As I mentioned in my Glaciation review, Ive been on a French metal kick and the third album from Abduction might be the best of the bunch so far this year. One of my cohorts reviewed their prior album A L’heure du Crépuscule, and succinctly threw around bands like Borknagar, Arcturus, Ved Buens Ende, and […]

Well call me a sucker for French Black Metal bands garbed in plague masks.  Abduction return with their 2nd full length record. “Sous les Cendres et la Pierre” opens up the album with some lovely clean guitar lines and accompanying tom rolls from the percussion section.  The song continues to build and transitions effortlessly for […]

Coming from the school of bad band names, baring the ambiguous black/death metal tag AND sharing the band name with another  fellow French act, Derealized had the cards stacked against them from the get go. But being the consummate professional I am, and considering this label gave some solid release from Stangala, Red Dawn, Sound of […]

Amid all the black and death metal I get sent to review, occasionally I get some more off the wall stuff that gets my attention (i.e Duobetic Homunkulus). Here is one such release from France’s Stangala, and its not just off the wall, it’s out of the house and running naked in the yard. I really […]

Tucked in between all the high profile technical and brutal death metal that labels like Comatose and Unique Leader has churned out in 2016 is this solid little debut record from France’s new act Red Dawn,  and no it’s not a concept band based on the movie. What it is though is well crafted and well […]

I had zero expectations for this release: French melodic death metal from a year ago with odd moniker. But seeing as Finisterian Dead End, who released War Inside‘s solid SUTURE recently, picked this up, I thought I would give it a fair shake, and I’m glad I did, as it delivered an energizing, reinvigorating take on […]

Baring the ambiguous ‘blackened death metal’ tag, France’s War Inside are a competent new act who do the genre label well on their second album, SUTURE. Of note, War Inside features Thomas of Regarde les Hommes Tomber on vocals, who brings the ‘blackened’ element to the table with his pained rasps and screams (and a […]