I’ll be the first to admit that none of My Dying Bride’s post As the Flower Withers albums haven’t really done much for me. First, mainly because have always found Aaron Stainthorpe’s clean croon insufferably whiny. There, I said it. Secondly, 34.788% Complete just ruined the band’s legacy for me. Even with the band’s sort […]
Although St. Louis, Missouri hardly has a thriving metal scene, it does have a handful of dedicated and consistent metal bands that always seem to surface when a national tour comes through. Such is the case when I covered a recent Dismember/Vital Remains/Grave/Withered show at the Creepy Crawl where one of the opening acts and […]
The acclaimed debut from this German three man act, Back to Times of Splendor, was my top album of 2004, and I was not alone in my praise for an album that took melodic death metal and made it exiting, progressive and challenging. However, as the release of the follow up Gloria grew nearer, I […]
First, after re-listening to The Codex Necro in preparation for this review, there is no doubt in my mind that the debut album from this British duo was and is one of the most extreme releases ever and arguably the most important extreme record to come out of the UK since Scum. That being said, the […]
Well folks, they have done it. One of my favorite bands has finally forced me to write the review that metal fans and COF detractors have been waiting for. While, there’s no question these arguably influential British shock rockers have been shedding the black metal guise of their fat Nick Barker, top hat wearing, precocious […]
I was very curiouss to see how these depressed Finns would top Since The Day It All Came Down, on of the very best album of 2004, but as it turns out not only is Above The Weeping World a crowning achievement for Candlelight in an already stellar year, it’s the band’s finest hour and […]
Holy fucking shit fuck. I know most of you will switch or click off the moment I mention ‘core to start a review, but I swear to you this is some of the best aggro/tech/math/grind core I’ve heard. If you’ve recently been jamming Deadwater Drowning, Animosity, The Glass Casket and The Red Chord, this shit […]
fter plying her sultry tones in Cradle of Filth, Therion, Covenant, Mortiis and others, Sara Jezebel Deva goes head to head with former Without Face singer Jule Kiss (To-Mera) as ‘famous chick singer from another band now in her own band’, and both have pretty good results.Far more contemporary and orchestral than the more ‘proggy’ […]
I’ll make no secret of it, I happen to think Amon Amarth have been treading water for the last few albums, and frankly I have not ‘really’ enjoyed an album from these Norse death metal warriors since Once Sent From the Golden Hall. However, with album number six (and a more simple cover more akin […]
What are you expecting from a band discovered and signed by As I Lay Dying’s vocalist Tim Lambesis and subsequently signed to Metal Blade? Satanic, primal black metal? Political grindcore? Nope, this is decent quality Christian metalcore, and it comes dangerously close to being as good as if not better than As I Lay Dying’s […]
First off, I’d like to warn and apologize to Digitalmetal readers about the impending influx of contemporary hardcore/punk reviews about to inundate the site. It is fall after all. Second I’d like to tell Digitalmetal readers about the best of the bunch of this aforementioned contemporary hardcore/punk I’ve received in the mail in the from […]
Yet more sludgy, earthy, rectum splitting noise to add to my stack of Lair of the Minotaur, Ultralord, Black Cobra, Starkweather and Desolate Void. Honestly, I think I’m losing my hearing, and TAIS is partly responsible as listening to this album repeatedly made me kind of feel like that first torture victim in the movie […]
I’ve always thought there was something pretentious and lazy about self titled albums. A self titled alum smacks of either “This album is so good we don’t need to put any thought into what it is called” or “This album is so bad we couldn’t be bothered to name it”. Luckily, Suffocation’s much anticipated 5th […]
Many, many year before they turned into rock stars, I saw Korn in concert to support their debut album. The opening act was this wretched electro-nu-metal, programmed pile of puke called Cradle of Thorns. Upon listening to the god awful Anticore I briefly thought I was listening to the same band. This album only further […]
Of all the big metalcore releases this year, the sophomore album from Misery Signals was arguably my most anticipated, however with the superb, similarly styled debut from Rosesdead basically stealing some of this bands thunder, I was wondering how Mirrors would stack up in the melodic, layered and emotional metalcore sweepstakes. It stacks up just […]
Finally a re-issue from Paragon Records that’s a worthwhile release (sorry, the Rigor Sardonicus and Black Crucifixion releases didn’t cut it for me). Originally released in 1998 on Mascot Records, this Latvian pagan metal gem is arguably, along with the more infamous Nokturnal Mortum, the godfather of Eastern Europe’s Pagan metal movement that took some […]
If you, like me, wish that Protest the Hero’s excellent Kezia was a little harsher (especially vocally) and less emo or that Between the Buried and Me’s Alaska had even more sweeping arpeggios and less chaos, the fine debut from LA’s The Human Abstract should be right up your alley. Right now I’ll tell you, […]
Here is album number two from French tech deathsters Gorod (formerly known as Gorgasm) and in a year that has seen such tech death metal luminaries as Decapitated, Gory Blister, Spawn of Possession, Psycroptic and Anata deliver arguably their finest efforts, Gorod enter the fray with their own equally exceptional offering to the genre.Though they […]
Is it bad that I want to see who would win in a fight/make out session between Walls of Jericho’s Candace Kucsulain and Bloodlined Calligraphy’s Ally French? Anyways, arguably Kucsulain is one of the most venomous female mouths in modern metal and it appears that the band, with their third album, is on par with […]
I’m not sure if there is a more perfect marriage of label and band than The End Records re-recording and releasing Giant Squid’s 4 year old debut record. Though certainly falling under the doom/sludge/ambient umbrella of the likes of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican and Mogwai, as you’d expect from a band on The End, Giant Squid […]
Like Deathcore with a hint of melody? Dig bruising breakdowns? Enjoy Through the Eyes of the Dead, Job For Cowboy, All Shall Perish, Antagony, The Classic Struggle, Embrace the End, Winds of Plague and Iscariot? Get this CD. I could leave my review at that and honestly feel that the correct audience is indeed going […]
It’s become increasingly apparent to me that the tech-core, discordant metalcore movement seems to be entering a second generation of sorts. While the first generation thrived on pure Dillinger/Converge discord and angular complexity, this second generation, taking more than a nod from Between the Buried and Me, is more willing to experiment and evolve their […]
I don’t think I need to rehash the history of Deicide here, but the short version is pretty much; great- (Deicide, Legion), suck -(Once Upon the Cross, Serpents of the Light, Insineratehymn, In Torment in Hell) and back to form -(Scars of the Crucifix). Then you have this years very public and very nasty split […]
Here is a very competent, visceral and exceedingly tight death/black metal record, but what would you expect from a band featuring drummer Dallas Toler Wade (who plays guitar in Nile) and bassist Mike Poggione (Monstrosity)?That being said, credit should not be taken from the other members (guitarists Christian Lofgren and Chris Hollis and vocalist Hohenstein) […]
Apparently seeing enough in this California Deathcore act to re-issue their Amputated Vein debut Hate. Malice. Revenge, Nuclear Blast must have known they were on to something special. They most certainly were, as I can safely say, The Price of Existence is a massive improvement from breakdown heavy singularity of the solid the debut, and […]