Despite hailing from Chile, hardly the black metal capital of the world, Animus Mortis have some experience with members all being or have been in obscure acts such as The Last Knell, Hetroertzen, Oculus, Ruined Sanctuary, Leuku, Nefastus Abbatia, Wildes Heer, Gorjeo Seglar, Hominis Nocturna, and it shows on the proper debut ‘on loan’ (licensed) […]

Originally released in 2006 on JCM records (RIP), Metal Blade apparently saw enough in this Minnesota band’s second effort to send the band back to studio to re-mix and re-master (and add two tracks and new cover art) to the follow-up to 2003’s promising but flawed effort, V.II R.VI. With considerable line-up changes, Epicurean appear […]

Recently, Napalm Records started using voiceovers on their promotional CDs. Granted, voiceovers are not quite the full on FUCK YOU METAL MEDIA!!! that digital downloads are, but it’s certainly a tip of a finger gently circling around the rim of my anus. Listen labels, I guarantee (and this isn’t directed at just Napalm Records), screwing around with your promotional […]

So, three years after the caustic Converge-meets-Isis worship of Luce, Italy’s The Secret return with yet another well-done, brittle and calamitous slab of noise — with a thin post-rock visage. And while the genre has certainly seen its fair share of Converge wannabes over the last few years, The Secret are by far one of […]

With most recent deathcore simply obsessed with showing me how heavy and broodle they are (Annotations of An Autopsy, Emmure, Embrace The End, I Declare War, etc) a few bands such as Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, Fate and Atlanta’s A Thousand Times Repent are trying to engage in a little more than a […]

So here is a limited edition (500 copies) 7″ vinyl spilt with new songs from Grayceon (“The West”) and Giant Squid (“Sutter’s Fort”). Both bands are arguably two of the better avant-garde, post-rock bands around, with both acts featuring the vocals of Jackie Perez Gratz (Amber Asylum) and her cello amid the dramatic, fluid, evocative […]

Open Grave Records is pleased to make Sweden-based band TRITON ENIGMA debut album, “Black Lies“, available for streaming in its entirety. “Black Lies” was released this past Tuesday world-wide via Open Grave.TRITON ENIGMA was formed in 2005 as a side project for Ronnie Bergerståhl (WORLD BELOW, DEMONICAL, ex-JULIE LAUGHS NOMORE, CENTINEX, AMARAN, GRAVE), Thomas Nilsson […]

Über fucking metal album title. Über fucking metal album cover art. Über fucking metal song titles and lyrics. Über fucking metal inlay art. Über fucking metal video. Lair of the Minotaur are just Über fucking metal. Period. Now on their third full length album, Chicago’s Lair of the Minotaur have been steadily improving and honing […]

So Colosseum is from Finland, reside on Firebox/Firedoom, and play funeral doom metal — do you really need to know more? Painfully slow, lethargic melancholy delivered with crushing guitars, deep bellows, layered despondent harmonies and flocked with synths, Colosseum are the archetype of Finnish doom as played by likes of country/label mates Depressed Mode, My […]

Over the years, I’ve had a few thank you emails from bands for a review or interview, but when I reviewed the debut album from Pennsylvania’s Serious Grind here, and subsequently interviewed them for another publication, main man Josh Ebel thanked me gratuitously and we stayed in fairly regular contact. He seemed one of the […]

I’m sure this release is more in the realms of fellow scribe Grimulfr, however, in an attempt to broaden my black metal horizons, I made myself listen to and review the debut from this German spike and corpse paint clad trio. There’s nothing remotely original going on here, but it is spitefully done and typically […]

There’s not too many high-quality, new, young death or black metal acts coming out of the UK right now. Sarpanitum and Scythian are the only ones that immediately come to mind. However, after Spearhead’s 2005 primal but forgetful debut, Deathless Steel Command, the Brits have returned with a superior follow-up (subtitled The Doctrine of Imperial […]

While certainly death metal in 2008 is on the upswing with releases by Brain Drill, Decrepit Birth, and Hate Eternal, the fact is death metal is still just death metal. However, Origin, after four albums of complex yet relatively singular and forgetful speed, have now fully embraced and developed songwriting chops hinted ever-so-slightly on 2006’s […]

Well, based on this, (sorry labels, I don’t do digitally released reviews) enjoy possibly the last review of a Victory release on this site. Luckily, it’s is a damn fine surprise. With a new line-up, gone are the gimmicks like songs named after Tom Cruise movies, fairy tales, suits and sense of humor. Instead, fronted […]

So often words like “atmospheric,” “progressive,” and “experimental” get thrown around in extreme metal. It seems like if you add any sort of tangents, acoustics, clean vocal or such you get lumped in with the “progressive” crowd — ask Opeth. But what was the last really experimental but ‘real’ death metal album you heard? An […]

Italy, while certainly a player in the metal genre, isn’t really known for its deathcore/metalcore/melodic death metal (Nail Within and Slowmotion Apocalypse immediately come to mind), so I really wasn’t really looking forward to reviewing the debut from Mondovi’s Stigma. Even more so when I discovered the album is also centered around horror movies and […]

After a couple of releases on Indianola Records, Tennessee’s Across Five Aprils made the expected jump to Victory Records, where their metalcore/hardcore meets post-rock meets emo hues, fit perfectly into the Victory-core style of music so popular with the kids today. You’ve heard this formula thousand times before, and while not quite as sugary as […]

Much like The Devil Wears Prada, Farewell To Freeway suffers greatly from the whole decent metalcore ruined by utterly sniveling, wimpy clean vocals syndrome… Musically, the band has a decent mix of catchy, commercial heavy/clean Killswitch Engage styled metalcore mixed with a dash of Misery Signal-ish layering and harmony. There are some decent riffs and […]

Arising from the ashes of Thorr’s Hammer, Burning Witch is known for being one of the forefathers of extreme doom metal, and featured two of the genres current luminaries in Steven O Malley and Greg Anderson who have served/currently serve in acts such as Sunn O))), Teeth of the Lions Rule The Divine, Khanate, and […]

As recently discussed here, I recently attended a Protest the Hero concert, and thought what better way to open the interview section of this new internet endeavor than to interview one of the most polarizing bands in metal today. And find out a little more about these Canadian kids (literally, they are all just 22-years […]

For a moment I thought this was called We Are the Grim ‘Thong’, and I had some really odd visualizations going through my head, but I digress… Exalted are a USBM act hailing from Chicago and they are eschewing the popular US obsessed, one man mope-fest style of black metal, and instead going for a […]

The White EP is the follow up to 2004’s The Grey EP, (which I never heard) and consists of 7 more acoustic, ambient and instrumental tracks from the leading purveyors of ‘grey metal’. Composed from 2004 to 2007, this limited edition EP is a good place for this batch of material as it’s hardly recognizable […]

So, this week I attended a Protest the Hero show in Columbia, MO. Now granted, I knew going in, that because the opening act was Chiodos that there would be a fair amount of emo fans attending the show. What I was not ready for was the sheer number of androgynous, asexual, identically-clad hermaphrodites that […]

The purpose of this blog is threefold; first to test this feature and make sure it works. Second to display my amazing wit and writing skills, and more importantly, third, to tell you about a website I found for all you displaced cd-tracker.com users.

Arguably the most hyped folk metal band of recent memory, Switzerland’s Eluveitie, to coincide with the upcoming Paganfest tour have released their second full-length album on Nuclear Blast and while an entertaining album, Heidevolk’s upcoming Walhalla Wacht is a far superior release as is most of Napalm’s ‘real’ folk bands. The problem is, despite the […]