Initially, the costumed Battlelore-ish press photos of this North Carolina sextet and their self created alternate fantasy world where all their songs and two albums take place had me a little bit leery. But these guys, (who used to go under the name Blue Man’s God), actually deliver a kick ass album of epic, fantasy themed symphonic/black death […]
After a relatively uninspiring start with 2005s War Metal, Colorado’s Cobalt upped their game and became one of the darlings in the USBM genre with 2007s Eater of Birds and 2009s Gin, as good of a duo of releases that any USBM band had or has released. Both blurred lines of what black metal could and […]
You add symphonic keyboards to any kind of metal, and for the most part I’ll dig it. Add them to a blistering tech death/black metal sound and me love you long time. Such is the case with South Carolina’s Enthean, a new -ish trio and their impressive self released debut album. With a tech death backbone […]
Unique Leader looks to be having the same sort of outlandishly good year as it had in 2014 with the likes of Ohmnihilty, Inherit Disease, Ahtme, Omaphagia, and The Zenith Passage so far, and then you have the upcoming monster from Katalepsy still yet to come. But I’m pretty confident in stating that this will […]
Here’s a fine example of how symphonic elements added to metal can truly work regardless of genre. Hailing from Seattle, and named after a 17th century Demonic possession event in France, The Devils of Loudon mix over the top symphonics and European melodic death/black metal melodies with modern, shreddy death metal, dare I say even deathcore- […]
The year was 2004. In Flames had released Soundtrack to Your Escape, arguably putting the final nail in the coffin of melodic death metal. A genre that had eaten itself and become synonymous with the peaking US metalcore, and the genre was now almost a parody of itself. However, there was a hero to emerge. After one EP, The Porter, 2 years earlier, Germany’s Disillusion were about to reinvigorate an entire scene with their full length debut, the aptly named Back to Times of Splendor
With 2014s excellent The Flesh Prevails, Fallujah really came into their own amid a saturated deathcore/djent core scene, forgoing the tech death forays of the debut, The Harvest Wombs in favor of a more dreamy, elegant and progressive pastures. Well, the critical success of The Flesh Prevails was parlayed into a deal with Nuclear Blast, so […]
I had zero expectations for this release: French melodic death metal from a year ago with odd moniker. But seeing as Finisterian Dead End, who released War Inside‘s solid SUTURE recently, picked this up, I thought I would give it a fair shake, and I’m glad I did, as it delivered an energizing, reinvigorating take on […]
Oh boy. Here’s one that’s going to get the metal heads’ hackles up and get my credibility absolutely shot. In theory I have no business liking this, it’s a Spanish band calling themselves ‘Flamencore’ and it mixes a ton of styles that I would usually despise; it’s got the bass heavy nu metal chug of […]
Transcending Obscurity continues to develop, distribute, promote and release home grown talent giving us fine bands like Strangulate, Biopsy, Rectified Spirit Diabolus Arcanium, and now the debut from Mumbai’s Primitiv. The aptly named Primitiv is not doing anything new. They play a very simple form of Jungle Rot/Six Feet under mid paced chugging, death metal. Its’ got deep burly vocals, a […]
Want old school death metal? Here you go. A Compilation of all the demo and split tracks Greece’s Abyssus released prior to their fine 2015 full length debut Into the Abyss. 16 tracks, a bunch of covers and a whole lot of analog, musty, thrashy death metal goodness. India’s Transcending Obscurity is turning into a solid […]
I have reviewed and covered metal from all from all four corners of the earth, especially from South America, but I think this is the first album I have covered from Peru. And everything about the release screams generic; from the band name, album name and ‘shocking’ artwork. But this second effort from the band is actually […]
I know many readers will roll their eyes at a release such as this, but this is for the few folks that enjoy the styling of After the Burial, Painted In Exile (new album hurry up and get here already!), Fallujah, Viljharta, Born of Osiris, Aegaeon, 7 Horns 7 Eyes, Within the Ruins and other synth heavy, modern ‘core’ or ‘djent’ […]
Pete Helmkamp needs no introduction. After the demise of Order From Chaos then Angelcorpse, and serving in Revenge, he released a couple of promising Angelcorpse-y EPs with Kerasphorus, but now, he has forged on alone with his solo project Abhomine. Playing all instruments and performing vocals, (a session drummer was used for this album) Abhomine is what you would expect from Helmkamp […]
It’s been eight years since Walls of Jericho released their last album, The American Dream, at the height of the metalcore movement and when female vocalists in extreme metal bands were still gathering steam. That release had more in common with the thrash revival of the time; the band was cleaner and more concise. Well, here […]
Lord of the Rings nerds will recognize the name of this Wisconsin death metal band as the vast underground Dwarven Kingdom also known as Moria and the site of the bridge where Gandalf uttered his famous “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” challenge to the Bal-rog. So now my inner nerd got that out of the way, you […]
Baring the ambiguous ‘blackened death metal’ tag, France’s War Inside are a competent new act who do the genre label well on their second album, SUTURE. Of note, War Inside features Thomas of Regarde les Hommes Tomber on vocals, who brings the ‘blackened’ element to the table with his pained rasps and screams (and a […]
I get the sense that Dark Descent Records is still a little miffed that Entrails flew the coop to join Metal Blade, maybe even taking some solace in the fact their latest Metal Blade release never matched the quality of the bands Dark Descent efforts. So what did Dark Descent go and do? Well basically sign another […]
Back in 2013 I reviewed the debut from this Texas act, Aetherial, ( I missed 2015s Blue) and it was a challenging, engaging but exhaustive listen of progressive metal that had every genre and the kitchen sink in it. Well there’s been a bit of a line up change and a focus in delivery. Of note, […]
So Rhine is a project from Gabriel Tachell and some local Pacific Northwest musicians, and is the continuation of his UK act Perfect Harmony, but the name has changed and the the location is now Seattle, Washington. got it? But what matters is how damn good this is. Even with some questionable clean vocals this Opeth ian […]
So I get this mysterious CD in the mail from Russia. I can’t tell who the band is or what the release is. Windows does not recognize it, so I start trying to decipher fonts and and initially think the band is Black Wisdom, and thanks to the internet I figure out the band is […]
Oregon’s Omnihility burst onto the scene in 2014 with their second record (their Unique Leader debut), Deathscapes of the Subconscious , a pretty damn solid tech death offering with a heavy Origin lean. Well, yet another line up shuffle (as with the debut Biogenesis to Deathscapes), this time adding bassist Isamo Satu and vocalist Adam […]
Canadian guitarist Phil Tougas is hot shit right now. Not only has he served in the past in Vengeful, he currently plays in Serocs, Zealotry and First Fragment. But his main project right along with fellow former First Fragment/ Vengeful and current Beyond Creation drummer Phil Boucher, now appears to be Cthulu/Lovecraft inspired death metal act, Chthe’ilist. Initially, Le […]
The UKs The King is Blind appeal to me on a few levels. One, they hail from my old Hereward the Wake stomping grounds in East Anglia. Two, they feature former members of Entwined (an almost famous goth doom metal band from the 90s that released an album on Earache and were thought to be the […]
Every few years a album comes along that changes the game in tech death. Going back to this band’s namesake with Gorgut’s Obscura, Death’s seminal latter output, Origin, Atheist, Cynic, Necrophagist, Theory In Practice’s Colonizing the Sun, the Canadian scene, Gorod and others. And here is another one, in Obscura’s fourth effort Akróasis. These Germans are far from new comers and certainly […]