Hailing from Austin, Texas, Morgengrau is a 4 piece playing old school US death metal in the Master/Death/Incantation/Immolation vein. What makes them even more interesting is that the band is fronted by former Autumn Tears/Hod/Ignitor vocalist/guitarist Erika Tandy and the drums are played by another femme fatale, Reba Carls. Not that being females in death […]
Part of this writing endeavor is getting sent records by unknown obscure bands. Sure, we get to review Soilwork, Nile and other international super acts that really don’t need our lip service — but it’s so more rewarding to get a promo from a band like Russia’s Wandersword, and be able to spread the word […]
The debut from Germany’s Revel in Flesh, Deathevocation, was one of the very best examples of Old School Swedish Death Metal, and one of my favorite releases of 2012. So a mere year later, here is the follow up and what do you really expect here? Of course its the same style, delivered with the […]
Just Before Dawn is a multinational super group of sorts. It was formed by Blood Mortized guitarist Anders Biazzi with old school death metal mercenary Rogga Johanssen (Revolting, Megascavenger, Paganizer, etc.) providing the vocals. However, the project snowballed and a bunch of other vocalists from old school death metal acts got involved and as a […]
Back in 2005, I reviewed ‘Absence’, the second album from melancholic Finnish death/doom metal act Noumena. Despite competing directly with the likes of Amorphis, Insomnium, Swallow the Sun and Rapture, the release was one of my favorite releases of that year. The very next year the band released ‘Anatomy of Life’ — once again to critical reviews. However, the band then went silent. Real silent. After being on the verge of truly breaking out, they were not heard from again for seven years. Until now.
Continuing the harrowing black metal stylings of the landmark III, former Antaeus vocalist MkM has fulfilled the expectations of arguably one of 2012s most anticipated black metal releases. No ifs and or buts, Arrow in Heart is and will be one of the most striking and regally filthy black metal releases of the year and […]
So Dark Descent Records has taken a little break from their Finnish death metal revival to license this 2012 release from this Swedish/Hungarian act, which was originally released on Mi Saco Un Ojo Records. Fans of the likes of recent acts Necrowretch and Necrocurse should take note, as Megatomb ply the same sort of black […]
Up until Regain Records reissued the band’s discography in 2009, I never really cared for Sweden’s blackened thrashers Nifelheim. The band hasn’t released anything since 2007, but vocalist Hellbutcher has been busy and one of his latest projects is Necrocurse – a band that combines Nifelheim‘s black thrash, spikes ‘n’ satan visage with the current […]
It appears Finntroll have been out troll’d. With Finntroll becoming a bit less ‘trolly’ on their latest effort Blodsvept, dumping the fur and bones in favor of a steam-punk meets Pirate of the Caribbean visage and branching out into more symphonic, circus-ish and experimental realms and less polka/humpa inspired fun (though still a fine album), […]
Fans of murky, muddy, atonal death/black metal along the lines of Vasaeleth, Mithochondrion, Paroxsihzem, Ulcerate and Australian nasties like Impetuous Ritual and Portal, take note. Here is a duo from the depths if Philadelphia PA, that deliver that same churning, icky, sickly discordant noise and deliver it with an exclamation point. And that’s no surprise as the […]
You may recently have heard the name Ola Englund in death metal circles, as he is the guitarist on the latest Six Feet Under release, Unborn (but don’t hold that against him or Feared), but he has been messing around with other bands for a few years, mostly Feared which has been around since 2010 […]
It’s fitting that the second full-length offering from this mysterious Polish entity is named after a poisonous, hallucinatory plant and the band is named after a book from Lovecraftian mythos, because each night I listened to this release at night time, on head phones, it resulted in nightmares, unsettled sleep, and according to my wife, […]
I’ll get the big Mumakil out of the room right away. Yes, Utah’s Caladan Brood are heavily, and I mean heavily influenced by Summoning. Plodding but regal, majestic, and somber synth laden black metal with brittle guitars using fantasy literature as a backdrop (in this case Steve Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen series, […]
While a greased up Maurizio Iacono parades around in his pony tails, faux amour and recycles Kataklysm riffs under the guise of Ex Deo, Italy’s Ade have released their second album (I have not heard the band’s debut Prooemivm Sangvine) of truly Romanic inspired death metal, and it’s going to be one of the best death […]
While the upcoming Entrails and Revel In Flesh albums will undoubtedly be two of the years most hyped retro Swede-death metal releases, a couple of other bands will at least tide you over with their commendable efforts- the reformed Swedish act Sorcery and their dusty, thrashy Arrival at Six and the second effort, Godconstruct from […]
Brazil’s Nervochaos come charging out of the gates on their 5th album of old school , chunky death metal; “Mark of the Beast” thunders along with a killer death metal romp, as does second track track “Sheep Among Wolves”, and third track “Your World’s Trend”, where the pace starts to sound a bit too similar, […]
There’s was a nice little run on under the radar technical death metal to finish 2012 and start 2013; relatively new or obscure acts like Inanimate Existence, Devolved, Ophidian I, Scent of Death, and Nebulous aren’t household names in technical death metal, but if you are looking for some solid examples of the genre from […]
If you go and find the review I wrote for Thrawsunblat’s second opus Thrawsunblat II: Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings you will ascertain how enamored I was with the trio’s eloquent take on folky, misty black metal. A project that once involved Woods of Ypres’ David Gold, it has been kept alive by Joel Violette, who performed on the tragedy stricken Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light.
It would be easy to dismiss Thrawsunblat as a Woods of Ypres side project, but that would be a disservice to the folks involved, even if the spirit of Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold ( who tragically died in 2011) lingers austerely in the eves of Thrawsunblat‘s misty, cascadian hues. The band consists of […]
Despite hailing from Poland, Ulcer do not play ‘Polish’ styled death metal and simply ape Behemoth or Vader, instead choosing to ape another region- Stockholm. Yup- Ulcer is the latest (through they’ve been around since 2006 and have one album already under their belt) in the current old school Swedish death metal revival, and like […]
Spain isn’t exactly known for its burgeoning brutal/technical death metal scene (Wormed is the only one that immediately comes to mind), but neither is Greece and they gave us Sickening Horror, Scotland unleashed Scordatura earlier this year and Iceland gave us Ophidian I last year also. So here is veteran but hardly prolific act Scent […]
Back in 2010, the self-released debut from Australia’s Norse took me completely by surprise and ended up being on my year end list. It was a blistering, feverishly good example of black/death metal that was befitting the album name. Well the follow up was released late last year, but it only found its way into […]
I had pretty low expectations for this release; Victory Records, the cliched moniker, and names like Emmure dropped in the Victory records press releases. However, this Parisian metal outfit surprised me with a pretty solid release of modern djent-y metal that has a lot more depth and style than many of their hardcore based peers […]
As I have said a few times before, If you are going to send a self released 4 song EP for review (we get a lot of demos), you’d better be really good and stand out to get some coverage, and luckily for Virginia’s With Burning Contempt, their debut 4 song demo made it into […]
After toiling away in the Mid West death metal scene for over a decade and 5 albums, Chicago’s Jungle Rot released the best album of their consistent, if unspectacular career last year in Kill on Command. And even though it was an album released on their much maligned home town label, Victory Records, it was […]