There’s been some watercooler conversation about Darkthrone lately at the home office; specifically the difference between new and old and the new bands that pay homage to the early 90s era. I got a couple of recommendations and this is the first review for the newer-than-new debut for Avmakt and it’s called Satanic Inversion Of… […]

Power Metal has been part of my life since Helloween and their Keeper of the Seven Keys albums. A long time, considering that that first album was ’85-’86 I think. Manowar was around then, wearing animal skins and looking absolutely ridiculous. I confused (and wrongly assumed) that Hammerfall were Manowar clones. It might’ve been the […]

Spain’s Totengott returns with their third album, Beyond the Veil, and first for Hammerheart Records.  I have enjoyed their prior two albums, Doppelgänger and The Abyss quite a lot.  The band originally started as a Celtic Frost cover band and their primary influence falls in line with the monstrous Monotheist reformation album as well as […]

I love French Black Metal, and that goes back to the early 2000s when I first heard Mutiilation, Anorexia Nervosa, Deathspell Omega and Osculum Infame. From the press release: Gravenoire was formed in early 2022 by Maximilien Brigliadori (BÂ’A, Diablation, former Hyrgal), Emmanuel Zuccaro (BÂ’A, Verfallen, former Hyrgal), Vicomte Vampyr Arkames (Diablation (former Seth / […]

I’ve loved Dark Ambient Music or ‘Dungeon synth’ music since the first time I heard Mortiis’ Født til å herske, but even before his music, I loved Midnight Syndicate. They were a Halloween and night drive staple, as well as Thou Shalt Suffer‘s Somnium; yes I’m bouncing around years, no I don’t care. I really […]

Ours is a country in turmoil. We are divided as never before in our history, trust in the government is at an all-time low and naturally, the conspiracy theories are whizzing by like… bullets that don’t necessarily hit their marks. But lurking below the heat-baked streets are the CrusHumans, bent on destroying everything in their […]

I’ve been in a weird mood lately, things haven’t been catching my ear, which can be attested to the mountain of material that I could write about. But I got this promo the other day and I can’t stop listening to it, going on three days it’s been in rotation already. The ‘this’ that I’m […]

I saw Amorphis on tour for this album in 1994 or 1995, not too sure, but I saw them at a shitty little club in southeast Albuquerque with Entombed and got to meet one of the guitarists (I’m really straining my long-term memory here.) It was, despite the location, an incredible show. When I think […]

It’s been a few weeks since my deep dive into Helloween’s back catalog and then the killer album from MadHatter showed up, and now I’m going deeper into the Power Metal void with Shadows of Steel and their searing fourth full-length Twilight II. This is a ass-kicker, fast when it needs to be and harmonious […]

I’ve had a few moments where I look at the speakers and ask myself ‘what the fuck am I listening to?’ Of course I already know obviously but in terms of the sounds coming into my ears, it’s a process to process and then decide if I like it enough to stick around. Which brings […]

  The years between 1930 and 1947 are incredibly monumental years for a number of reasons. WWII was a pivotal time in world history, and the rise of fascism was the impetus for the United States to get involved (among other things.) Within Black Metal there lies a hole where politics turn blood red in […]

So A while ago, I was having a crazy day and gardening was the main task at hand, but it was made all the better because El Jefe had sent me this promo and I was pretty anxious because of the “Black Metal meets Hawkwind” description in the press blurb. The promo went straight to […]

Sometimes I find myself needing a break from Death Metal, Black Metal, and those related sub-genres and I look for something heavy, but different. So the other day I went down a Helloween rabbit hole, Keeper of the Seven Keys 1&2, Walls of Jericho; those are two prime examples of precision German Power Metal, while […]

What do you get when you cross mid-90s Black Metal ie: Dark Funeral, The Abyss, Necrophobic and Dissection with Helloween, and Metallica? The kind of vibe that Bloodcross is laying down on Gravebound. These unholy Finns are firing on all thrusters with this debut full-length. After releasing the Abysmal Blood Demo in 2021, they (presumably) […]

Technical Death Metal is one of those sub-genres I must be in the mood for. The same goes for Power Metal, but I’m talking about Replacire and not Sonata Artica; the former being the Eric Alper driven death machine that I had no idea existed and the latter being one of the best Power Metal […]

Death. War. Pestilence. Famine. A dying planet gasping for breath as it is gripped in the throes of Armageddon. Legions of demons sweep across the land, killing all in sight with reckless abandon. As the skies fall and the moon becomes black as sackcloth, it is out of this malignant hatred that Downcross was formed […]

1990; Fuck I’m old. In Death Metal history, however, it’s like I’m still in my twenties and it was DEATH METAL. Bands were releasing albums left and right, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel; the Earache label alone was like a goddamn factory with its roster of bands. Not to be left out were these dudes from […]

Finland. When I think of Finland I tend to think of the recent film Sisu. It’s about this gold miner who finds the mother load in a vein of gold. Long story short, some Nazis are killed in fantastically thrilling ways.  While I was listening to this debut album from Kratti Matka Kohti Kosmista, I […]

25 years is a long time. Hell, over 25 years is a long time, and I’ve realized that a lot of the bands I love are coming up on that side of their longevity, which isn’t much next to the Rolling fucking Stones and we all know they’ve been doing it since the Triassic period […]

What do you think of when you hear the word fluids? Soda? Water? Urine, semen, blood? With the band Fluids you know what you’re about to get… the absolute shit beaten out of your eardrums. Songs about the slimey and worm ridden carcass of this decaying planet and the human shit that inhabit it. Reduced […]

I love French Black Metal with every beat of my Black heart. The French have always been pretty brutal; guillotines and revolution were a way of life for many years of the country’s history. Not to mention WW1 and then occupation by the Nazis in WW2. The conflict hardened the country and unfortunately inspired a […]

Blood. Guts. Rotting eyeballs. Spewing bile and bodily fluids, forced to drink vomit… have you heard of McCamey Manor? You probably have, it’s in the public consciousness as a nasty place where you get $20,000 if you make it through and you have to sign a waiver; basically saying the “actors” can do anything to […]

Grindcore is one of those genres that’s pretty hard to fuck up. It’s pretty safe to say that Napalm Death are the creators and innovators of the genre and since their inception, countless numbers of Grindcore bands popped up in almost every country, Wormrot in Japan, Nasum from Sweden and Brutal Truth in the States […]

By now it’s not a secret that Finland spews out some incredible Black Metal. I could sit here and name check every band and that would be boring as fuck. I’m guilty of it, and since I realize that I’m excluded from persecution and it’s usually in my introduction where I pull that shit anyway. […]

The Greek mythology and the pantheon of gods has always fascinated me. From as long as I was able to read at a decent level I’ve loved the stories of Achilles, and after reading the Iliad I was hooked. So it’s no surprise that I have a soft spot for Greek Black Metal and the […]