Well, that didn’t take long for 2026 to drop an early contender for an album that will be on my 2026 year-end list! Upiór (a Polish word meaning ‘Revenant’) is a newish project formed by Tomasz “Josh” Jaskuła, based out of France, and he has some fairly notable folks helping out, including Ben B on […]

‘Uhhh huh huh. Hey, baby. I heard you like The Black Dahlia Murder’. I have smoothly pressed “Power” on the remote on my living room 10-disc CD changer, which slides out smoothly as I casually drop the new Carrion Vael album, Slay Utterly, into the not-at-all-too-large or gaudy apparatus. It closes instantly because it’s the […]

Much like that weird week between Christmas and New Year’s where time doesn’t exist, there’s a similar fugue in the new year when it comes to reviewing albums at the end of the year/start of the year. We have plenty of 2026 releases to cover, but the tail end of 2025 still saw plenty of […]

Today we’re going to Sweden. It’s a free trip; all you have to do is read this review. That’s easy enough, right? I’m not asking for anything too crazy, just two minutes of your precious time. I picked Havamal with the hope that I would get a Falkenbach type of thing, because Falkenbach has a […]

The 2022 debut from this Chicago-based neoclassical melodic death metal act, Rex Mortem, was a fine example of a blind promo grab and review, and added to that year’s melodic death metal revival. So I have been eagerly awaiting a follow-up. And here it is. For those unfamiliar, the band began as a more metalcore/progressive […]

I don’t know what you expect from a new band comprised of three former and founding Amon Amarth members: Anders Biazzi (whom I am very familiar with in projects like Gods Forsaken, Just Before Dawn, and Blood Mortized), Niko Kaukinen, and Fredrik Andersson. Then throw in session bassist  Tobias Cristiansson (Necrophobic, Grave, Dismember, etc) Power Metal? Deathcore? Prog Rock? […]

As I stated in my review of the excellent Obšar EP, I love receiving unsolicited, blind requests from obscure, completely unknown (to me) bands for us to review their material. So when I got an email from Moscow’s Renunciation, asking us to cover their second album, Make Babylon Great Again, I checked the band’s music […]

Oh man, this shit right here is fire. Denver’s Victim of Fire has been around since 2016, and this is their third album. They describe themselves as ‘Stadium Crust’, whatever that is. But what I’m hearing is an utterly nostalgic throwback to the early second wave of metalcore, when Maiden, At The Gates, and dual […]

The other day in the group chat, el Jefe posed the question of a band that sounds like modern Hypocrisy, and would any of us like to cover it…? Well, sign me the fuck up, brother! I eat that shit up! So here I am reviewing Lacabra and their self-titled, debut full-length and I have […]

I have been a fan of Germany’s Deserted Fear and their brand of European-inspired melodic death metal since their great 2012 debut album – My Empire.  Their killer second album in 2014, Kingdom of Worms, is still my favorite by them.  Veins of Fire is their sixth album, and their last three albums have all […]

Uhhhhhhhhh yeah so look, I can’t really know what it’s like to write and release albums for the same band for 30+ years like Jonas Renske and Anders Nystrom of Katatonia have. Sure, the pair have taken the band on a number of artistic and stylistic twists and turns along the way to keep things […]

Once upon a time, I thought of Melodic Death Metal as the Michael Bolton of the Metal community. It’s pretty, at times brutal as fuck; but ultimately one cancels out the other and it either sucks ass or kicks it. This is not the case with Greece’s Nightfall. I wasn’t expecting what I got from […]

I’m not the only one for whom melodic death metal hits that sweet spot. I reviewed Buried Realm’s Embodiment of the Divine, and it did an exemplary job. That album hinted at some of the influences, specifically two of my favorite melodic death metal bands, Scar Symmetry and Soilwork, but The Dormant Darkness features Bjorn […]

I quite enjoyed the self-released debut from Aversed, Impermanent, back in 2021. It was an unabashed homage to Arch Enemy‘s styled melodic death, from members of Alleageon and Begat the Nephillim complete with Haydee Irizarry doing her best Alyssa White-Gluz impression. Well, there are a couple of changes in the Aversed camp. First, the jump up a […]

A good friend of mine, from the local scene where I live, Kevin from Unholy Anarchy Records, sent me the promo for this Baltimore-based melodic death metal band, Chiaroscuro.  He’s trying to help this up-and-coming act and figured, let me see if Frank would like it.  Quite honestly he got me in the Iron Sheik’s […]

Finland’s Admire The Grim, are a new melodic death metal band that leans heavily into their country’s fairly rich history of the genre. On their debut album, Resist they deliver a competent if by-the-numbers album of shredding, tightly played, melodeath that fans of Children of Bodom, Kalmah, and such should definitely appreciate. Fronted by Katri Snellman […]

Germany’s Obscura needs no introduction. They have resided near or atop the tech death heap since 2009’s Cosmogenesis. For me, they peaked with 2016s Akroasis, but all of their albums have been excellent, including their last effort, 2021s A Valediction, which saw former members Christian Munzer (ex-Necrophagist, ex-Spawn of Possession) and fretless bassist Jeroen Paul Thessling return […]

Darkness Everywhere: “Hey guys! I think, we might have released the best Light This City/Darkest Hour-influenced melodic death metal of 2024 with To Conquer Eternal Damnation, I mean c’mon, we have current and ex-Light This City members in the band!!!!” Druparia: “Hold My Beer”. Seriously, first off, go check out Darkness Everywhere‘s debut album To Conquer […]

Man, back in the late 90s and early 00s Germany’s Folk/Celtic-themed melo-death act Suidakra was one my absolute favorite bands. Early albums Auld Lang Syne and Lays From Afar were my jam. And even with some ups (Caledonia, Book of Dowth, The Arcanum) and downs (Command to Charge, Realms of Odoric, Cimbric Yarns), some of […]

So Canada’s Trollwar is a new act to me, but they recently got on my radar, when I discovered that Matt Sippola from fellow epic Canadians, Atavistia provided some orchestration/choirs and clean vocals for Trollwar’s latest EP. Based on the band’s discography (2 full lengths and an array of EPs/Singles, which I immediately purchased after […]

I rather enjoyed the 2022 debut album, Depravity from these Belgian lads as it meshed At The Gates and The Black Dahlia Murder-styled razor-sharp melo-death, and threw in some orchestration/keyboards here and there, which as regular readers know, gives me a major boner. So here is a 6 song EP to follow up Depravity, and […]

Symphony Of Heaven is a Christian melodic black/death metal band from Indiana, that used to be on Rottweiler Records. But with their 3rd album has forged out alone like… that one guy…. that went … out to the wilderness? In the bible maybe? I’m trying here, that theology isn’t really my jam. What IS my […]

There sometimes comes a point in a band’s career when it becomes very clear they’re no longer fucking around. And I mean come on! Look at that gnarly friggin’ cover art! While it can never be questioned what Ensiferum‘s contribution to the world of Folk Metal has been, it’s also fair to look at the band’s […]

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while. A while back one of the other esteemed staff here, Steve K, tagged me on a video for the song “Deconstruction” and I was hooked, purchasing/ downloading the band’s various songs and EPs. So, who is The Weeping Gate? Well, they hail from Little Rock, Arkansas. They […]

“Before the tragedy, no one ever thought this band was going to exist without Trevor.” When Trevor Strnad passed away the world of Metal was shaken to the core. That above quote from TBDM co-founder Brian Eschbach is taken from the press release and it’s a heartbreaking statement. Trevor had such a huge presence, both […]