I’m going to do my best to leave the drama out of this review because I’m sure everyone, myself included, has opinions of Dino, Burton C. Bell, and Fear Factory in general. So, I am going to do my best to just talk about this album and the band in general. If I fail, well […]

Full confession; I dig Wednesday 13. I wanted to tackle this because I searched and did not find a single review for him on the site. That’s cool. I get it. His material is definitely more horror punk than metal. If this sums it up well for you, a good friend of mine, after we […]

I didn’t want to do this to you guys, really I didn’t, especially on Christmas week, but the fact is, this is the album we need now. Typically, I would absolutely cringe at anything with spoken word, theatric, storytelling tropes in a metal album, especially of this sort of Dickensian old-timey fluff. And do we […]

Like a dildo to the face when entering a Christian bookstore, last year’s The Grand Descent took me by surprise. I happened to pick it up on a whim, expecting something much different than what that cover art would suggest. I’m glad I did… and I’m glad they have a new release this year. Unfortunately […]

Listen, I fully understand the hate for Hatebreed. Past their influential debut, they have been responsible for popularizing ‘hardcore’ and making it more commercial, and putting it in malls and on MTV. But there is no denying their chest-beating anthemic take on ‘bro-core’ has been the rallying cry for a generation and more than likely […]

It’s been a weird year for everyone, but a good one for Soilwork fans. If you’ve been following the band on social media, you’ve enjoyed a steady drip of new tracks/videos throughout 2020: “Desperado,” “Feverish,” “Death Dealer,” and “The Nothingness and the Devil.” (There was also a new Night Flight Orchestra album back in February, […]

Macabre has remained one of the most original and one of my favorite death metal bands for many years now.  Their second album, Sinister Slaughter, had been out for a short time and when I was with Internal Bleeding and touring in the 90’s I bought the cassette at one of the shows and let’s […]

My Dying Bride‘s 2020 album, The Ghosts of Orion, was an Ok release, not the best of the legendary UK doom act’s third act (yey growls!), but still a decent MDB release, with 3 or so really strong songs, which is always a good thing. So to keep us entertained during these covid times, the […]

“Can the whole, be greater than the sum of it’s parts?” This is, essentially, the question we all ask any time it comes to judging the newest supergroup. Can a group of known, accomplished musicians and artists come together to create something new and even better than the work they’ve already known and been judged […]

Ohhhhhhhh, yessssss! The new Paul Bearer record. Wait, that’s not right. Pallbearer. There it is. There’s no Undertaker here. Although, this album may make you sit up like him when you hear it for the first time. So, this is another mainstream metal release that probably has received glowing reviews in Pitchfork as well as […]

Due to the stupid pandemic Carcass decided to hold off on releasing their follow-up to their excellent 2013 reunion album – Surgical Steel, until 2021.  Smart decision, since pretty much any albums released in 2020 are dead in the water due to no live shows/touring and 2021, at least in Europe, looks to start resuming […]

Ok fuckers, get your pitchforks out, it’s female-fronted metal time. It’s been well documented in these pages that my guilty pleasure is peppy, bombastic female-fronted metal. From long time stalwarts Epica to Delain and newcomers like Scardust and Moonlight Haze, I’m a sucker for a catchy chorus and pretty voice. And one of my favorites, […]

England’s Benediction, is one of the UKS oldest and earliest Death metal bands and have some notable vocalists since their inception in 1989. From Barney Greenway, now the long term face of Napalm Death on the band’s 1990 debut Subconscious Terror, to Dave Hunt, now known as VITRIOL in Anaal Nathrakh, who served on the […]

Hey, listen, far be it from me to criticize or question a band’s creative process. Artists are artists! Some bands can pump out new material every couple of years and avoid having it feel stale or overdone, and good for them! But others like to let things marinate, I mean really stew for years to […]

Boy, I have not reviewed a Kataklysm album in years, not since the Digitalmetal.com days. But after rather enjoying 2018s Meditations, I thought I’d give Unconquered a go and see if the band’s 14th (yes 14th!) album grabbed my attention as their last effort did. And yes it has. I’m squarely in the Kataklysm camp […]

Fuck, I really overlooked this, the fourth album from Australia’s Aversion’s Crown. So, sorry for the belated review. I’ve enjoyed the last 2 efforts (2017s Xenocide and 2014s Tyrant), but can’t say I’ve revisited them much since their release. But holy shit am I glad I revisited this on a whim after hearing the closing […]

Formed way back in 1983, Polish juggernaut Vader are rightfully held in high regard in the death metal scene. A pillar of consistency since dropping their 1992 debut, The Ultimate Incantation, Vader keep on kicking out reliably strong death metal jams, with the past decade showing no sign of decline. Although Vader has dabbled with […]

For a few albums now, England’s co-god fathers of Doom metal (along with My Dying Bride and back then, Anathema) have, like My Dying Bride, successfully mixed their old doom/death sound and their more commerical, mid era Depeche Mode plod, peaking with 2015s The Plague Within, where vocalist Nick Holmes even brought back death metal […]

When the UK’s  Sylosis released the single “I Sever” at the end of 2019, followed shortly by an official album announcement, I was torn. On the one hand, the song is fantastic – thrashy, epic, and heavy. On the other hand, these are all terms I’d use to describe most Sylosis songs. “I Sever” seemed to be […]

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 […]

Have you ever had an itch you just can’t explain? Worse yet, one you can’t seem to reach? For a lot of people, this is somewhere on the back. You know that place below the neck and between the shoulders. Inventors have made millions (I assume) from this. For me, unfortunately, the itch is on […]

At this point in My Dying Bride‘s 25 year career do you really need a review of album number 13? Let’s be honest, you are simply checking this review out to see if, 1. Aaron Stainthorpe is still growling, and if the 2 released singles  (“Your Broken Shore” and “Tired of Tears”) are the best […]

For a while there, in the mid /late 00s, at deathcore’s peak, Suicide Silence were mentioned in the same breath as genre darlings the likes of Whitechapel, Oceano, All Shall Perish, Despised Icon and such. Even after the tragic death of vocalist Mitch Lucker in 2012, the band were joined by Eddie Hermida (ex-All Shall […]

As one of the godfathers, if not THE godfather, of the deathcore genre, Despised Icon have enjoyed a special place at the top for fans of the style.  Though the band themselves have rejected the label, they have no doubt played a huge part in spearheading a genre that is oft-hated, but no doubt has […]

Strigoi is the new death/doom/crust project from Paradise Lost‘s guitarist/vocalist Gregor Mackintosh after he disbanded Vallenfyre, after 3 albums. And even though hes joined by a slightly different line up (bassist Chris Casket of Extreme Noise Terror and session/studio drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, also of Paradise Lost), the result sounds exactly like Vallenfyre’s latter, crustier output, […]