Posts Tagged ‘Erik T’

Fleshcrawl – Epitome of Carnage

Fleshcrawl – Epitome of Carnage

After a 12-year layoff, Germany’s preeminent Swedish-style death metal veterans, Fleshcrawl (who I am now learning were called both Morgoth and Suffocation back when they started, and finally switched to Fleshcrawl for obvious reasons), reemerged into the fray with the solid Into the Catacombs of Flesh back in 2019. And now, after 7 years, some […]

Ablation – Lethal Abuse EP

Ablation – Lethal Abuse EP

I’ll give you one guess what a new super group featuring Devin Swank on vocals (Sanguisugabogg), Eric Morotti on drums (Suffocation), Derek Boyer on bass (Suffocation), and Rich Nagasawa on guitar (ex-Dehumanized) AND features guest vocal spots from Frank Mullen (ex-Suffocation) sounds like? Yeah, if this thing were any more New Yawk, it would say “I’m […]

Beyond the Styx – DIVID

Beyond the Styx – DIVID

Back on my review of Wielded Steel‘s killer  Sins of Your Domain EP, I rattled off a bunch of hardcore bands I had/have been jamming, including two French bands: Glassbone whose Ruthless Savagery EP is also killer, and Beyond The Styx, who have been around for a while with 3 other albums and some EPs […]

Lair of the Minotaur – I Hail I

Lair of the Minotaur – I Hail I

For a while there in the early and mid 00s, Chicago’s Lair of the Minotaur was where one of the most metal fucking bands out there. The Steve Rathbone (7000 Dying Rats) led project, joined at times by the likes of Larry Herwig (Pelican), Chris Wozniak (Serpent Crown), Nate Olp (Demiricous), and others, kicked out […]

Atronos – Gram

Atronos – Gram

I have generally enjoyed anything that German vocalist/ instrumentalist Baptist has been involved with; Mavorim, Eisekult, and this, Atronos, an outlet for more medieval, melodic black metal, founded by guitarist Henker (also in the above two bands as well as Drudensang). But after three good albums, including 2022’s Erwachen, I didn’t see this coming, as […]

Armed For Apocalypse – The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me

Armed For Apocalypse – The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me

After a 9-year layoff, California Sludge mongers Armed For Apocalypse returned in 2022 with Ritual Violence, a beastly, hefty album that almost matched their absolutely killer debut, Defeat, waaaaay back in 2009, and that album is still one of my go-to favorites in the style. With only a 4-year wait, this time, but the same lineup […]

Hecate Enthroned – The Corpse of a Titan, a Lament Long Buried

It’s been 6 years since the UK’s Hecate Enthroned returned to the purely symphonic black metal style that made them famous in the mid to late 90s. After starting as an unabashedly Cradle of Filth-mimicking band, with  The Slaughter of Innocence, a Requiem for the Mighty, Dark Requiems… and Unsilent Massacre, they delved into a […]

Cnoc an Tursa  –  A Cry For the Slain

Cnoc an Tursa – A Cry For the Slain

I have no idea how I have not crossed paths with Scotland’s Cnoc An Tursa (“Hill of the Standing Stone”) up until now. I know they haven’t been super prolific, with only 2 albums since 2013, but lawd, we have covered them here on their debut The Giants of Auld, and heck, we even interviewed […]

Ingested – Denigration

Ingested – Denigration

I’m starting to feel like metal websites need to have this image on their site: The UK’s Ingested was the latest in a concerning, long, and consistent run of deathcore vocalists being douche-y, with Josh Davies, who replaced original vocalist and co-founder Jason Evans in 2024, being promptly removed from the band after barely 2 […]

Scarab – Transmutation of Fate EP

Scarab – Transmutation of Fate EP

It’s been over a decade since I last heard Egypt’s Scarab, on their second album, Serpents of the Nile, back in 2015. They released an album in 2020, which I own, called Martyrs of the Storm, and it slays, but I never got around to reviewing it. But not much has changed other than a […]

Pig’s Blood – Destroying the Spirit

Pig’s Blood – Destroying the Spirit

After wrecking your eardrums for two albums on Poland’s Godz of War Productions, Milwaukee noise mongers, Pig’s Blood have jumped to Dark Descent Records for album number three, but nothing has changed. This group, with folks from Prezir, Protestant, Enabler, Shut in, Force, and others, continues to deliver a Revenge/ Blasphemy/ Angelcorpse-inspired form of vitriolic […]

Dimmu Borgir  – Grand Serpent Rising

Dimmu Borgir – Grand Serpent Rising

If you are at this site, reading this review I am going to assume that, 1) that you know who Dimmu Borgir is and their place in the pantheons of Black Metal, 2) that you probably have a strong opinion about them and their albums, 3) you know there has been an 8 year wait […]

Riverflame – Lunar Crusades

Riverflame – Lunar Crusades

Riverflame is a new medieval melodic black metal band featuring members of Hail Spirit Noir, Ponte del Diavolo, and Owls, and it touts the likes of Stormkeep and Summoning as influences. Now, I love me some medieval black metal, as evidenced by my recent Gladium Regis review and my love of bands like Véhémence, Darkenhold, […]

Ten Seconds of Life, The  –  The Dead Ones

Ten Seconds of Life, The – The Dead Ones

After gutting the band and coming back with a new lineup for a 2023 EP and 2024’s No Name Graves, the founder and guitarist Wyatt McLaughlin, sort of reinvented TLTSOL into a moodier, more down-tempo, and I dare I say, menacing take on deathcore, having more in common with Bound In Fear. Helped largely by […]

Archaic Oath – Determined to Death and Beyond

Archaic Oath – Determined to Death and Beyond

Archaic Oath is a new but veteran Belgian duo comprised of instrumentalist Lykormas (Hemelbestormer, Lhaäd, Rituals of the Dead Hand, Wolven, ex-Entartung, ex-Gorath) and vocalist Arneriach (Astovidatu, Bleak Cold Irrelevance, Eternal Blood of War, Hail Spirit Noir). They apparently met way back in 2005, but recently decided to come together and form a project to […]

Void of Light –  Asymmetries

Void of Light – Asymmetries

For a while there in the 00s, I was heavily into the post-rock/post-metal genre. I mean heavily. After discovering Isis’ Oceanic, I was looking for everything and anything in the genre: The big ones like Cult of Luna, The Ocean, Rosetta, Callisto, Transmission0, and Burst, as well as more obscure ones like Impure Wilhelmina, Iron […]

Apolaustic  – No Plenitude Without Suffering

Apolaustic – No Plenitude Without Suffering

Apolaustic (meaning ‘devoted to enjoyment’) is the new project from former Stortregn vocalist Romain Negro, who departed the Swiss act after 6 albums. If you are familiar with Switzerland’s Stortregn, then you know they started as a melodic black metal band on albums like Emptiness Fill the Void, but transitioned to a more technical death […]

Mauled – When Your Eyes Are Shut EP

Mauled – When Your Eyes Are Shut EP

Much like last year’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra effort,  this short but blistering 6-track EP (though only 3 actual songs) from Indianapolis’s Mauled is a throwback to the Myspace, early /mid 00s era of deathcore. Specifically, the likes of Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, All Shall Perish, My Bitter End, and Embrace the End. No blackened or symphonic […]

Highgate – Prophecies of Eternal Doom

Highgate – Prophecies of Eternal Doom

Lawd. It’s been since 2008 since I last heard Kentucky’s Blackened doom/sludge act Highgate. It was their debut self-titled album on Total Rust Music, and apparently, I really liked it. Now, since their debut, they have released a couple more albums with Shrines to the Warhead , Black Frost Fallout,  and their last album, Survival, […]

Schattenvald – Alle Hernach

Schattenvald – Alle Hernach

Germany’s Schattenvald (Shadowforest) has been knocking around since 1998, but didn’t release an album until 2007, and has released 5 albums since, yet somehow neither I nor any of the staff here has covered them. And we love us some German black metal in these here parts. As I said in my review of Nazghor’s […]

Vomitory – In Death Throes

Vomitory – In Death Throes

This is gonna be the easiest review I’ll have to write in 2026. It’s a Vomitory album. Done. I mean, of course I could flesh this thing out and ramble on about this being the band’s 9th album (11th if you count the Cut Up hiatus/ detour they band took after sort of breaking up […]

Messticator – Total Mastery

Messticator – Total Mastery

Germany’s death/thrash act Messticator is a relatively new act formed with former and ex- members of various other German thrash and death metal bands I am not familiar with, like Embers of Flesh and Devarium. Total Mastery is their second album, following up 2022s Forthcoming Revelation.  As they all do, the promo materials tell me […]

Necrogore- Ectoplasmic Rape Phenomena

Necrogore- Ectoplasmic Rape Phenomena

Swedish/HM2 death metal can come from anywhere these days. There are stellar bands in the style from France (Iron Flesh), Japan (Heteropsy), Greece (Abyssus), Chile (Soulrot), Russia (Wombripper), Germany (Lifeless), Czechia (Brutally Deceased), Poland (Ulcer), Australia (Earth Rot), Venezuela (Nocturnal Hollow) and the USA (Sentinet Horror), just to name a few. Newcomers, Necrogore are from […]

Lightlorn –  The Ebb and Flow of Galactic Tides

Lightlorn – The Ebb and Flow of Galactic Tides

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 […]

Wielded Steel – Sins of Your Domain

Wielded Steel – Sins of Your Domain

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 […]