To this day, I still absolutely love Naglfar’s first two albums and Vittra and Diabolical remain two of my very favorite 90s melodic black metal albums. And while 2003 Sheol was a worthy follow up, with the departure of vocalist Jens Ryden, the band fell into a bit of a rut with subsequent albums  Pariah, […]

Here’s a little atmospheric, shoe-gazy, post rock serenity to break up the death and black metal by way of UK collaboration Dawnwalker, a project featuring members of UK acts Sacred Son (who you may remember for making metal headlines for their album cover a few years ago), Pijn, Metasoma, Gold Baby and a host of […]

From the promotional email: “For fans of Gorefest, Entombed, Bolt Thrower, Grave“ Fucking sold. OK, so the promotional email might have been a bit of a stretch, but aren’t they all?  And it certainly got me to check out the debut fro Switzerland’s Mnemocide (‘death of memory’). Entombed and Bolt Thrower might be a bit […]

It would be easy and somewhat lazy to call Germany’s Asenblut (roughly meaning ‘Aesir’s blood’)  an Amon Amarth rip off, as they are a quality melodic death metal band with a little more black metal thrown in to their blood pumping, viking/pagan assault. But fuck it, I’m lazy , so…..they are an Amon Amarth rip […]

Lets get one thing out of the way first, I’m not Engutturalment Cephaloslamectomy over and over in this review, from now on its EC, get over it. Second thing that  I should address is that Indiana’s EC, while a Slam band of the slammiest order, it’s immediate from opener “Worthless Intro You Will Skip”, that […]

I decided to check out the promo from Texas’s I Am Destruction, as it was a Unique Leader release, and that’s usually a fire hit. Also, this band and features guitarist Paul Dundas, who used to play is fellow Texans  I Am, who I recently discovered and really liked, hoping for a similar styled and […]

For a few albums now, England’s co-god fathers of Doom metal (along with My Dying Bride and back then, Anathema) have, like My Dying Bride, successfully mixed their old doom/death sound and their more commerical, mid era Depeche Mode plod, peaking with 2015s The Plague Within, where vocalist Nick Holmes even brought back death metal […]

En Ergô Einai is the second album from this atmospheric black metal duo from Switzerland consisting of Berg (All instruments) and Fluss (vocals, lyrics) and boy is it good, I mean really fucking good. Of course, you will only enjoy this as much as me if you really like the shriller melodic black metal stylings […]

What a perfect album name and title for the current global isolation: Exulansis;  The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. Sequestered: To keep a person or a group of people away from other people. Sympathy ; feelings of pity and sorrow for someone […]

It’s been 6 years since Milwaukee’s Ara released Destroyer of Worlds, and although guitarist Jerry Hauppa (who once wrote for this very site) remained busy with the likes of Steel Iron, Northless and Prezir,(sadly his instrumental project, Concentric is no more) it’s a new Ara record I’ve been waiting for from Mr Hauppa and co. […]

I vaguely recall interviewing The Black Dahlia Murder, back around the release of 2003s Miasma. Young bright eyed young men, with the world ahead of them, having fun and the metal world at their feet as the darlings of American metal. Well, the faces have changed significantly since then, as guitarist Brian Eschbach and vocalist […]

“Warning! What you about to hear is extremely extreme. If think you can handle it by all means listen. However, if you have a preexisting condition that is aggravated by things that are evil, extreme, infernal brutal, cult , unholy or just sort of negative in general, you are urged to turn off this recording. […]

Within a matter of days, I received 2 really good symphonic black metal albums from the UK, and promptly purchased both. First, Argesk’s heavily Hecate Enthroned influenced  Realm of Eternal Night, and this, the conceptual debut album (they do have 3 EPs under their belt, which I have not heard yet) from Northern Ireland’s Drakonis. With […]

So here is reunion album number 3 for Wombbath, one of the 90s Swedish death metal bands that reunited for another go. This time, lone original member Håkan Stuvemark and Johnny Petersson (Henry Kane, Ashcloud, Gods Forsaken, Ursinne, Just Before Dawn) has yet another set of different guys helping them out for this album by […]

Germany’s metalcore/death metal veterans have always been one of those bands I kinda like. I own quite a few of their prior 12 albums, but I don’t think I have listened to them fully,  and I pick  them up used if I happen to find them rather than instantly buy them or seek them out. […]

With their fifth album, Germany’s Fear My Thoughts have now evolved in to a full on modern melodic death metal act, and a good one at that. And while Hell, Sweet, Hell was a glossy but flawed transitional album, Vulcanus sees the band deliver an improved effort that should elevate the band into elite status. […]

Germany’s Fear My Thoughts complete they shift from rumbling metalcore to melodic death metal that was hinted at on last years ambitious The Great Collapse, and while Hell Sweet Hell is a solid album, it just doesn’t leap out at me and I still prefer the band’s more extroverted stylings of V.I.T.R.I.O.L. That being said, […]

Frantic Bleep Feature ImageThe Sense Apparatus (The End Records) If prior albums from The End by Peccatum, Arcturus, Winds, Age of Silence and Madder Mortem bored you with their overly artistic facades, Frantic Bleep is just for you. Culling elements from all the aforementioned acts and even borrowing members from Madder Mortem (Kjetil Fosseid, Daniel […]

Kaamos -Lucifer Rising Feature Image(Candlelight ) In 2002, amid all the Swedish retro hoopla of Bloodbath’s Resurrection Through Carnage and even original recordings from Swedish veterans Centinex, Vomitory and Fleshcrawl, one band lithely slipped under the radar that year with their self titled debut. Now, personally I didn’t care for it that much especially compared […]

To me, God Dethroned have never quite recaptured the glorious mix of brutality and melody displayed on 1997’s The Grand Grimoire, with a string of mediocre releases following that great album up. Last years Into the Lungs of Hell came the closest of all the subsequent releases, but still didn’t touch the sophomore album in […]

I deliberately reviewed this album next to Merlin’s lackluster effort to show that Great White North has some decent bands on their roster besides Merlin, Divina Enema, and Aggression AD. OK, so they have Fuck The Facts which saves them immeasurably, but they also have this nifty little Canadian outfit called Paroxysm. With artwork done […]

Holy shit. Two major league things going on here. First, a great release on Crash Music. Second, a filthy, piss ridden exercise in death/thrash from Finland of all places. One part gritty Entombed, one part At The Gates and one part grimy leather and spikes retro black thrash a la Bestial Mockery, Pyuria deliver a […]

Often, the terms “progressive”, “experimental” and “avant-garde” are overused (my self included) to describe any music that simply can’t be pigeonholed, categorized, or maybe defies our metal shuttered concepts of what should be construed as “metal”. Bands like Arcturus, Ulver and Solefald, who break the mold of metals restrictive constraints are either hailed as geniuses […]

Edge of Sanity. Yup, that’s the first band that popped into my head when the opening chords of the tile track rumbled from the speakers. Not the ambient experimental metalcore outfit who blew me away with V.I.T.R.I.O.L, and while a drastic style change such as this might usually disappoint me, Fear My Thoughts actually pull […]

This is one of those albums I have to put review blinkers on for, because as much as I’d personally like to rave about the brilliance and influence of Grave, the fact is, for the follow up to last years ‘comeback’ album , Back From the Grave the word ‘Regression’ is an apt title. I […]