So here is the second release on Leon Macy’s (Mithras) new label, and it’s an altogether different release than the excellent Sarpanitum album. Sepia Dreamer is an atmospheric two piece instrumental outfit consisting of Welshman Sam Brokenshaw and a Swede, Jonas Wrennige. The music isn’t your usual instrumental affair (i.e. just metal without vocals), but […]

“Dear Profound Lore Records, Please submit $1256.56 to my bank account for the purchase of new speakers and stereo system as well as several visits to the ear doctor due to playing the new album from Georgia’s The Angelic Process. You see, after hardly being able to hear the opening strands of Weighing Souls With […]

So I suddenly find myself innundated with a plethora of deathcore releases by bands like Misericordiam, The Partisan Turbine, Rose Funeral, Whitechapel, Suicide Silence, Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky and many others, yet the most low profile, yet surprisingly competent is this self titled debut EP from Ontario’s Dear Black Diary. Though hardly […]

There are albums, that no matter how many times you listen to them, you just can’t get your head around them. Ironically, a lot of them have come out on The End Records, and in the case of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s In Glorious Times, no amount of mind altering substances will ease the process of […]

As far as Christian metalcore is concerned, with 2006’s Pride of the Wicked, Pennsylvania’s War of Ages elevated themselves into the same realm as As I Lay Dying after a pretty ho hum self titled debut in 2005. Well, they must also have felt the same about the debut as here it is again, rerecorded […]

So in my recent discovering of all things black metal, one band that kept coming up as a band I had to hear was Sweden’s Watain. Lo and behold, Sworn to the Dark shows up in my mailbox and I play it expecting a nasty, evil and malevolent tide of blackened blasphemy. Instead what I […]

Though an ambitious debut from these Utah youngsters, there’s is just too much popular music scene culture colliding all at once. Although rooted in the post rock tones of Isis, IATO also throw in some progressive, angular rock a la modern Dillinger and The Deftones as well as some emo/screamo quirkiness for good, kid appealing […]

This is going to be interesting…. After two lauded releases of visceral, chaotic and brilliant tech-metal, Canada’s Ion Dissonance, with new, more hardcore sounding singer Kevin McCaughey at the helm, appear to have made a slight tweak to their sound, and one I actually prefer, though most may be a bit on the fence. With […]

There was a time when a new Finntroll release would have had my spewing troll semen all over myself in a gushing review about 45 seconds after the release date. So why then has it taken my so long to review the 5th album from a bad that has arguably been one of my top […]

While I enjoy the far more fruity elements of traditional Viking metal such as beer hall wocals and chants and galloping synths and such, I wish a few more bands plied a slightly darker, more brutal visage of Viking metal. Enter New Jersey’s Helcaraxë. Named after the huge wastes of grinding ice from J.R.R. Tolkien’s […]

I’m sure these re-issues, which are now apparently available for the first time domestically in the US are no big deal to 95% of black metal fans seeing as most die hard fans no doubt already own Marduk’s first four albums. However, for black metal noobs like me whose first exposure to Marduk wasn’t until […]

At least I don’t feel quite as guilty stating this album’s rather predictable take on female fronted Goth metal as I did with Elis and the tragic death of their front woman, Sabine Dünser. As with virtually all of Napalm’s Goth metal roster, you pretty much know what you are getting; operatic female vocals layering […]

When greeted with the artwork of Vintersorg’s sixth album, Solens Rötter, I hoped Vintersorg (AKA Andreas Hedlund) and Co had returned to their folk/pagan roots after three albums of more cosmic, philosophical and to me downright disappointing material. Well, apparently Hedlund’s time in Borknagar has rubbed off, as Solens Rötter (roughly meaning ‘origin of the […]

Despite the Pantera based album title, Canada’s Senate actually deliver one of the more solid self released efforts heard that’s up there with the likes of The Fifth Sun, Martriden, and Empyrean Eclipse as far as well put together, well packaged and well played self released efforts. Armed with a Tue Madsen mastering job, as […]

After a debut EP (which was subsequently re-issued shortly thereafter), here is the debut full length from Boston hardcore outfit, Death Before Dishonor and while not really delivering anything new to the genre, the more classic East Coast approach replaces the burly, more Hatebreed-ish sounds of the EP. With more of an emphasis on punky […]

After the more earthy debut, Forever Advancing…..Legions, the follow up, Worlds Beyond the Veil, cemented Mithras as an upcoming English death metal act that might be the new hope for the Uk’s extreme metal scene, and now with Behind the Shadows Lie Madness, the band appears ready to join death metal’s elite. Continuing the ethereal, […]

Is it really the tenth album from Gary Meskill and co.? Truth be told except for the debut, 1992’s Foul Taste of Freedom, I couldn’t recall any of the bands other 9 forgetful but blue collar albums, but only recently armed with the knowledge that Built Upon Frustation’s Eric Klingler has played guitars for Pro-Pain […]

I could be forgiven for almost summing up Vital Remains’ new album as Dechristianize part 2. I mean, dramatic intro (painful sample from “The Passion of the Christ”) followed by Glen Benton bellowing “WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?” as opposed to “LET THE KILLING BEGIN”, then a lengthy 8 minute track consisting of a furious […]

After the stunning debut from these Finnish melodeath upstarts, Spirits And August Light, the ceiling was supposed to be limitless for this young act who breathed life into a then dying genre. However, the follow up, Years In Waste was a letdown and many though maybe Omnium Gatherum were a one hit wonder. Well, finally […]

I’m not a huge fan of live material, with maybe Iron Maiden’s Live After Death and a few Manowar CDs and DVD’s in my collection that are live stuff, that being said, I’m very impressed with this live CD and separate DVD from Canada’s symphonic, melodic black metal act Blinded By Faith. With only and […]

While most see Canada as the epoch of complex, technical metal, Quebec’s Sordid make no qualms about being a more simplistic yet well done homage to the likes of Dying Fetus, Internal Bleeding, Misery Index , Dying Fetus, Despondency, Dehumanized, oh and did I mention Dying Fetus? The NYDM sound is rife within Sordid’s groove […]

Way back in my metal reviewing youth, I reviewed an album on Cold Blood Industries by a Dutch band called I.N.R.I ( aka Insane Non-Commercialized Rock Institute), called Hyper Bastard Breed -and boy was it ever a scorcher; a simply killer blend of high octane thrash and death metal done absolutely perfectly. Well, that album […]

Though not a six year hiatus like the wait between their debut and follow up the excellent Condemned to Suffer, the three year wait for the All Out War’s third album is over, and the line-up issues that seem to cause the band’s less than prolific offering, seems to have been settled with much of […]

Here’s a decent debut of experimental, industrial, post black metal from a young Dutch band that should appeal to the likes of Dodheimsgard, VEGA and Aboryrm . While the mix of mechanical, Fear Factory styled atmospherics, dark ambient soundscapes, sampling and blistering yet adventurous black metal is a hard balance to find, CHD manage to […]

In my recent quest to expand my ambient, bleak, depressive black metal horizons, I’ve been pretty much lapping up everything I can find in the sordid underbelly of the genre and it’s turned up a lot of great music like Leviathan, Draugar, Blood of The Black Owl, The Ruins of Beverast, Bergraven, Shining and such. […]