Oh Yay! Another boring release from Job For a Cowboy, however this time they add a little more nuances to their sound for a little bit of an enjoyable experience. I tend to wonder why this band gets as much attention as Suffocation or Cannibal Corpse. Because for one all their albums were utter crap […]

It has been a killer first part of 2012 for metal fans, with the godfathers of grind and death, Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse respectively, both dropping new albums. The new Napalm Death absolutely slayed, and proved once again who still carries the grindcore crown. The questions when a legend comes out with a new […]

Haters gonna hate. To be frank, I think Cannibal Corpse is a strong brand name that has always cemented the band’s “indisputable” place as one of death metal’s most important bands. Look, Cannibal Corpse are one of those staple American death metal bands who have always done and probably will always do a brutally good […]

40 Watt Sun is the new band from Warning’s Patrick Walker and if you’re familiar with Warning and Walker’s signature vocal style, you’ve some idea of what to expect. The Inside Room is dour, pallid, melancholic doom for the most part. Though similar to Warning in many respects, 40 Watt Sun is more drone and […]

An album able to both warm the bones and embody the cold is generally a good one to have on hand during the colder months. Thank goat for Hammers of Misfortune and their skill at blending both the melancholy and heart-warming aspects of heavy metal so fluidly. Their multi-faceted take on the hardships and triumphs […]

As You Drown‘s first album, Reflection was one of my top 25 albums of 2009, so I was pretty psyched to hear these Swede’s follow up. I’ve sort of mentally linked As You Drown to Australia’s The Red Shore,who released their 2nd album ( I know its their third but here in the US, albums […]

Been searching for a modern counterpart to Mercyful Fate? Hell, even if you haven’t, if you call yourself a fan of King Diamond‘s work, you need to hear Portrait. Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae is the group’s potentially unintentional homage to the King, minus some of the creeping horror skulking around most Mercyful Fate/King Diamond material. […]

Man! It’s been just a killer year as far as Swedish, Stockholm styled death metal is concerned! Not only do we have 2011 releases by the likes of Brutally Deceased, Revolting, Ribspreader, Miasmal, Feral, Morbus Chron and Undead Creep, but we’ve seen reissues from Furbowl, Toxaemia, Utumno, and Uncanny too. Also, I’ve been going back and discovering other recent […]

French black metallers GLORIOR BELLI have revealed the cover art and track listing for their new album The Great Southern Darkness to be released in North America on September 27, 2011. Commented the band on the new release: “The Great Southern Darkness has been recorded over a few months period and is comprised of 11 […]

When it was revealed The Gates of Slumber’s fifth album would be a return to the old school doom vibe of their debut, and that former Sourvein drummer ‘Cool’ Clyde Paradis was on board, I had a good feeling. I got into them in a backward fashion, hearing their last album first and their first […]

I’ve never really considered myself anything but a relatively casual fan of The Black Dahlia Murder, despite their rather large status in the realms of modern metal. With a sound that’s been cloned more times than Jenna Jameson has had cocks in her, their appeal loses even more luster as I blame them for the […]

Ahhhh… Unearth… one of the pioneers of the modern metalcore scene. Every time these guys come out with a new album it’s like an old friend you haven’t seen in a few years coming to visit – you think they might have changed but you’re hoping not by much. How does this, their fifth full […]

There are those out there that think death metal is dying or dead. That the once proud genre has succumbed into a riffless, soulless, pro tool pandemic and become full of stagnant clones or simply fallen into pure homage and worship. For the record, I am not one of those people. However, if I were, […]

With 2005’s The Gathering Wilderness, Primordial turned the tide and rose from minor obscurity into everyone’s playlists. Two years later, To the Nameless Dead refined the band’s sound even more. Some bands become content and start to follow a formula, but with Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand, Primordial once again thrusts their sound forward, much […]

What is it these days with so many bands who will come out with a debut that will knock you on your ass but then turn around and release a sophomore effort that flat out sucks and/or totally jumps the shark? Add the young and once extremely promising thrashers Lazarus A.D. to that group. As […]

NEXT CHAPTER IN AWARD-WINNING BAND’s STORIED CAREER SET TO UNFOLD Celebrated progressive rock / cutting-edge metal band BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME (also BTBAM) has inked a worldwide recording deal with Metal Blade Records. The award-winning North Carolina quintet will kick off the partnership with the April release of its new album The Parallax: Hypersleep […]

Despite having plied their brand of Eastern European folk metal since 1995, I’m still relatively unfamiliar with Latvia’s Skyforger, having only heard the Paragon Records 2006 re-issue of their 1998 debut, Kauja Pie Saules (The Battle of Saule). I’ve missed the three albums and a compilation that have been released since 1998. When hearing the […]

Buried under 2010’s avalanche of Old School Swedish death metal awesomeness―from the likes of Entrails, Interment, Nominon and Brutally Deceased―was the third effort from Sweden’s  Evocation. Like Entrails, Evocation were actually around in the early ’90s, and included members from the relatively successful Cemetery, but never quite took off until their resurrection with 2007’s excellent […]

Normally when I go into a review listen on a band that’s new to me, I’m looking for something that I haven’t heard before. Sometimes, though, something very familiar that’s done very well can make an impact. That’s the case with the Slovenian thrashers Negligence. There’s not really a moment on this album that will […]

Nine albums into their rather underrated career and it’s safe to say that The Netherlands’ God Dethroned have entered into the metal elite inhabited by the likes of Bolt Thrower, Dismember, Obituary and such. No, not quite the genre defining metal royalty, but that small club of bands who have ascended into such a level […]

MULTI-TALENTED ARTIST’s RECORD DESCRIBED AS “A JOURNEY THROUGH SOUND” TOMMY ROGERS, lead vocalist, keyboardist and founding member of the award-winning North Carolina progressive rock band BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME (also BTBAM) will release his debut solo album Pulse on February 1, 2011 via Metal Blade Records. The versatile front man and multi-instrumentalist, who not […]

The story behind Fleshwrought is a rather interesting one; the music on Dementia/Dyslexia less so. All this flesh has been wrought primarily at the hands of ex-Animosity drummer Navene Kopperweis (guitars, drums, bass) who began the project in 2003 with the aid of a 7-string guitar, a computer, and some recording software. Later on he […]

I really wanted to like this heavily promoted debut record from System Divide. And why not? It’s got Belgian metal stalwart Svencho De Caluwe (Aborted, In-Quest, Leng Tche) on vocals and he’s joined by his hotterthanheck wife Miri Millman (Orphaned Land) and former Abigail Williams guitarist Mike Wilson. The thing is, the band’s effort to […]

After a critically acclaimed debut (2008’s …Of Frost and War), Dutch supergroup (members of Gorefest, Asphyx, Thanatos and Houwitser) left fans wanting after a strange digital only EP last year, but have now fully satiated fans with a full-length follow-up that continues the quality of the debut. Though still a war themed album, On Divine […]

Ex-Dream Theater keyboardist reunited in 2003 with his old drummer Mike Portnoy (who himself is also ex-Dream Theater now) as well as Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos to form a project called OSI. Many who felt that Moore’s influence was something Dream Theater were sorely lacking after his departure were elated as this reunion of […]