For those not already in the loop, Aelter is the solo project of Blake Green, half of the terrifying violin-infused doom duo, Wolvserpent. Their last release, Perigaea Antahkarana was one of the great underground releases of 2013, and firmly cemented their place as one of the most exciting new extreme metal bands out there. While […]

Out of the myriad of one man black metal bands out there, Caïna, the brainchild of Andrew Curtis-Brignell, appears to have more staying power than most. It’s easy to see why. Setter of Unseen Snares is Caïna’s fifth full length, and perhaps their most relevant and compelling release so far. From the resigned, tragic nature […]

Goatwhore have well and truly established themselves as a consistent, well-oiled recording and touring metal machine, with an impressive output of six albums in fourteen years (despite singer Benjamin Falgoust’s involvement as shrieker with fellow NOLA extreme metallers, Soilent Green). Constricting Rage of the Merciless is their latest effort, and is another excellent addition to […]

Like their Irish contemporaries Altar of Plagues, who called it quits last year, Wolves in the Throne Room appeared to have lost interest in the post/ambient black metal scene that they were so crucially influential in. However, after several years laying low, they are back on tour and have a new record out, Celestite, a […]

It would be impossible to avoid mentioning Neurosis in this review, so let’s get it over with at the beginning. The bassist and singer from Stoneburner, Damon Kelly, is none other than the son of Scott Kelly, founding member of experimental metal titans Neurosis. Damon has been on tour with his father’s band a few […]

After years without a full-length release, NOLA’s most famous sludge sons Eyehategod are back with a new, self-titled full-length, and it’s as if they’ve never been away. You would have thought that these miscreants from New Orleans might have mellowed with age (even just slightly), but they still sound as pissed off as ever. Much […]

Kuolemanlaakso, a hell of a mouthful if you’re not Finnish, means Valley of Death. Tulijoutsen, their second full-length and third release, is a wholehearted, enjoyable slab of the slower side of extreme metal. Opener “Aarnivalkea” puts all of Kuolemanlaakso’s proverbial cards on the table – what is featured in this song is a fair summary […]

Conan have been making waves in the thriving UK doom metal scene for a number of years, making appearances at my former local, The Royal Park pub in Leeds, in a dingy basement no bigger than your living room. They were rewarded for their persistence with a slot at the esteemed Roadburn festival in April […]

Following their self titled LP in 2009, The Strange Innerdweller is Romanian post-metal Kultika‘s debut album, and despite being a decent effort, it doesn’t really grab you by the balls as much as you’d want it to. Unlike fellow countrymen Negura Bunget, who create music that isn’t just unique but that also pays tribute to their […]

The Netherlands has been a quite fertile breeding ground for extreme metal in recent times. The impenetrable blackness of Gnaw Their Tongues and Post-Black Metal wizards Cold Body Radiation are to name but a few of the exciting artists emerging from this small Northern European country. Another band sure to compel many is Fluisteraars, who […]

Last year Scott Kelly, founder of the highly influential experimental metal band Neurosis, stated that the supergroup he was involved in with several other metal luminaries, Shrinebuilder, would probably never convene again. Sad as I was at this, the subsequent announcement of his partaking in another side project, entitled Corrections House and containing Sanford Parker, […]

The world of metal may be saturated with death/black metal bands, but occasionally you find an album that stands out from the rest of the pack. Satan in the Death Row is such an album. Hailing from the same country and city that gave the world such luminaries as Sepultura and Sarcófago, Despot is an […]

Since appearing as a Rob Halford wannabee on Pantera‘s Power Metal in 1988, Phil Anselmo has appeared in a large number of different projects; the pioneering groove metal in the aforementioned band, the seminal Louisianan sludge/southern/stoner metal outfit Down, the black metal groups Eibon and Christ Inversion, the hardcore Superjoint Ritual and Arson Anthem and […]

Since the day that I first gave The Invisible Mountain its first spin in my Hi-Fi last year, Horseback have compelled and intrigued me to no end. I was blown away by the sheer audaciousness and ambition of that album – just four songs stretched across nearly forty minutes of music, each song underpinned with […]

Sujo is another one-man shoegazy-black-doom-post-whatever metal project, who released a compelling E.P. entitled Ondan earlier this year. The opener, ‘Ondan’, wouldn’t sound out of place on a Deftones record, with its hazy atmosphere, melodies buried within the almighty fuzz. This dies in a swirl of claustrophobic electronics to conclude the track, before savage but rather […]

Although Black Sabbath are credited for inventing the slower, bleaker strand of heavy metal known as Doom Metal, it wasn’t until bands such as Witchfinder General, Saint Vitus and Trouble arrived in the 1980’s that the genre really took off and was given a title. Nowadays the world is awash with this style of metal, and Indianapolis’s The Gates of Slumber are another band […]

For a band to have the honor of playing the esteemed Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands should be enough of an indicator of how good the music is – but it’s worth looking a bit deeper into the music of Liverpudlian self-styled ‘Caveman Metal’ act Conan. The album begins with a wall of feedback, before […]

Kylesa are, along with such other psychedelic sludgy metal counterparts as Mastodon, Baroness, Black Tusk and Zoroaster are part of the Georgian scene, which at this rate could at some point go down as legendary as the early ’80s Bay Area thrash or the late ’80s Floridian death metal scene. Like their contemporaries Mastodon and […]