With all the complexity and technicality being thrown around in death metal this year, the third full length album from Japan’s Coffins is a welcome relief of earthy, primal mid paced doom/death metal that will appeal to fans of Cianide, Runemagick and Autopsy. With a phlegmy, hacking, feedback drenched, down-tuned guitar tone plying simple oozing […]
So here is Umesh’s second release of droning, one man black metal for Moribund, and while still retaining the undulating, icky undercurrent of the claustrophobic Dagonite, Angel Eyes sees more of a focus on sickly doomy riffs rather than ambience or mood, and the result while certainly oozing with tentacled horror and dread, is at […]
After boldy claiming their Victory Records debut Goodbye to the Gallows was the ‘most brutal CD of 2007′, Emmure return with their more humble, yet equally devastating follow up. And while admittedly, most metal heads will turn up their nose at this group of cocked hat, short haired kids and their hoodies, but truth be […]
A few months ago, I reviewed the excellent debut full length album from Kansas City’s black metal act Lo-Ruhamah, entitled The Glory of God. The review was well received by the band and subsequently I have stayed in touch with the band and eventually an interview with another publication was set up. However, understandably, the […]
So last spring, Metal Blade cock teased me to no end by including a post card with “Coming in 2007-new Shai Hulud album!” on it, and I’ve pretty much had a boner for it ever since, as Shai Hulud is one of my favorite bands ever since their arguable involvement in developing the current modern […]
It’s a good thing I got the recent Day Without Dawn album around the same time I got the debut release from this Italian post rock band, because now I have something to compare At The Soundawn to; shimmering, delicate, acoustic heavy, artistic post rock. While more of a long EP (7 songs) than a […]
Much like Animosity when they released Shut it Down in 2003, or Decapitated’s Winds of Creation debut in 2000, California’s Fate is a group of very talented young teens plying thier chosen genre, in this case crumbly, growling death core laced with Between the Buried and Me-like arpeggios. Despite members barely out of high school […]
Repetition is the name of the game for Buffalo, NY’s Wrath of the Weak and their second album of bleak, dystopian and clinical one band basement black metal that’s as interesting as its cover art. Sole member ‘J’, while certainly having a grasp of the requisite atonality, atmospheres and tenets of the genre, simply does […]
As a child, one of the movies that left an indelible imprint on my psyche was 1978’s Watership Down. As a five year old I was too young to grasp the political, religious, social and possibly misogynistic undercurrent of the movie based on Richard Adam’s deeply engrossing literary works-I was too busy being horrified by […]
Continually overlooked in the doom scene yet consistently brilliant and evolving, Ireland’s Mourning Beloveth, have yet again improved from album to album. This time, the band has improved on the brilliant A Murderous Circus by adding even more classic doom flair to their already draining funeral doom lope. As with A Murderous Circus, Mourning Beloveth […]
The last album I heard from these Finnish doomsters was 2006’s The Return to Nothing and it was a solid if unspectacular slab of rending, Finnish death/doom, and Descend does not change the formula though it annoyingly flirts with brilliance amid its paint by numbers growling mope. The recipe is pretty simple for those that […]
I’ve been struggling with this review for a while now, first because it’s my first exposure to Virginia’s Arghoslent, and second, because of the obvious controversial themes and lyrics the band brings to the table. To skirt the band’s apparent racist and Anti Semitic views would feel like a cheap way out, and to focus […]
So I’m laying in bed in my pre-sleep haze with my Ipod on random. And after a few tracks of the expected deathcore, death metal and black metal, my Bose head phones are filled with some just stunning, sumptuous, ultra layered and shimmering post rock acoustics and delicate vocals. I check my Ipod discover the […]
Much like Bloodbath’s Resurrection Through Carnage in 2002, the debut from Hail of Bullets is an album forged by a group of death metal veterans plying a pure homage to classic death metal. Headed by vocalist Martin Van Drunen (Pestilence, Asphyx) and joined by guitarists Paul Baayans and Stephan Gebedi (Thanatos), bassist Theo van Eekelen […]
Hailing from the Netherlands, Heidevolk are Napalm’s latest folk metal darlings. Hot on the heels of the likes of Svartsot and Alestorm, Heidevolk might be the best of the bunch, and arguably the best folk metal album I have heard since Ásmegin’s Hin Vordende Sod & Sø. Apart from the expected gallop of Viking-tinged hymns […]
Swiss Straight edge hardcore act Cataract return with their fifth album of burly, chugging metallic hardcore that won’t really make much of an impact on the genre, but is a sturdy release none the less. However, as when the band changed things up from Martyr’s Melodies to With Triumph Comes Loss from melodic metalcore to […]
There is not much about modern contemporary modern hardcore that excites me any more, as I’m pretty much just holding my breath for the impending Killing The Dream release. Then along comes a slew of releases from the quiet of late Saw Her Ghost Records (Empires, Across Tundras, Beast in the Field), and included is […]
Genghis Tron are such a unclassifiable, hard to review act, that any attempt to give a reader an idea of the band’s sound just seems redundant lip service, but as it may, one of Relapse’s newer signings have released their sophomore album, and it deserves your ear despite my forthcoming clumsy attempt at describing it. […]
Yet again more turmoil precedes a Soilent Green release, this time an album that’s surrounded by post Hurricane Katrina tragedy (last album, Confrontation was released mere weeks before Katrina hit), deaths of former band members, and a label change from Relapse to Metal Blade. And that’s before the John Van Fleet artwork was revealed… Artwork aside, […]
Apparently, the sweep arpeggio is the new breakdown. Arguably thanks to Between the Buried and Me and since successfully cloned by the likes of The Human Abstract, All Shall Perish, Protest the Hero, Veil of Maya and With Passion, here comes the second wave of kids trying their hand and deathcore/hardcore/metalcore meets arpeggios. Whereas the recent […]
Returning with the creatively titled third album, III, Canada’s Cursed, as with the likes of Advent, Black Cobra, Protestant, Harlots and such, prove they are still one of the most feral and angry hardcore bands around, and are actually above and beyond the simple ‘hardcore’ tag as far as tangible, snarling, tumbling metal. The 11 sonic […]
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 […]