What would you get if you placed Hypocrisy, Soilwork, and Children of Bodom in a blender? Well, two things: Several murder charges and a smoothie of which Jeffrey Dahmer would be envious. If you just wanted to mix their musical styles instead of all the people, you may have something similar to Buried Realm. For […]

North Carolina’s Æther Realm caused quite a stir with their astounding 2017 sophomore album, Tarot. Indulging in an addictive, intricate form of melodic death and folk. The album was my number one pick in 2017 and is regularly revisited several years later. With success comes high expectations, and prior to its release, worries had set […]

Listen, I have my guilty pleasures, and one of them is female fronted or dual vocals (‘beauty and the beast’ I call it) styled Gothic/symphonic metal (or ‘cleavage-core’, for the kids) . Since the days of Thalarion and Beseech, How Like A Winter, early The Gathering, Theatre of Tragedy, Draconian, Epica and Delain and Tristania, and more […]

Originally self released last year, but picked up by Prosthetic Records for a CD and gorgeous baby blue/purple swirl LP, Eternity’s End is the debut from this Ohio based melodic death metal trio featuring 2 members of Viking metal band Hammer Horde and 1 from Blood of the Prophets. Don’t let the term melodic death […]

It would be easy and somewhat lazy to call Germany’s Asenblut (roughly meaning ‘Aesir’s blood’)  an Amon Amarth rip off, as they are a quality melodic death metal band with a little more black metal thrown in to their blood pumping, viking/pagan assault. But fuck it, I’m lazy , so…..they are an Amon Amarth rip […]

I vaguely recall interviewing The Black Dahlia Murder, back around the release of 2003s Miasma. Young bright eyed young men, with the world ahead of them, having fun and the metal world at their feet as the darlings of American metal. Well, the faces have changed significantly since then, as guitarist Brian Eschbach and vocalist […]

I last heard this Swiss band back in 2014, with their debut Morning Wood. It was a solid if forgetful stab at 00s American metalcore/ groove metal with songs like “Big Dick”, “Sex For Free”, Cock n Bulls”, and “Welcome to the Stud Farm”, it all seemed a bit tongue in cheek. Well the band […]

When a promo manages to name drop Insomnium, Turisas, Monnsorrow and Omnium Gatherum it its one sheet press release, you get my attention, if just to see how bloated the claims are. But this Finnish act has somehow managed to cull from all of their fellow Finns and drop a solid third album full of […]

The ups and downs of melodic death metal have been well documented in these pages, as well as elsewhere, so I won’t bore you with the current state (clue-its down), but with In Flames‘ latest release, I The Mask, not sucking, there could be life left in the genre yet. And here comes Luxembourg’s Feradur […]

Sometimes as a reviewer social networking helps.  A YouTube link from a record label might pop across your timeline and give you the choice to listen to or not.   Thus was the case with Atlanta’s Paladin and their video for their tune, “Shoot for the Sun”.  First off, the riffing is so over the top […]

Over the course of the Amon Amarth‘s 10 album, 20+ year career, they have been one of the most consistent bands in metal. If you were to plot a line with their albums on it, they are almost all certainly in a straight line when it comes to quality with a couple that go over […]

I’m fairly new to Sweden’s Meadow’s End despite my love of all things that melds symphonics and metal, having only recently discovered the band’s 2016 release, Sojourn (in part to a brilliant piece of evocative cover art), and thusly grabbing the bands other 2 previous releases and pre ordering this, the band’s fourth effort. What […]

Believe it or not, 2019 has delivered the best In Flames record since 2006’s Come Clarity with I, the Mask.  12+ years later, In Flames seems to be rediscovering themselves as a guitar and drums driven band. As a lifelong fan and someone who appreciates their entire catalog, albeit some albums much more than others; […]

I was rather impressed with the debut album Memento Mori, back in 2016 from these French melodic death metallers, and they have finally released a follow up in Prokopton, and no surprise, it’s just as impressive and consistent as the debut. Again with a sound heavily rooted in the string/synth-heavy, brighter, bouncy tones of early Children […]

Good lord- talk about an obscure blast from the past. I vaguely remember purchasing this Swdish band’s debut EP Alienor back in 1993 as a blind purchase, and kind digging it. It was a more progressive slightly different take on death metal back then, but 2 albums later in 1994 and 1996 the band disappeared […]

Creating anything is hard, even if you’re a master of your craft. I don’t care if you’re Spielberg, Scorsese, Pixar, or Stephen King. You still need to take your raw, half-formed idea, and then use all of your skill, experience, judgment, and persistence to shape it into something that measures up to or surpasses your […]

Earlier this year I regrettably slept on the sophomore LP from Denver outfit Necropanther. Now the impressive young band has recently dropped the first of a planned series of EP’s, each written exclusively by an individual band member, beginning with Oppression, a three song effort penned by bassist Marcus Corich. I also thought it would […]

I’ll go ahead and assume that Germany’s Godskill is named after killing Gods, and not the skill said God possesses. Anyway, what we have here is a late 2018 release that is a pretty solid second album from these burly melodic death metalers. Imbuing the chunky Danish scene akin to Illdisposed, Corpus Mortale, Dawn of Disease and […]

Founder and owner of now-defunct Canadian record label Blasthead records, Paul Shaw, always had an ear for good music, even if his own tech death band Hate Division was merely average. But it appears he and his Hate Division pals have a better knack for melodic death metal. With nods to Amon Amarth, Arghoslent, Helcaraxe, […]

When you deliver an debut album that arguably reinvigorated melodic death metal in 2004s A Celebration Guilt, expectations tend to pile on and pile up, and despite a Children of Bodom like trajectory, founder and brainchild James Malone has largely responded well with subsequent albums, maybe with the exception of 2010s more rock based Starve for the […]

I’m not familiar with The Netherlands’ Bleeding Gods, but they have some Dutch scene veteran’s in their fold (Houwister, Grind Minded, Debauchery, Divine Sins) and a 2015 debut album under their belt. And with a few key words like ‘symphonic’ and ‘Hercules’,  ‘war’ and ‘death metal’ popping up, I decided to give their second effort a […]

If only other bands’ cutting room floors looked like Soilwork’s. When they released The Living Infinite in 2013, I marveled at how many superb songs they had turned out during those writing sessions – enough for an absurdly generous double album that was also my #1 pick for the year. And then some, it turns out, when they […]

I’ve been a longtime Dream Theater fan – 21 years, in fact, since the release of one of the finest progressive metal albums ever released, Images and Words. And yet, in all of that time, I’ve never checked out any of vocalist James LaBrie’s solo material (4 albums’ worth). A friend slapped me around a […]

Wow. x2. Soilwork have returned with their strongest release to date, and they’ve done it with a double album. This means they’ve just topped themselves – and likely the rest of the entire melodeath genre – twice. These two albums coalesce everything that’s always been dazzling about Soilwork, from the early shredfest barrage of Steelbath Suicide and The Chainheart […]

Remember in the late 90s when In Flames and Dark Tranquility were exploding? When Children of Bodom were fresh and awesome and young energetic, but short lived melodic death metal bands like Lothlorien, Auberon, Ebony Tears, Embracing, and Eucharist were releasing killer albums? Well, if you long for those days of bouncy, busy, solo filled, […]