Formed from the ashes of legendary doom acts Dusk and Crawl, Wisconsin’s Aphotic have been hard at work forging a new band to carry on the ethereal, natural doom metal of their prior acts. Stillness Grows is the miserable fruits of their labor; 3 demo EPs on this one album. 2000’s self titled demo, 2001’s […]
US black metal just never seems to find its way to these ears, and when it does it’s generally the grimier, warlike stylings of Epoch of Unlight and Forest of Impaled or the raw frozen grimness of Goatwhore and Leviathan. In the symphonic/atmospheric category, only Vesperian Sorrow has graced these ears with any true mimicry […]
This is one of those albums I have to put review blinkers on for, because as much as I’d personally like to rave about the brilliance and influence of Grave, the fact is, for the follow up to last years ‘comeback’ album , Back From the Grave the word ‘Regression’ is an apt title. I […]
Imagine for a moment that teen deathsters Decapitated played screamo-punk instead of death metal, and that they were from Staten Island and Brooklyn. You would get Quantice Never Crashed; an adolescent gathering of talent equal if not greater than their peers. Part early Hopesfall, part You Fail me Converge, part Thursday and part Fear Before the March […]
We all know Willowtip does death metal and grind as good as or better than any other US label, but how will they fare in the European dominated melodic/black genre? Fucking phenomenally. As with most Willowtip releases, Arsis’s offering is the extremity tipped, red headed, bastard child of a parent genre. Arisis is to melodic […]
Do you miss old Kataklysm? Do you miss the mystical hyper-blasting and over the top lyrical, otherworldly vocalizations of Sylvain Houde? Well, Country mates Cephalectomy are for you dear reader.Nova Scotia’s Cephalectomy have released a superb album that re-creates the Northern hyper-blasting of Sorcery; insanely fast brutal death/grind with surprising amounts of intricate, layered melodies […]
With a moniker like Vicious with and album title like Vile, Vicious & Victorious this band set themselves some pretty high expectations that they had better damn well fulfill. And this Gothenburg lot gives it a pretty good try, but it isn’t quite as promising as their namesake. A solid, competent take on thrashy, energetic, […]
A black metal project featuring members of Unmoored, Incapacity, Solar Dawn, Satariel and Setherial, the bloodlines of Torchbearer are certainly solid, but the results are surprisingly average. Sitting squarely in the blazing but melodic black metal realms shared by Naglfar, Necrophobic and The Legion, Yersinia Pestis (the virus that causes The Black Death) delivers plenty […]
As tempting as it was to cut and paste my review of Fragments of Unbecoming’s recent album, I thought you the reader and the band deserve slightly more than that. What other than melodic death metal would you expect from a band from Gothenburg with former Gardenian drummer Thim Blom in their ranks? As to […]
So here is album number 6 from one of Sweden’s pioneering and longstanding death metal stalwarts. A new Dismember album is always an event for me, a musical milestone I look forward too with glee, and while my fanboy approach to the band has to be stifled somewhat for an objective review, I find myself […]
I distinctly remember not being that impressed with the debut album The Bound Feed the Gagged from this Michigan quintet, but also sharing the sentiment of the Teeth of the Divine writer that reviewed that album in thinking “I’ve not heard the last from this lot.” And here they are with album number 2, and it’s a […]
The far-reaching influence of At The Gates‘ Slaughter of the Soul has resonated throughout the death metal genre and as recent releases by Dew-Scented and Corporation 187 have shown, the influence remains as powerful as ever. Even the Middle East now has felt the ‘Gates influence seep ever further afield. While Israel has produced a handful of […]
Ye gads, where to start on this one. Two Polish immigrants relocated to Canada unleashed unsupervised upon a recording studio to record their second album. This is one is those albums you will either love or loathe, and much of that will depend on your state of consciousness. Those preferring a continual state of altered […]
I specifically chose to review this on the heels of the recent Veneficum offering, as they both offer synth laden efforts of melodic black metal from the US, and while Veneficum essentially get it all right, Minnesota’s Epicurean are bright eyed and full of promise with some issues to fix before they can compete on […]
Thanks to our friends at Candlelight, this album is now available in the US and it was worth the wait. One of my favorite bands has released the album they’ve hinted at for 2 decent but hard to find efforts. Both Cybersonic Superchrist (2000, Pavement Music) and When We Are Done Your Flesh Will Be […]
Hailing from the grim, frost bitten realms of Brisbane, Australia, Astriaal play voracious black metal that lies squarely between the truest classic style and a slightly more modern razor sharp, melodic take on the genre. Comparisons could be made to Dissection, Naglfar and Marduk (and to these ears, Angel Corpse), but Astriaal make the sound […]
If found a new game to play and it’s called “Six Degrees of Erik Rutan”. Aurora Borealis is the self-financed project of guitarist Ron Vento, who then just hires session musicians to play other instruments. Former members include Tony Laureano and (Nile, Angelcorpse), Derek Roddy (Hate Eternal and too many bands to mention) and now […]
So Gothicized symphonic black metal has been done to death right? Bands like Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth and Old Mans Child have essentially set the bar for others to follow, and follow they have-in droves. Graveworm, Apostasy, Ninnumaum, Agathodaimon, Chthonic, Tidfall, and too many others to name have all delivered their own takes on […]
A Belgian band I’ve never heard of and A Finnish label I’ve never heard of equals an album of the year contender? Weird, huh? Doom metal has been in kind of a slump over the last few years, never able to find the glory of the early 1990’s, despite welcome recent efforts by Shape of […]
Is this band really even relevant anymore? Somehow a band of cult status since 1988 despite a less than prolific album output (considering the length of time they’ve been around), not including hosts of compilations and underground rare recordings. Acheron is the very definition of a cult underground band. That being said , this is […]
Starting with a classic Pinhead quote from the Hellraiser movies, you know exactly what your getting here: pure, unabashed old school death metal. With a guitar tone that mixes Stockholm’s buzz and Sinister’s razor sharp sound as well as dirty, chugging riffs and nary a blastbeat in sight, this is 1992 revisited. Despite the obvious […]
Life has a funny way of doing things. One minute you are in a band that has released one of the better albums of 2003, you’ve just signed new record deal, and then you die. And while, the rumors circulating around the apparent suicide of Windir’s frontman, Valfar, certainly will effect the writing of this […]
As Carl Jung paved his existential path through the mass of behavioral psychology, so have Scholomance have carved their own path through the generic fields of satanic black metal and gore-ridden American death metal. They have forged a path of individuality that breaks the mold and challenges the American extreme metal scene. With a deeply intellectual approach and a musical ability that sometimes dazzles and confuses, Scholomance look to take a place among American metal as a leader, not a follower. The three piece consisting of Scott Crinklaw (guitars, percussion, and keyboards), Jimmy Pitts (vocals and keyboards) and bassist Jerry Twyford seem poised at the edge of abyss of greatness, just waiting for a push over the edge. The latest album The Immortality Murder, might be the album to do just that. Residing on The End records, Scholomance seem to fit the progressive nature of the label, I visited with guitarist and keyboardist Scott Crinklaw about The End records, lyrical influences and the promising future for Scholomance.
Rhetorically, I imagine I you meet death metal bands in a bar, Origin would try to impress you with clever sleight of hand tricks. Bolt Thrower might lumber over and give you a gruff nod and mumbled brummie greeting. Nile may strike up a deep conversation concerning mummies, pyramids, Isis and such. Deranged however would […]
NFL Football and heavy metal music are inherently linked. From the rebellious souls of the sport’s fledgling athletes decades ago, to the rebellious spirits in heavy metal that terrified the general public, hard-hitting sports and music are bound to find each other. Both are beautiful and brutal simultaneously, and both are the extreme of sports […]