Plowing their way through England’s Midlands since ’05, The Atrocity Exhibit provides a drippy, gooey take on punk-riddled sludge-grind that feels distinctly, well, English.  There’s a scuzzy take on this genre here that could only come from the UK and it’s a sound purveyed by killer fairly recent bands like Among the Missing, Mistress and […]

Finland’s Galvanizer waste no time in cranking up the Boss HM-2 Pedals and blast-beating your souls away with their debut full length Sanguine Vigil.  Having released some demo material and been around since 2013 these guys could give Rotten Sound or Nasum a run for their money.  I love the cover artwork done by TG […]

If you have ever asked yourself “what happened if black one man black metal was rendered with a classic Swedish death metal guitar tone?”, Frenchman Stephane Thirion is here to answer your question with his self released third album,  A fleur de peau (‘Sensitive’? ‘On edge’?). First off , I was thankful this wasn’t a Kataklysm […]

It’s been damn near 7 years since Belgian grinders Leng Tch’e dropped their last full-length slab of death-y, crusty doomgrind, Hypomanic.  There hasn’t been an original member left in the band since 2007, although these maniacs have stayed relatively true to form sonically over the last 3 records. For me, the filthy highpoint of the […]

Although they started back in 2000 as a black/death act with nods to early Opeth (hence the band name), now France’s Benighted is a filthy, ultra-groovy and much different beast altogether. Most of their albums, including 2011’s excellent (and, for me, list-topping) Asylum Cave, are like being flung around inside a brutal death/grind bounce house packed with […]

Grindcore mainstays Phobia are back with their 6th full length, and on this newest one they made the odd choice to introduce… clean vocals and female gothic influences?!? Ummm… No. This is straight up ass-melting grindcore, and it’s what these guys have been pummeling eardrums with for over 20 years. When you can personify the […]

Cattle Decapitation is a band that has grown a lot on me the past few years.  I wasn’t keen on their early work, but starting with Karma Bloody Karma and continuing with The Harvest Floor, this vegetable-loving four piece have continued to flesh out their crushing style on Monolith of Inhumanity. What is so interesting […]

Catheter?!?  What the hell?!?  It’s been seven years since these guys have dropped a full length, and having not heard much from them at all since then I had written them off for dead.  After doing a little research I found out that they have released two or three splits in that time (depending on […]

Ladies and gentlemen: Napalm Death have entered the building. This is their new album, Utilitarian. It kicks ass, just like their other albums. Go download it, stream it or steal the money from your grandmother to get your hands on a copy. End of review. So what more is there to be said? Why are […]

So the band Liberteer came to my attention after reviewing the recent Beaten to Death album, a grindcore album that was grindcore with a difference, and so is the debut album from Liberteer. Comprised of Matt Widener, the grindcore lineage is certainly here considering Widener’s involvement in the likes of Cretin, Citizen, Exhumed and The […]

You know if I’m reviewing a September 2011 release here in 2012, it has to be good, and holy shit is this good. Hailing from Norway, Beaten to Death consists of a few of Norway’s veteran players from short lived or middle tier bands like Insense, She Said Destroy, oh and drummer who has played […]

So here’s another reason to own a record player (and a cassette player);  Sacred Plague Records. And one of their recent releases  is the second effort from Chico, California’s Black Hole of Calcutta, a noisy, primal punk/grind/hardcore collaboration featuring members of The Makai, Transient and Mammoth Torta. Named after a 1756 incident where 146 prisoners […]

Reviewers tend to get caught up in clever descriptions, mostly because it’s sometimes hard to describe exceedingly typical things. You can’t say, for example, “It sounds like average goregrind” for every average goregrind album you review. That would either be incredibly lazy or the most honest thing a reviewer has ever done, I’m not quite […]

Brutal Truth returned from their extended hiatus in 2009 with Evolution Through Revolution, an angular, violent extension of the sound they developed on 1997’s Sounds of the Animal Kingdom. End Time sees the band unleash a blistering whirlwind of grinding fury, continuing the developments of Evolution with a slightly meatier production and a noisier and […]

Yup. You read right. This death metal/grindcore band from Finland is called Blastanus. Luckily, their second, self-released album is more impressive than their moniker as Collapse delivers 11 songs and 43 minutes of punchy Euro sounding death/grind that should please the fans of Aborted and maybe newer Cephalic Carnage and such. There’s thick, beefy guitars, […]

It makes sense that Agoraphobic Nosebleed did a split with Despise You. The band has worn proudly on their sleeve their love for grinding power-violence through the shirts they wear, songs they’ve covered, and singer Jay Randall’s very own free record label, Grindcore Karaoke. But they didn’t just have a flavor-of-the-month powerviolence band to do […]

It never ceases to amaze me how many bands have managed to incorporate the word ‘gore’ into their name. From Gorefest to Gorguts, to Gore Story and Dr. Gore, it just never seems to end. I’m still waiting for ‘Gorecornflakes’… or ‘Gorepaperclip’… or… never mind. Anyways what we have in Germany’s Goregast is an old […]

Up until I heard this 10 song, 7″ release from Atlanta’s Dead in the Dirt, God Is War from All Pigs Must Die was my favorite crust release of 2011, and before that, Nails and their Unsilent Death release was my favorite crust release of the last decade or so. But once the needle hits […]

I’ll admit I wasn’t too excited for a new Lock Up album. I mean, it’s been eight years since Hate Breeds Suffering, which I really though wasn’t necessary after 1999’s Pleasure Pave Sewers, (which was admittedly one of the first high profile super groups). And let’s be honest, a grindcore side project in 2011 featuring […]

To grind or not to grind; that is the question. That question is answered by Germany’s Necromorph in the extreme affirmative, as you’ll hear within moments of the calamitous ride that is Grinding Black Zero. More Nasum than Insect Warfare and characterized by a relative degree of compositional diversity within grindcore parameters, Grinding Black Zero […]

Opening with a ripping guitar solo that hits with the force of an out of control machine gun. Instantly the glass shatters from the window that encases your lavishing frame. 20 seconds in and the murderous intentions seep through and kill everything in the blink of an eye. How is this done? Powerviolence! Weekend Nachos […]