Never question my commitment to metal. I wrote this review while sitting at my hotel desk while on vacation. Sure, the weather was awful, but I was at Maryland Death Fest, babe. And while my right wrist was annoyingly adorned with all the wristbands one could imagine, I wanted to make sure I conveyed the […]

You’ll read no disrespect from me to Riley McShane because his albums with Allegaeon are incredible. That’s especially true for their most recent, which was my album of the year in 2022, Damnum. However, Ezra Haynes has always been the true voice of Allegaeon. When Riley left after the last album, I was bummed, but […]

I am new to the sounds of Sweden’s Carnosus.  They remind me of Denmark’s Crocell, before Crocell went black metal.  This is pretty high-quality melodic death metal, which has a good chunk of brutality to it. Wormtales is their third album, and I picked up their previous releases after receiving this promo.  I mean just […]

Along with Morgue and Sun of Nothing, Axamenta is yet another band I have not heard in 15-20+ years that I am hearing after a really long gap in 2024. I first heard these epic, melodic Belgians on 2001’s Codex Barathi, but it was on 2006s Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture , where they delivered a dizzying true tour […]

Boston’s Seven Spires were never on my radar until 2021, when our illustrious site owner, Erik “The Brave”, gave a glowing review to Gods of Debauchery, the band’s third album.  I loved the album so much, it made my year end list and I went through their back catalog to obtain their two prior full […]

I’ve long extolled the virtues of Germany’s Disillusion on these very pages. From their breathtaking, classic debut, Back to Times of Splendor, to the divisive follow-up Gloria to the band’s comeback after a 13-year layoff in 2019s The Liberation. Well thankfully, we don’t have a long wait for them to follow up The Liberation, as […]

“This is great, but maybe a little too long” is a phrase that comes to mind when describing Allegaeon’s new album Damnum. Not when it comes to describing my penis, though. Kind of the opposite. That’s not why we’re here. If you are, though… Call me. I’ll leave my phone number coded in this review, […]

I’m pretty new to Wilderun’s form of symphonic classical, folk, and progressive, heavy metal/death metal smash-up, with the reissue of 2019s Veil of Imagination being my first exposure to the band to which I then picked up their more folk-tinged prior records. I described the band as a mix of Opeth, Dream Theater and Blind […]

Let me start by being clear from the offset – this is one of the best albums I’ve heard. Ever. It contains everything I love about music, and I’d be surprised if this doesn’t rank highly among many peoples’ ‘best of the decade’ lists. That may sound like I’m exaggerating, but this album really does […]

The new Scar Symmetry isn’t just an ambitious sci-fi concept album – the first in a planned trilogy – it’s also the extreme metal equivalent of Voltron. Melodic death combines with progressive metal, fuses with classic 70s radio-rock, and then activates with a core of pure Transformers-soundtrack awesomeness. Stan Bush and Vince DiCola: “Form feet and legs!” Kansas, Styx, and Foreigner: “Form […]