When it comes to discordant, atonal, nightmarish, murky, chaotic, atmospheric death metal, Canada has Gorguts , Poland has Redemptor, England has Abyssal, Spain has Altarage, Portugal has The Ominous Circle, The Netherlands has Dodecahedron, Denmark has Phrenelith, Finland has Corpsessed, New Zealand has Ulcerate, Australia has Portal, Switzerland has Schammasch And now the US has Nightmarer. With the aptly […]
Oh man this is good! Rumbling, tumbling sludge with a burly death metal back bone and tangible nods to the likes of Lurk, Warcrab, Yellowtooth, Crowbar, latter Gorefest , early Mastodon, label/country mates Demonic Death Judge, and for a super obscure reference, now defunct Michigan act, If He Dies, He Dies. Apparently starting out as a more […]
2017 year was a pretty good year for lesser know folk/viking metal. While Ensiferum continued to stale with Two Paths, and Wintersun, delivered yet another bloated over hyped release, bands liked Wolfchant, Tersivel , Atlas Pain and Nordheim, Incursed released some really good albums that actually deserved more attention. Well, early in 2018, Dalriada ( my new […]
In the grand tradition of underrated, fellow Chicagoans, Forest of Impaled, Blood of the Wolf erupt from the Midwest with a stellar sophomore release of pummeling, blood pumping blackened, death/war metal and it’s a god damn scorcher. I have not heard the band’s debut I: The Law of Retaliation, but you can bet I’ll be rectifying […]
So two major label, modern tech death metal bands are going to be vying for your attention this spring. On Metal Blade we have Rivers of Nihil and their ambitiously evolved Where Owls Know My Name, on Prosthetic Records, we have Orlando’s ‘philosophical’ (not all of the band members are Christian), progressive death metal new comers, […]
Stockholm’s The Ugly are back with album number three and follow up to 2015s decent Decreation. Not much has changed as the band still has ties to Marduk (whose Fredrik Widigs plays drums and the mastering/mixing was handled by guitarist Devo), and thusly the sound shows it with a frosty, razor sharp, slightly melodic take on blistering black […]
As LBGQT rights remain in the forefront of today’s political climate, so it creeps furthermore into extreme music. Mina Caputo of Life of Agony and Kat Shevil (Winds of Genocide) have been out front of the movement in metal for a while now, but it appears to be picking up. Just this month I received […]
Back in 2015 I discovered this Indonesian atmospheric black metal act and their second album, Homeward Path was my favorite album of that year….by a long shot. So I’ve been eagerly awaiting the follow up since they announced it last year, and like Homeward Path, the sound has developed just a tad since the Black […]
Sentient Horror‘s debut 2016 album, Ungodly Forms was a killer release of Stockholm styled death metal that gave the likes of Entrails a run for their money, despite hailing from New Jersey. And now the band is back with a 5 track, 20 minute, stop gap EP between albums, and it shows a slightly different […]
I’ve been on a Bongzilla kick of late, and If you are unfortunate enough to be my friend on Facebook, you will know I recently asked for some recommendations similar to Bongzilla. I was craving more fuzzed out , nasty sludge with harsh vocals. The recommendations were solid with Dopethrone, Eyehategod and Demonic Death Judge being the […]
Despite being one of the least productive bands around (at least when it comes to albums), England’s Solstice is still one of the more revered bands in the traditional/Epic/Classic Doom/ heavy metal genre, largely on the strength of their last full length sophomore album 1998′ New Dark Age. Since that release, the band has released […]
So about 8 years ago and for another webzine, I reviewed the second album from Australia’s Arkheth, IX & I: The Quintessence of Algaresh, a sprawling, brilliant, epic 2 CD , 10 song, 150 minute album of Symphonic black metal in the vein of Emperor, Keep of Kalessin, Dimmu Borgir et al. Well, apparently my review […]
Based on the cover, name and album title, I was fully bracing for some thrash metal here, but it turns out Massachusetts’ Scalpel are a death metal band with a fondness of older 90s death metal and East Coast Death metal. There’s not much that needs to much explanation here. Scalpel’s second effort of no […]
Hailing from the tiny country of Luxemborg, Mindpatrol’s third album is an ambitious, solid, concept based album of extreme/progressive melodic death metal that might appeal to fans of Opeth, Loch Vostok, Ne Obliviscaris and other ‘kitchen sink’ bands. As with most progressive bands, Mindpatrol’s Vulture City has a deep concept with this effort being about the […]
If you enjoyed Temple of Void‘s Lords of Death last year, Washington D.C’s Genocide Pact will make you happy with their second album, their Relapse Records debut, Order of Torment as it present the same sort of simple, groove based mid tempo doom/death metal, just with a little less experimentation. As with Temple of Void, […]
California’s Ruin have been around since 1991 with an array of cassettes, Demos and splits under their belt. There are rumors of the band being arrested and institutionalized and they are clouded in mystery. But finally released they their debut album in 2017, Drown in Blood in the spring of last year, and it was […]
I’m not familiar with California’s Valdur other than they started out as a standard USBM band back about a decade ago and this very site reviewed their 2009 split with Fellow Californians Lightning Swords of Death, whom i have heard. So I was in fact expecting some black metal, but what I got was an […]
US based folk/epic/viking metal is somewhat of a rarity. I’d have to go back to maybe Hammer Horde to find one that really hit everything on the head. But here comes Pennsylvania’s Frost Giant and their ambitious and often down right brilliant debut. Listen- there is a lot going on here- not just epic folk […]
Vvilderness is the brain child of one Hungarian man, Vvildr, and Devour the Sun is his Vvilderness debut (he has some other purely instrumental bandcamp releases under the moniker ‘Release the Longships’). Originally independently released on bandcamp last year, Russia’s Casus Belli and Australia’s Beverina Records has picked up the rights and is releasing a […]
I’m not a big ‘stoner’ metal guy, but I do like me some big fuzzed out riffs and sludgy guitars, and the press sheet for Outlander, the second album from Norway’s Mammüth dropped both, so I checked it out on a whim. I’m glad I did- though outside of my usual musical strike zone, Mammüth deliver a pretty […]
For three albums now, Finland’s Decaying have delivered their Bolt Thrower/Asphyx take on war themed death metal with solid results. But with the switch from Hellthrasher Productions to FDA Records, the band appear to have deiced to change things up a bit and spread their creative wings a little. Not that the band still does […]
I’ve been impressed with new label Raw Skull Recordz and their early releases from Bullcreek and Graceless, but the debut full length from Sweden’s Gravestone is clearly the label’s best effort so far (at least until the new Just Before Dawn?) . You know exactly what you are getting here as the band features Penki Samuelsson from […]
When I fall for a band, I fall HARD. In 2015 it was Vallendusk, and early last year it was Sabaton, and my latest infatuation has been with Hungary’s prolific Celtic/folk metal act Dalriada (formerly known as Echoes of Dalriada). I discovered them on Spotify while listening to the Asmegin radio station, the song “Hajdútánc” […]
I’m not familiar with The Netherlands’ Bleeding Gods, but they have some Dutch scene veteran’s in their fold (Houwister, Grind Minded, Debauchery, Divine Sins) and a 2015 debut album under their belt. And with a few key words like ‘symphonic’ and ‘Hercules’, ‘war’ and ‘death metal’ popping up, I decided to give their second effort a […]
If you have ever asked yourself “what happened if black one man black metal was rendered with a classic Swedish death metal guitar tone?”, Frenchman Stephane Thirion is here to answer your question with his self released third album, A fleur de peau (‘Sensitive’? ‘On edge’?). First off , I was thankful this wasn’t a Kataklysm […]