I was pretty damn stoked upon hearing that France’s Skelethal were releasing a new full-length album this year. I reviewed and thoroughly enjoyed their debut album, Of the Depths…. The duo of Gui Haunting (guitar, vocals) and Jon Whiplash (bass, drums) crafted some terrific burly, bludgeoning old-school Swedeath, paying obvious and massive homage to Carnage/Dismember, […]

Wow! Has it really been five years since Sweden’s Draconian dropped a new album on us? Five years to the date as a matter of fact. Man, it really doesn’t seem like Sovran was released five years ago, then again this past year of 2020 has been quite the rollercoaster, seemingly lasting an eternity unto […]

First things first. I’m not sure what it is Melbourne, Austrailia’s Mr. Kill is trying to say with their moniker, but whatever it is I don’t think it works. To raise one’s self to the level of bonafide “Mr.” in the entertainment and capitalistic world is quite lofty. You just don’t rise overnight to the […]

You ever listened to death metal? You ever listened to death metal…on WEED? Okay, maybe you don’t get my hilarity there in playing off of the twenty dollar bill scene with Jon Stewart in 1998’s cult classic, Half Baked, but chances are you know exactly what I’m referencing, especially, if you’re one to have, or […]

I’m not really sure how I missed the release of The Inhabitable Dark, the debut full-length album from Obscene, Indiana’s purveyors of acidic old-school death metal, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t do just that. In fact, it was actually my recent review of the 4 Doors to Death II split that made me […]

Well for God’s sake…no that doesn’t seem right. For Satan’s sake? No, that just sounds stupid. For fuck’s sake? Yeah…that sums it up pretty good. Oh for fuck’s sake! After twenty-four years since the release of the band’s debut album, Divine Decomposition, Insatanity have returned with a “sort of” new full-length album of blackened brutal […]

Well isn’t this a nice surprise. Just a mere year and a half since I reviewed Ulthar‘s debut album, Cosmovore, and the band already fires back with their sophomore release Providence. The album takes everything impressive and done right from the debut and continues to expand upon its formula and deliver, in aces, a formidable […]

WARNING!!!*** This review is being presented to you in extremely late fashion, mainly due to the world right now being crazy and my sorry ass being lazy…In fact, you may have already heard and formed opinions on this four-way split, yet I encourage you to read on as your opinions are probably wrong, seeing that […]

Never judge a book by its cover. We all know this. Right? I mean it’s only an age old adage that has been around since…well, the dawn of ages. Naturally, one can apply this sage wisdom to the music/metal world when it comes to album covers, band names, song titles, and the like. So knowing […]

I once read a review regarding Belgium’s Pestifier and their then, sophomore release, Reaching the Void, where the group was described as sounding like a collision of Obscura, Beyond Creation, and Vektor. I’ve always like that analogy of the band. It’s true, clean, concise, and includes by association other influential acts such as Pestilence, Death, […]

I’m not sure what to make of the U.K.’s Lucid Conformity and their debut album, Architects of Madness. While it’s definitely not a bad album per se, I’m not willing to throw out heaps of praise or vital recommendations for it either. The fact that the group/duo employs more than a few, i.e. way too […]

It’s funny how life is with its odd and overall meaningless coincidences. Just recently, I reviewed Unhumanized, the latest release from Cianide, and in that review I had made the reference, for the unfamiliar, of imagining Bob Bagchus (Asphyx, Soulburn, Grand Supreme Blood Court), John McEntee (Incantation, Funerus), and Paul Speckmann (Master) coming together in […]

Okay friends, lets just skip all the rigmarole and pointless backstory and just get right to it. Testament‘s newest release, their twelth full-length of all original material, Titans of Creation, is good. Really good. Actually, I’d say it’s pretty damn great. In fact, it may be the best thing the Bay Area thrashers have released […]

I remember reading a review of Horrified‘s 2018 full-length release, Allure of the Fallen, where the band was described as having a sound familiar to Horrendous, but without the prog attributes. While this isn’t my favorite description of the band’s style, it’s admittedly, not too far off either, and ends up working well since more […]

If you’re like me, then the Fall and Winter seasons sees an influx in your doomy/gothic/rocking death metal listening schedule. Whether it be the colder temperatures, the dying/dead fauna, the colorless and cloudy skies, or the realization that we as individuals and as a whole are yet another year closer to our own demise, this […]

In the forever immortalized words of the WWE’s Stone Cold Steve Austin, “Can I get a Hellyeah?!!!” Those were pretty much my sentiments when checking out the debut full-length offering, Summary Execution At Dawn, from San Antonio, Texas’, Oath of Cruelty. Do you like your metal raw, a bit blackened, and dripping with the influential […]

Popularity and/or notoriety are definitely elusive attributes when it comes to extreme metal trying to branch out to a larger audience. Trying to build a band legacy while making an actual financial living from it is indeed the epitome of extreme metal being a ruthless and fickle bitch. What is it that gains one artist […]

Do you like the Alien film franchise? I like the Alien film franchise. It’s a mixed feelings type of thing when it comes to these films. Some people like them all, some people hate them all, some people like a few and hate a few, while others couldn’t care less. Me though, I dig ’em, […]

If you were to ask me where Infirmity was from, based solely on their sound, I’d be hard pressed to come up with an answer. The band and their full-length debut, Descendants of Sodom, is brimming full with influential might. A journey of brutal, melodic, and even blackened tinged death metal groove, Descendants of Sodom […]

If you have ever been out to dinner with Toxic Holocaust, you know what to expect from the band’s sixth full-length album, Primal Future: 2019. While Toxic Holocaust releases have never been the Wolfgang Puck or Gordon Ramsay of thrash metal, they are far from being the local McDonald’s brand of drivel that barely satisfies, […]

Sweet Texas watermelon! Has it been two years already? Wow…it really doesn’t seem like a couple of years have passed since Exhumed released their fan and critic praised Death Revenge, but here I am blasting my eardrums as well as my face, clean into oblivion with the aural onslaught that is Horror, Exhumed‘s seventh full-length […]

Admittedly, I was zero percent familiar with Aggravator and any of their previous output before their new self-titled EP. Though after spending some quality time with said EP, thanks to Unspeakable Axe Records, who have just recently re-released Aggravator after being independently released earlier this year, I will be hunting down their earlier efforts and […]

Well summbitch…As if I needed another reason to love Denton, Tx;  here comes Creeping Death, hot off the heels of their last EP, Specter of Death, with their full-length debut, Wretched Illusions. Besides being a cool place that I’ve always had great times in, whether playing shows with my own band, scouring records shops for […]

What can I say about Bones and their new, and third full-length album, Diseased, that hasn’t already been said before about a few other bands; namely, the ones that seem to influence Bones and their trade of crusty and sometimes even punky, no frills, basic, bare boned death metal. If Terrorizer/Nausea meets Celtic Frost/Obituary by […]

You’ve heard of the Six Degrees of Separation right? Hell, you’ve probably even heard of the quirky, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Well, I guess you could say that it was the Six Degrees of Dave Ingram that led to my introduction of  Cropsy Maniac. You see, it goes like this: I’m a big Benediction […]