I grabbed this 5 song EP for review for 1 simple fact; Jon Huber. The former vocalist of I Declare War, Pathology, and I Detest ( as well as live vocals for Whitechapel back on the day), has been one of my favorite vocalists for a while now since I heard his blast furnace of […]

Symphonic or blackened deathcore blew the fuck up in 2021. Though it was certainly a thing before 2020, After the success of Lorna Shore‘s Immortal in 2020, the genre simply exploded with already established and new bands like Mental Cruelty, Shadow of Intent, Sin Deliverance, Dead World Reclamation,  Darker By Design, Carnifex, Assemble the Chariots, […]

Brian Eckermann is a prolific solo artist from San Antonio, Texas who has also served in other local obscure Texas bands like Scars of the Flesh, Winters Plague, and Wings of Abaddon.  Plague Bringers is his eighth solo album and a direct follow-up to 2018s Winters Plague (The Final Eclipse), telling the story of an […]

Here’s an interesting one from FDA records. Released a bit before the latest Ophis album, Spew Forth Odium, earlier last autumn, The Tragedy is the third album from this Finnish doom act whom I have never heard and frankly had very little expectations for. The logo, the band/album name, the fact there are hardly any […]

Along with Abscession’s Rot of Ages, the best Swedish-styled HM 2 album I heard last year was the second effort from Italy’s Organic. The follow-up to 2019s solid debut Carved in Flesh, delivers everything a sophomore album should; improving on a fine debut with improved songwriting and confidence delivered a tried tested, and popular sound […]

‘And in the category for 2021s most unreadable logo the nominees are……. Vomit Spell..’ So what do we have in the sea of red and sinewy and blood contained in the NecroFrsot artwork here? The debut from a new German grindcore quartet, that’s what. And while Germany isn’t a renowned hotbed of Grindcore (Japanische Kampfhörspiele […]

In the rather full realm of Bolt Thrower worship, plenty of bands and staked a claim on the mantle left by the departed British warmongers; Hail of Bullets, Humiliation, Frozen Soul, Decaying, Creeping Flesh, Chainsword just to name a few, but you could argue the top two current Bolt Thrower homage bands are of course, […]

Up until 2017s The aptly named The Dismal Circle, I was unfamiliar with Germany’s death-doom veterans Ophis (‘snake’), but that album was a solid effort with some suitably crumbling, hefty death/doom that had strains of classic Morgion engrained in the moping lumbers. And that has continued for album number 5, and is possibly even a […]

Canada’s one-man project Haiduk (a term for Balkan freedom fighters) came out of the gate like barnstormers back 2021 with Spellbook, a pretty blistering black/death/thrash combo that had a lot of energy and influences from Dew-Scented Hypocrisy and even Dissection. However, the follow-up, 2015s Demonicon, with an increasing mechanical/programmed tone (especially the drums), came across […]

“What does music mean to you? I don’t know. But it’s full of emotion It’s not happy. No. It’s not happy”- from “Eternal Unrest”. Crikey. so I thought Christian Consentino was the only solo artist from Australia making epic, classically inspired, symphonic progressive black metal. Well, apparently there is another one who has been around a […]

“Good Things Come to Those Who Wait” – Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie. I’m not sure there is a more apt proverb than the above one when it comes to Dessiderium, (loosely meaning ‘an ardent desire or longing for something lost’), the solo project from Alex Haddad, also the guitarist/vocalist for tech-death metallers Arkaik. Both for […]

I’ve enjoyed Tacoma Washington’s Alda for a few albums now, particularly 2011s :Tahoma: and 2015s Passage, their last effort, on a match made in heaven label, Bindrune Recordings. But after 6 years of silence, and a split from Bindrune, I wasn’t sure where the band was at, considering some of their peers (Panopticon, Falls of […]

Here s a pleasant little surprise in what’s been a pretty dry run of folk/Viking /pagan metal over the last couple of years, as only Blodiga Skald’s 2020 effort, The Undrunken Curse got me remotely excited for that genre recently. Arise is the second album from newish Swiss act, Nidhoeggr (the dragon that’s eternally chewing […]

It warms my heart to see a band I have covered for two self-released albums now (2016s Memento Mori and 2019s Prokopton– which made my 2019 year-end list) have all the hard work pay off and get signed to a ‘big ‘ label, in this case, Napalm Records, and now deservedly rubbing shoulders with the […]

Listen, there’s no denying the place of Peter Tägtgren and Hypocrisy in the pantheons of metal over the last almost 30 years. I personally hold Penetralia, Osculum Obscenum, and The Fourth Dimension in super high regard with the latter arguably being the peak of their career as they shifted into more melodic death metal realms […]

Holy fuck! Talk about a blast from my past!  Back in my early days at DigitalMetal.com, I loved me some Eastern European death/doom.  Back then, I covered a Slovakian band’s 2000 release, Four Elements Mysterium (still one of my favorites from the era/genre), and excellent, but less gothic doom 2002 follow-up, Tunes of Despondency. They […]

Back in 2020, I reviewed the debut EP from this D & D, Forgotten Realms named, then-unknown act, Galdrum. I loved it and it ended up on my year-end list, and I ended my review stating I was really looking forward to what the band was going to release next. And apparently, the metal world […]

With my recent obsession and onslaught of technical death metal, symphonic deathcore, and black metal in 2021, I thought it was time to return to an old favorite and see what’s going on in the shambling world of moldy, mid-paced death doom metal. The likes of Worm, Hooded Menace, Malignant ALtar, and Outre Tombe, certainly […]

For 3 albums now, Canada’s young tech-death masters have shredded their way into the upper echelon of the genre. From 2011’s barely registering debut, All Shall Align, to 2014swatershed album,  The Lucid Collective, which put them on the map, to 2017s Relentless Mutation, which signaled they were now masters of their craft they have improved […]

It’s been 5 years since Swedish/German act Abscession released their excellent debut album, Grave Offerings, one of the best slabs of HM2 Swedish death metal of the last few years, with one of the best songs in the genre “Gargoyle” of the last few years also. And now partnered with Transcending Obscurity Records (allowing for […]

A couple of years ago, I discovered Argentine Symphonic death metal band Mortuorial Eclipse, but they have not released anything since 2018s excellent Urushdaur. However, it appears Italy’s new act Obscura Qalmah (Hidden meaning/tradition) is a more than adequate stand-in with their burly, bombastic take on symphonic blackened death metal. Formed from the members of […]

Believe it or not, Norway’s Blood Red Throne has been knocking about for around 25 years and 10 albums now. Initially formed when Tchort of Emperor fame and Død (aka the incredibly affable Daniel Olaisen) met playing in Satyricon, Olaisen is the only remaining member since the band’s formation and Tchort left after 2009s Souls […]

So here is one of my more obscure forays into 2021’s bumper crop of deathcore and it’s from Ukranian act, Lieweaver who split the middle ground between burly mid-paced downtempo deathcore and more technical death metal stylings and also throw in a few atmospheric keyboards here and there. It’s not doing anything particularly original or […]

So here’s an odd one, so bear with me here. I fell in love with this dreamy, ‘whispering’ Dutch atmospheric black metal duo with 2020s Bloem, which made my year-end list that year and subsequently purchased prior albums Dromers and Luwte.  I had no idea this album was even coming out until I found out […]

Osiah, Lorna Shore, Signs of the Swarm, Crown Magnetar, Worm Shepherd, Lieweaver, Distant, Slaughter to Prevail, Mental Cruelty, Dead/Awake, and others, : “We released the heaviest deathcore releases of 2021!” Bound in Fear: “…Hold my beer”. The UKs Bound In Fear snuck onto my 2019 year-end list with The Hand of Violence (“Stigmata” and “Hate […]