I’ve never really considered myself anything but a relatively casual fan of The Black Dahlia Murder, despite their rather large status in the realms of modern metal. With a sound that’s been cloned more times than Jenna Jameson has had cocks in her, their appeal loses even more luster as I blame them for the […]
As I’ve mentioned in other Dark Descent Records’ reviews, I really like the fact they are balancing out some awesome reissues (Uncanny, Utumno, etc.) with some new acts like Adversarial, Miasmal, Corpsessed, Gorephilia and Washington DC’s sickly heavy, crusty d-beat blackened doom act, Ilsa. While essentially lying in the same murky sludgy and heavy territory […]
I’ve been sitting on my review of this simply stunning double LP for a while now for a couple of reasons. First, it’s such a monolithic, emotionally draining and fantastic album that putting it into words is nigh impossible. Second, I just want to listen to and absorb this record over and over again and […]
Despite my relative familiarity with old school Swedish metal, old and new, as well as most of Rogga Johanssen’s many current and former Stockholm-styled projects (Paganizer, Ribspreader, Bone Gnawer, etc.) I actually had never heard of Revolting. It’s even more surprising that their newest effort was released on FDA Rekotz, the label responsible for my […]
Lost in all the controversy and arguing over the new Morbid Angel album is the fact that another legendary, godfather act of death metal also returned after a long hiatus in 2011. The difference is…these guys did it right. After two certifiably classic death metal albums in Severed Survival and Mental Funeral, Autopsy released two […]
A stalwart of the Chicago doom/death metal scene for over a decade, Novembers Doom raised some eyebrows with their last 2 albums; 2007s The Novella Reservoir and 2009s Into Nights Infernal Requiem. The band injected more pure and aggressive death metal into their melancholy laced sound, with surprisingly brutal results. However with their latest release, Aphotic, the band appears to have returned to their doomier, sadder and more tempered releases of their first 5 albums. So while casually Facebook chatting with Novembers Doom drummer and fellow metalreview.com writer Sasha Horn a full fledged interview sort of evolved. And here is the subsequent impromptu result….
Here’s a nice little surprise in the form of the second album from Chicago’s symphonic black metal act Withering Soul. With ties to one of first US acts plying the style competently, the underrated Veneficum, in keyboardist/guitarist Krystopher, Withering Soul’s sound has a distinct European tone that obviously culls from the likes of early Dimmu […]
Halo of Flies is having a pretty awesome run of LP releases over the last few months. Going back to last year’s The Makai and Protestant LPs, this year they’ve released the sublime debut of Light Bearer (ex Fall of Efrafa) and Northless’ follow up to 2010’s No Quarter for the Damaged CD/EP. As with […]
This has to be a late April’s Fools right? Or some sick practical joke and somewhere Trey Azagthoth and David Vincent are laughing it up, and will let us in on the joke, then release a proper album, right? Because if not, I’m going to be pissed, as are lots of other death metal fans. […]
So a member of (our) TOTD forum asked me if I could review this band–that has some friends of his in Japan–as they are excited for some possible international exposure. I agreed. Though, I admit to not expecting much, but I’ll do a favor for a longtime reader — even if the CD was released […]
Based on the cover art and album name, I was expecting some form of shitty deathcore, but I should have known better than that from Soulflesh Collector Records. Instead, what we have here is some very impressive Dying Fetus -styled (nay, worshiping — the moniker kind of gives it away I guess) slammy, downtuned death […]
Following up on 2010’s Ashes of Angels, former Antaeus vocalist MkM has returned to his Aosoth-project to deliver sermons of blackened fury. And while the last effort had slight tinges of Deathspell Omega/Blut Aus Nord styled discordance and atmospherics, with lengthier songs, more dissonant, harrowing and atonal hues, Aosoth appears to have morphed into a […]
“I See No God Up Here” claimed Yuri Gagarin during the first manned space flight, April 1961. The last really good, pure post-rock/shoegaze albums I heard were Rosetta’s last effort and the last EP by Mouth of the Architect. But in a matter of weeks I’ve heard three; Halo of Flies Records’ excellent LP duo […]
I’ve seen a fair bit of buzz on the old Internet about this Finnish band’s debut EP, and after finally grappling with its criminally short 23-minutes of hellish death metal — the hype is in deed worth it. One could argue that the oddly named Corpsessed are cut from the current cloth of better Incantation […]
There are those out there that think death metal is dying or dead. That the once proud genre has succumbed into a riffless, soulless, pro tool pandemic and become full of stagnant clones or simply fallen into pure homage and worship. For the record, I am not one of those people. However, if I were, […]
1. A noxious atmosphere or influence: “The family affection, the family expectations, seemed to permeate the atmosphere . . . like a coiling miasma” 2. a. A poisonous atmosphere formerly thought to rise from swamps and putrid matter and cause disease. b. A thick vaporous atmosphere or emanation Fucking perfect… Considering Dark Descent’s obsession with […]
When I got a CD in the mail, by a band called Monsterworks–whom I had never heard–I really had no idea what to expect. I was maybe expecting a new band doing some sort of new metal. Boy was I wrong. It turned out that Monsterworks is a UK/New Zealand collaboration that plays a form of experimental thrash/death/heavy […]
It’s a shame to see Von of Liturgy end his label/distro Epitomite Productions, though not a high end label, they released some solid stuff throughout the years, recently releasing decent CDs from the likes of Abacinate and Domination Through Impurity. However, there is a silver lining to every cloud and for me it’s the massive clearance sale that Epitomite Productions had, getting rid of their stock ate ridiculous prices, and while most of the good stuff went early I was able to pick up a couple of older CDs for $3 including Axamenta’s Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture and the as yet only released from Polish Death metal act Angerpath, 2007s Forgotten World.
I’ve not really been a huge fan of the current Incantation worship movement in US death metal. Partially because I was never an Incantation fan in the first place and secondly the current Swedish death metal worship movement is much more entertaining to me. However, the debut full length from Houston’s Blaspherian has got my […]
And I thought Journal‘s Unlorja was ambitious! Imagine if Kayo Dot, The Pax Cecilia, Orphaned Land, Unexpect , Between the Buried and Me and Opeth all got together and contributed their DNA to a new breed of experimental, musical genetics — the resultant zygote would be Ana Kefr. Meaning ‘I am Infidel’ in Arabic, California’s […]
It’s no real secret that I’m a huge fan of Between the Buried and Me. Since The Silent Circus, I’ve reviewed virtually everything they have released for this site or some other publication. I’ve interviewed and seen the band live three times and their album Alaska resides on my top 25 metal albums of all time — only one of a handful of albums released in the 2000s. And in what appears to be an annual occurrence, I happened to catch them in Lawrence, KS while touring with The Ocean and Job For a Cowboy. A tour, that’s promoting their jump from long time label Victory Records to Metal Blade and their current EP The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues — the first part of a planned two CD concept. So amidst Lawrence’s hordes of hipsters, tempting college lasses, apple chutney feta cheese burgers and drumming homeless dudes, I caught up with guitarist Paul Waggoner to find out more about the current release, the label switch and other guitar maestros…
To make this easy and let you decide whether to finish reading this review or not — I’ll lay it out right away: Alabama’s Gideon are essentially a typical Facedown Records band. They are Christian and they play metalcore. There. While not as impressive as label mates Your Memorial or the new Hope for the […]
Listen- this is my first exposure to Woods of Ypres, so this review isn’t going to go into the bands apparent shift from respected black metal into whatever they are being called now (Hippys, posers, sell outs, etc). What I am going to get into is how this Earache re-release of the bands 2009 fourth […]
I can’t say I had super high hopes for the debut CD from Serbia’s Bane; nondescript moniker, clichéd logo, artwork and album title, etc. But when I dove into the album I was actually greeted with some very competent and confident melodic black/death metal. There’s nothing original to be seen here at all here. Solid […]
For over four years now, Jackie Perez Gratz has declined my romantic overtures and while her restraining order against me prevents physical contact within 100ft, I’m still allowed to review her band’s albums. I’m kidding. It’s 200 ft. So here is album number three from vocalist/cellist Gratz and her two compadres Zach Farewell (drums) and […]