Posts Tagged ‘Erik T’

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 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, […]

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 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 […]

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 (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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

After covering 2020s Old Old Death back in 2020, I missed 2023s Fandens Skall, Tulus’s 4th effort since reforming in 2007, after the band’s successful  Khold offshoot. As I stated in my review of Old Old Death, Tulus and Khold are/were essentially interchangeable in terms of sound and style; simple, cold, riff driven Norweigian black […]

I rather enjoy Italy’s Dusktone Records; they have a solid offering of symphonic black/death metal bands/releases (The Gloomy Radiance of the Moon, Voland, Obscura Qalma, Svartghast), that I enjoy, as well as a very solid stable of reissues and compilations (Einherjer, Stormlord, Aborym, Spite Extreme Wing, etc). The latest of their offerings that has caught […]

Listen, I know I’m late on this one. I know it’s a pretty high-profile release from a revered band with a tragic backstory. But truth be told, I have not really heard much of this post-Windir act past 2006’s Pitch Black Brigade. In fact, I had no idea they were still active, let alone released an […]

Serpent Icon is a brand spanking new melodic death metal project (they aren’t even on metal-archives yet), formed by Tobias Dahs (King’s Winter, ex Living Abyss), but he’s joined by some notable guys in the scene: vocalist Christian Müller (Night In Gales) and drummer Hartmut Stoof (Gloryful, Symbiontic). And this is one of those rare […]

Band name from the early Grave demo and 4th album title – check. Intro song named “Into the Grave”- check. Gothic font logo- check. So I’ll give you one guess what the debut release from Ataraxy’s Santi Racaj sounds like? Yeah, though hailing from sunny Spain, this is 100%  Grave worship, so HM2 buzzing death […]

If you were listening to black metal in the mid-90s to the early 2000s, you might be familiar with Germany’s Solistitium Records. They were pretty productive in that time, releasing records from bands like Isvind, Helheim, Darkwoods My Betrothed, Tsjuder, Horna, and even Behemoth’s earlier albums. They went on hiatus in 2006, but reactivated in […]

After 4 albums on FDA Records, Germany’s Autopsy Worshipping duo, Slaughterday (an Autopsy song title for the newbies), has jumped to Testimony Records for album number 5, but that’s the only thing that has changed. While 2022s Tyrants of Doom added a cleaner, clearer sound and some other old school death metal dynamics to the […]