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 […]

Kat Shevil Gillham is in yet another doom band, one of the bands she is the vocalist for heavy hitters Thronehammer, which is a personal favorite of mine.  For Nine Altars she does vocals and plays drums and this is the debut album, 3 songs at over 30 minutes..yes these are some long ass songs. […]

I’ve mentioned this more than once on this site (most recently on my review for Megaton Sword‘s excellent Might & Power), but I take great pleasure in imagining the world of Traditional Heavy Metal as an endless sea of mighty warriors clashing in righteous battle for the right to sit upon the throne of Heavy Metal and […]

I’m always a little dubious when a band is claimed to be the “fathers of (X-Genre)” these days, especially when that “X” is something really hyper-specific. Take these Germans, AHAB for example: 19 year veterans in the metal scene, so certainly not a newcomer trying to make a name for themselves or anything like that […]

For a band known more for it’s morose atmospheres, downtempo paces and overall depressive tones, Katatonia sure has a way of getting albums off to a quick and, at least in my case, startling beginning. I swear, it’s like the band is fucking with me, or at the very least trying to catch us all […]

I struggle to think of another band revered with such legendary status as Candlemass has within the pantheons of Heavy Metal, with as strange and unorthodox a journey as theirs over their almost 40 year career. The breakups, reformations and seemingly endless string of cryptic hints at retirement, the rotating lineup of ex-members entering and […]

High the Memory, the second album from Norway’s Abyssic was one of the more underrated surprises for me back in 2019. Using a base in UK funeral doom ( My Dying Bride notably) and adding a dominant cinematic symphonic/orchestral layer, it was a superb album that made the world of lumbering doom a little more […]

Norway’s four-piece Kryptograf return with their second album, The Eldorado Spell, after their scorching self-titled debut from two years ago. Chalk this band up to another new favorite Rini band. Kryptograf play a heavy doom with psychedelic moments. I’d say throw classic Sabbath in a blender and mix in Trouble, Khemmis as well as the […]

This review has had several different openings (like your mom). At first, I was disappointed with the new Deathwhite. Maybe it’s because of lofty expectations, being a big fan of their previous gothic-tinged doom. Think modern Katatonia with better choruses. Yeah, I said it. However, after a very short amount of time, I found myself […]

Here’s a short little EP from an emerging artist, Witnesses, who dabbles in doom as well as the ambient genres. While I am not a fan of the ambient genre in general, I am a massive fan of the doom part of the sound Greg Schwan has conjured. So when he asked if he could […]

For a couple years now, I’ve been praising the French for their rise to prominence in the Traditional Heavy Metal scene. It’s still not necessarily a numbers game, but the quality in the limited product is undeniable. Obviously, much of this is owed the genre’s continued growth in popularity, but bands like Herzel and Tentation […]

I do not need music to help me achieve a depressed state, Hangman’s Chair, okay? I do very well with that as my default, thank you very much. However, if you’re unlike me (for your own sake, let’s hope), maybe you just need that nudge or like to feel miserable sometimes. If so, A Loner, […]

Potentially the greatest perk of writing for a metal site (if you call what I do writing) is getting to connect with underground artists such as Crawl Below’s Charlie Sad Eyes. Not long after his previous album and personal year-end lister, 9 Mile Square was released, he mentioned to me that the next Crawl Below […]

Here’s an interesting one from FDA records. Released a bit before the latest Ophis album, Spew Forth Odium, earlier last autumn, The Tragedy is the third album from this Finnish doom act whom I have never heard and frankly had very little expectations for. The logo, the band/album name, the fact there are hardly any […]

In their short existence, Denver’s doom metal act Khemmis have created some of the best metal these ears have heard in a while.  I credit my buddy and former Deepsend Records owner, Graham Landers with introducing them to me some years ago and their three prior albums and eps are all excellent and well played […]

Holy fuck! Talk about a blast from my past!  Back in my early days at DigitalMetal.com, I loved me some Eastern European death/doom.  Back then, I covered a Slovakian band’s 2000 release, Four Elements Mysterium (still one of my favorites from the era/genre), and excellent, but less gothic doom 2002 follow-up, Tunes of Despondency. They […]

War and Metal – It’s like peanut butter and jelly. Peanuts and beer. Peanuts and Chocolate. Peanuts and… uh… more peanuts? (I like peanuts. A lot). And generally speaking, while I’d prefer a world without war, I tend find myself gravitating towards metal bands leaning into wartime themes. Of course, some bands do the theme […]

Who is the mood for some awesome new U.S Epic Doom? Sign me up!   Being from Minnesota and friends of Brad Miller (Among the Serpents) I was extremely excited to hear he was assembling this group.  Come June 2021 here we are with Grief Collector’s En Delirium. I must say that recruiting Robert Lowe (Ex-Candlemass, […]

Holy poop on a stick – did you know Chicago’s Trouble have been around since the end of the 1970’s??   – Holy smokes I had no idea.  What we have here is the review/summation of the reissues Psalm 9/The Skull/Trouble/Manic Frustration Hammerheart has put out.  In order, this is the first, second, fourth and fifth […]

I am new to the Thronehammer camp of doom metal and their 2019 debut Usurper of the Oaken Throne was quite a display of monolithic heaviness and plodding doom-laden dirge.  The band gets into doom/death moments with some low vocals and man, Thronehammer are heavy, with a capital H. The band is an international act […]

It can be so easy to fall into a rut when it comes to discovering new music. You get comfortable in a certain lane, start seeking out a particular style of music, and next thing you know it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy where everything new you check out just ends up sounding really familiar, like you’re […]

What happens when you get members of Gravehill together, throw in some female vocals, keyboards and the drummer from past bands like Morgion and Crimson Relic?  Well you get a doom metal outfit called Stygian Crown releasing their self-titled debut album….and it’s heavy. This is a 2020 release and yes I know it’s 2021, but […]

Welp, that didn’t take long. Maybe things really are looking up? I know everyone had a shit 2020 – I won’t bore you with the personal details of my god-forsaken year – but while lots of folks have been ready to kick 2020 off a cliff and welcome the new year with open arms, I […]

My Dying Bride‘s 2020 album, The Ghosts of Orion, was an Ok release, not the best of the legendary UK doom act’s third act (yey growls!), but still a decent MDB release, with 3 or so really strong songs, which is always a good thing. So to keep us entertained during these covid times, the […]

Wow! Has it really been five years since Sweden’s Draconian dropped a new album on us? Five years to the date as a matter of fact. Man, it really doesn’t seem like Sovran was released five years ago, then again this past year of 2020 has been quite the rollercoaster, seemingly lasting an eternity unto […]