After a promising debut EP back in 2008, France’s Diluvian have unleashed their debut full length album, and while it continues the European melodic death metal meets deathcore stylings of their EP, its seems to lean a little more ion into deathcore realms. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Fans of polished, beefy modern […]
With a moniker like Offending and vocalist named “”Jesus the Butcher”, there’s no real surprise that France’s Offending play death metal. What’s surprising is that even with the above elements, Human Concept is a pretty solid death metal album. Much like label mates Fleshrot or Porkfarm, Offending aren’t doing anything new, but they are doing […]
So in a year that saw some truly excellent self-released efforts grace my year end list (Iron Thrones, Norse, Contaigeon, Shadow of the Colossus), and a last minute entry (Deathspell Omega’s Paracletus) along comes Italy’s Amia Venera Landscape and pulls a utterly unfathomable hail mary to nudge its way right onto my [yet unpublished, -ed.note] […]
Love it or hate it (which seems to be the general feeling around here) deathcore is here and here with a vengeance. A sure sign that the genre isn’t going anywhere? A band like Oceano is nestled neatly on Earache Records, one of the oldest and most respected labels and purveyors of “true’ metal. After releasing their debut, Depths in 2009, the band quickly rose to the top of the deathcore heap and with their latest release, Contagion dropping earlier this fall, they look to stay there despite a large line up shuffle. I caught up vocalist Adam Warren to delve deeper into Oceano….
I’ve been get a lot of CDs sent to me by truly independent bands – small but talented bands just wanting some press. Luckily it’s my and Teeth of the Divine’s pleasure to give some exposure to quality acts like At Dusk, Iron Thrones, Johan Wolfgang Pozoj, The Sequence of Prime, Karnak Seti, Ironwood and […]
As much of a fan of Faroese Viking metal act Tyr and frontman Henri Joensen that I am, I was excited to finally hear a CD/retail version of his side project, Heljareyga, which has been available digitally since February. With Tyr becoming a bit more streamlined and catchy on By the Light of the Northern […]
Originally self released back in 2009, the reissue of this Aussie trio’s second full-length CD comes to us thanks to the fine folks responsible for Diabolical Conquest ‘zine (so, whose up for Teeth of the Divine records?), and it does much the same their 2007 self-titled debut did: Old school, simple death metal with a […]
For me 2010 was where everything went far more digital and I’m not talking about just promotional CDs! Bands and labels started actually releasing their music digitally too: Shadow of the Colossus, Martolea, Origin of Darkness, We Are the Illusion, Demise of Gideon to name a few. All quality releases… but only available digitally. Adding […]
Listen, I get sent a lot of things in the mail from bands, labels and PR companies; stickers, CDs, shirts, candy and all that, but the main man behind Santa Cruz’s one man black metal act At Dusk, Korihor, has done a first. The cover art of his split CD-R with fellow Santa Cruz act […]
Nine albums into their rather underrated career and it’s safe to say that The Netherlands’ God Dethroned have entered into the metal elite inhabited by the likes of Bolt Thrower, Dismember, Obituary and such. No, not quite the genre defining metal royalty, but that small club of bands who have ascended into such a level […]
The debut from this Sydney Australia progressive folk-metal act was ambitious, but didn’t quite reach its potential. Fire:Water:Ash was a bit too wandering and unfocused for its own good. The maritime themed follow-up however, is an improved effort that sees the act fulfill the promise of the debut. Though hailing from Australia, the influences of […]
I’ve always been partial to promoting local (Missouri) bands, especially talented ones like O’Fallon’s black metal tribe Harkonin. Now fittingly signed to Australia’s Battlegod Productions, Harkonin have released the follow-up to 2006’s solid Ghanima, complete with topnotch artwork and packaging. The end result shows a more controlled and mature band, replete with more of an […]
Incantation is the new black. If mimicry is the highest form of flattery, Incantation have to be drowning in flattery considering the rather sudden rash of supposedly old school death metal acts that are plying a form of their trademark style. It’s a style I never cared for when Incantation played it 15 years ago […]
I’ll get right to it, after one full-length (2007’s The End of All You Know) and a couple of splits, California’s The Makai have somehow rendered one of the most brilliant pieces of music I’ve heard with Embracing the Shroud of a Blackened Sky. Now I know most regular readers of this site know that […]
Nuclear Blast has to be happy: The last couple of months have seen the label release new albums from Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir and now, Cradle of Filth. Three of black metal’s forefathers in the early ’90s, now grown and developed far beyond their roots into metal’s biggest acts ― regardless of what genre you lump […]
After ripping my face off with 2009’s Unconsecrated Australia’s The Red Shore return with a new label, a new vocalist and a new drummer ― yet none of those changes stop The Avarice of Man being as completely devastating as the band’s debut. Despite the fact the band will be lumped in with the current trend of […]
As much as I like Facedown/Strikefirst Records and their quality―consistent Christian metal―none of the 2010 releases have blown me away. Sure, the likes of Impending Doom, In the Midst of Lions, As Hell Retreats, Onward to Olympas, Letter to the Exiles and The Burial are all solid, but I have to go back to the […]
I really wanted to like this heavily promoted debut record from System Divide. And why not? It’s got Belgian metal stalwart Svencho De Caluwe (Aborted, In-Quest, Leng Tche) on vocals and he’s joined by his hotterthanheck wife Miri Millman (Orphaned Land) and former Abigail Williams guitarist Mike Wilson. The thing is, the band’s effort to […]
I really like what Russia’s SFC Records is doing; becoming the European/Eastern European equivalent of Unique Leader/Unmatched Brutality Records: Releasing a quality mix of brutal and technical death metal, that has good production values, good packaging littered with unreadable monikers like Cephalic Impurity, Human Parasite, Fetal Decay, Ruptured In Purulence and Leptotrichia. Not to mention […]
After reviewing and enjoying the debut album from Jaldaboath, I thought it might be entertaining to conduct an interview with Sir Jaldabaoth, the Grand Guitarist Inspector and Grand Sovereign Songwriter General of the self-proclaimed Hammering Heraldic Metal act (aka James Fogarty). Feeling that such issues as his split with The Meads of Asphodel, fellow British metal acts, cross cultural comedic boundaries and their current album Rise of the Heraldic Beasts warranted serious investigative journalism. Of course I should have expected that a knight responsible for crafting such songs as “Bash the Bishop” and “Axe Weilding Nuns” would not turn out to be a typical journalistic foray, and quickly descended into an uninformative but amusing episode of Black Adder…
After a critically acclaimed debut (2008’s …Of Frost and War), Dutch supergroup (members of Gorefest, Asphyx, Thanatos and Houwitser) left fans wanting after a strange digital only EP last year, but have now fully satiated fans with a full-length follow-up that continues the quality of the debut. Though still a war themed album, On Divine […]
If you are only recently getting into Amorphis and their somewhat resurgent last three albums, (Eclipse, Silent Waters and Skyforger), you must grab this 20th anniversary retrospective album, to see just how really fucking good Amorphis were on their first three albums. Coinciding with the recently released Forging the Land of a 1000 Lakes DVD/CD, […]
Austria’s Heathen Foray are a new act to me. Being relative newcomers to the Viking metal scene, but already they have released two quality albums: 2009’s Passage and their stellar new effort, Armored Bards. Like easy comparison Amon Amarth, Heathen Foray use the backbone of crunchy, melodic death metal and deeper vocals to deliver their Teutonic […]
As the intro “I” and a song called “Wounds, Bloodstains and Richochets” scrolled across my iPod and well produced, synth driven metalcore/melodic death metal thundered into my ears, I wondered to myself, “Wow, Bleeding Through have another album out already? Didn’t they release their self tilted album earlier this year?” Then I began to notice […]
As I expressed here, Woe’s debut album, A Spell for the Death of Man was one of the best USBM releases of the last few years. So I was curious how Chris Grigg (no longer known as Xos) would deliver a follow up now residing on a legendary black metal label and having a full […]