Records is still a little miffed that Entrails flew the coop to join Metal Blade, maybe even taking some solace  in the fact their latest Metal Blade release never matched the quality of the bands Dark Descent efforts. So what did Dark Descent go and do? Well basically sign another […]

After 2012s simpler, Stockholm death metal based The Chills, this US death metal act emerged from a creative cocoon that was last years Ecdysis, a better, more creative and more challenging band. And only a year later they have returned with Anareta, (a greek astrological term for a ‘destroyer’), and it continues the more progressive, experimental […]

‘Oppressive’, that’s what comes to mind when listening to this. The Encarta dictionary defines this word as; “Exerting a worrying, troubling or burdensome pressure on somebody,” and with this, the latest release from Finland’s Tyranny, it does exactly that, the sense of foreboding in the mind, the weight on a individual, it brings them down […]

Ahhh good ‘ole Middletown, NY.  Growing up, my family and I would always pass Middletown, NY, on our way to The Catskills, in upstate NY.  I remember this rest stop we would always get breakfast, memories…. This is where Morpheus Descends hail from.  They added the Descends to the name in ’92.   The band […]

Ok, ok, Dark Descent Records…stop it, really.  Mr. Matt Calvert, truly over the last 2 years, especially, is making other labels squirm in their chairs.  While obviously having a penchant for the awesome Finnish scene, he signs bands from a variety of extreme genres and goddammit he gets it right every effin time!!!  With the […]

Wombbath is  a Swedish death metal band who were kicking it around in the early 90’s but broke up in 1995.  Their lone album, 1993s Internal Caustic Torments was a classic for me and grossly overlooked back in the day.  Had no idea it was remastered a mere 2 years ago and I snagged it recently from […]

Tucked away in the midst of Dark Descent’s higher profile 2015 releases is this little gem from reformed 90s Netherlands act Eternal Solstice, who released 3 solid albums in the mid 90s. Founder, Ramon Soeterbroek and early member Mischa Hak (also of Sempiternal Deathreign back then) has recruited a couple of young bucks (notably ex Funeral Whore drummer Tim Roeper) […]

“And on their skins, as on the bark of trees, Have with my knife carved in Roman letters ‘Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.’ Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things As willingly as one would kill a fly; And nothing grieves me heartily indeed But that I cannot do ten […]

There’s no question, when it comes to crumbling, monstrous death metal, Dark Descent records simply can’t be fucked with. However, when going out side the realms of death metal, I tend to get a little less enamored with the label’s releases. The likes of Gravehill, Craven Idol and Crypt Sermon, while respected releases in their […]

Here’s one of those reviews, where I wish another writer had taken this off my hands and delivered a slightly more knowledgeable review of a style and album that I’m really not a fan of or familiar with even if released by the mighty Dark Descent Records. DDR has stepped out of the death metal […]

If you were to collect a bunch of well versed fans of death metal into a cage fight and force them come up with a solution to the following question: Which label is embracing us with some of the best death metal today? What could the answer be? Since it’s only a theoretical situation rather than a study funded by the UN, our best guess for numero uno, after duking it out ourselves, would be DARK DESCENT RECORDS. We shot a few questions at the primus motor Matt Calvert to find out what’s up.

In 2011 Finland’s Desolate Shrine released their debut album, Tenebrous Towers.  To this day I still feel this is their best work.  It could be partly due to the song “The Brightest Night”, which for me, is not only their finest song ever, but one of the best death metal songs, that has come out […]

So, this old-school/retro/classic death metal movement has been going on for over a decade now. It’s so ubiquitous that I’m not sure if we can really call it a thing anymore; It’s just what death metal is now. The principle of it makes me happy, but the practice has left me feeling a little unfulfilled […]

As painful as it is to say, death metal is probably the most stagnant, saturated subgenre of metal right now with the majority of its practitioners either content to simply regurgitate the most well-known sounds of the early ‘90s or soullessly hammer away in only the most “brootal” fashion. How many early Entombed clones does […]