The last release from this Colorado black metal duo, War Metal, was a fairly standard, and for Profound Lore average release of blackened, well….war metal. However with the follow up, Eater of Birds, Cobalt have made a Nachtmystium like transition from generic grim black metal to expansive, challenging, ambient and elite black metal and once […]
After being impressed by this Canadian black metal act’s live offering, Imperial Collapse, I was curious to hear their studio output by way of their second album (even though the band has been around for over a decade) of symphonic melodic black metal/death metal, and while hardly bringing anything new to the genre, there is […]
Please god, make him stop. Not content with releasing 36 albums in 123 days from Italy’s one man mope fest Fear Of Eternity (aka Andrea Tilenni of Sinoath), now we get a re-issue of the 2001 demo that somehow got the man a 345 album deal with Moribund Cult. Ye gods. How a quality label […]
Ugh. Arguably one Century Media’s worst releases in a flurry of questionable recent releases, California six piece, Arsonists Get All The Girls ply a form of keyboard laden, spazzy, squeally, grindy, growly, blasting pseudo grind/deathcore that is simply directed at Hot Topic kids and kids in general. With the underlying ‘metal’ being along the lines […]
I want to hate Sheffield’s Bring Me The Horizon so bad it hurts. I want to hate them because of their awful emo, teenage looks and comb-overs. I want to hate them because they sell girly T’s on their website. I want to hate them because of their cryptic non metal album cover. I want […]
And so the template laid down by Between the Buried and Me gets aped again; chaotic metalcore/tech metal, ambitious, proggy injections, quirky off kilter song structures, soaring arpeggios, etc.. Then throw in some Horse the Band 8 bit styled video game programming and you have Maine’s Last Chance to Reason and their forgetful debut. Though […]
If I told you that Darkest Hour’s Deliver Us would be the second best thrash/metalcore record that Victory would release in 2007, you would have called me crazy, but if you actually give the Victory debut from Nodes of Ranvier an open minded listen , you might not think I was so crazy after all. […]
Here’s two separate EP’s preparing the hardcore/metalcore world for the band’s Lifeforce Records debut, Decisions that will be released later this year. Munich Angst is a re-release of the bands 2006 MCD and Munich Valor is an EP of 6 newer tracks and neither gets me too excited for the forthcoming album. Plying a form […]
Wow, In This Moment didn’t mess around getting their second album out on Century Media. Their form of female fronted KSE styled metalcore core meets Evanescence must have moved a few units for this quick of a turn around. Except this bio here sheet says ….they are now from Canada and erm…..the singer, who is […]
We all know that France has been responsible for some of the more extreme black metal, but what about the nicer side of things? Not black metal or even white or grey metal, lets call it ‘green’ metal. Plying a sprightly, uplifting form of acoustic heavy, folkish metal that seems to cull from the likes […]
True story: So I recently went through a Stormlord revival phase and while listening to the bands superb Supreme Art Of War I was messages on myspace by the owner of Canada’s Northern Storm Records, asking if I would mind reviewing the label’s first effort, the self titled debut from Toronto’s Will of The Ancients. […]
Personally, I never really had Malevolent Creation ranked as one of death metal’s Floridian elite. Even with the four album run of The Ten Commandments, Retribution, Stillborn and Eternal, the band never seemed to hit me with the legendary status of say Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide and Obituary, as they were more of a quality, […]
While Kenose was only my first introduction to Deathspell Omega, it had me hooked instantly and solidified the band into blacks metal’s elite after Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, the album that saw this French band progress and evolve from standard black metal to their current, labyrinthine, deformed, and twisted take on black metal. As Good […]
So recently, as if to beat The Black Dahlia Murder to the punch before the release of Nocturnal, I’ve received a slew of surprisingly good ‘Swedecore’ bands; (Woe of Tyrants, Sons Of Azrael, From the Shallows, Bring Me The Horizon, etc) all plying a heavier handed, more death and black metal based form of At […]
While being interestingly named, Hungary’s Vorkuta (named after a city where a major Gulag labor camp was based during Stalin’s years and where thousands of political prisoners died or disappeared) is still a relatively average, crawling, ambient black metal band with a few bursts of Norwegian frost. One atmospheric intro, followed by six lengthy songs […]
Much like country and label mates Stigmatized, Germany’s Symbiontic are a Death worshipping band plying a form of old school death metal, but with a heavy Testimonies era Pestilence feel as heard on this re-issue of their self released 2002 debut. Stylistically Symbiontic and Stigmatized are virtually the same except Symbiontic have a more guttural/layered […]
Germany’s Stigmatized REALLY like their rather influential luminaries Morgoth, especially vocalist Michael Lay, who apes Marc Grewe to a T. So then expect a lot of mid era Death influenced death metal as well as some Asyphx, Pestilence and early Floridian influences (namely Obituary) in their debut record, a re-release of their 2006 released effort […]
Here a re-release of this Dutch band’s self released 2005 debut and will appeal to fans of Opeth, Amorphis, Novembers Doom, Rapture, Insomnium (The Finnish doom/death scene as a whole), that’s to say progressive, doomy death metal, and Another Messiah throw in frequent Oboe use to boot. Though the Oboe could be construed as a […]
With a few rare exceptions, Profound Lore generally pushes the extremes of whatever genre they release and deliver superb examples of anything they touch (Profundi, Wold, The Angelic Process, Alcest, Asunder, Cobalt, Nadja). And while, not ‘extreme’ per say, Amber Asylum’s fifth album, pushes the limits and boundaries of the neo-goth/classical genre with a simply […]
One only need look at the cover and the label affiliation to determine the style of music Italy’s Apostolum ply; dark, depressive, doomy, black metal. Unfortunately though, it’s not very good, not Fear of Eternity bad, but certainly not up to Moribund’s usual high standards. This introductory 5 track EP consists of the expected atmospheric […]
The Anja Offensive is turning into a heavy hitter in the black metal genre. With stellar releases by Antaeus, Secrets of the Moon, Watain, Katharsis and the amazing new Deathspell Omega, but with De Contemplanda Morte, there seems to be a drop off from the label’s brilliance. Two piece Mortuus consists of M. Hinze from […]
Despite containing members of the excellent Merrimack and Obscurus Advocam, French black metallers Glorior Belli are not quite in the French Elite, and actually share a sound more akin to Sweden’s Watain in that they play surprisingly restrained, straight forward, slightly repetitive but finely crafted black metal. Even with crawling opener “From Darkness There Springs […]
Tholus are an interesting band. Formed by drummer Dave Murray (Sculptured, Estradasphere) and some other relatively minor folks and friends as well as the involvement of Mars/NASA conspiracy theorist Richard Hogland (author of Monuments of Mars), they play a form of cosmic, celestial, mars based technical death metal rooted in Cynic, Disincarnate, Theory In Practice […]
Here’s an impressive slab of darkly sludgy, doomy, belligerent atonal hardcore adorned with some neat Tom Denny artwork (Mastodon, Yakuza, Soilent Green, Rwake, Kylesa). While The Dead See shares artwork with the above named bands, they are not too drastically different from those artists either. While most doomy hardcore is simply hardcore at its base […]
Old logo? Yup. Old Seagrave-ish cover? Yup. A pissed off LG Petrov? Yup. Blastbeats? Yup. ‘That” guitar tone? Yup. A complete return to form?… Almost. Truth is a much as I revere Entombed’s classic first two albums and have yet to really appreciate the much lauded Wolverine Blues, I really haven’t paid Entombed that much […]