Belphegor has always been one of those consistent, respected veteran bands on my periphery that I’ve ‘liked’ but never ‘loved’. The first  album I heard and covered was 2005s relentless  Goatreich Fleshcult,  and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, subsequent albums like Pestapokalypse VI, Walpurgis Rites- Hexenwahn and Black Magick Necromance, left me pretty ambivalent. So much […]

You know home in some sports and other contests there is a USA vs the World? Well, if we did that for deathcore, despite a valiant effort from the likes of Enterprise Earth, Rings of Saturn, Shadow of Intent, Fit For and Autopsy and Oceano (and negative points from Suicide Silence) , the rest of the world […]

After completely gutting and then revamping the line up, Dani Filth seemed invigorated for the surprisingly good Hammer of the Witches back in 2015, and that renewed energy has carried over into the follow up, the darkly seductive, 12th album, Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay. A tale of Victorian debauchery, magick, death, the afterlife and Gothic, supernatural […]

California’s Rings of Saturn and their (jokingly) self described ‘aliencore’ are one of the more divisive bands in metal, even more some since allegations the band recorded their materiel at half speed and used Guitar pro. Whether you consider them technical death metal or deathcore, the band’s first 3 albums Dingir and Lugal Ki En got […]

Has there been a more hyped yet un-prolific and bloated project as Wintersun, Jari Mäenpää’s much ballyhooed, post Ensiferum project? After 2004s Lauded self titled debut there were deleted files and then an 8 year wait for Time I, which ultimately was a huge let down after the wait and the hype. So now we have […]

Well Nuclear blast definitely has a busy summer ahead for brutal United States Death Metal Releases.  Between Origin, Suffocation and Decrepit Birth I wonder which one or two or all three will be on this year’s Summer Slaughter Tour. Time will tell for sure.  One thing is for sure Kansas’s Origin are not wasting any […]

Admittedly, with the album name, the more Fallujah ish cover, yet more turnover (veterans Guy Marchais and Kevin Talley have left replaced by young guns Charlie Errigo and Eric Morotti respectively) and the first single “Your Last Breaths” not impressing me very much, I had pretty low expectations for this album. But for album number 8, mainstays Frank […]

So yeah, Ghost Bath is from North Dakota, not China. Let’s move past that and get right to the issue at hand- the band’s 3rd full length album and one which sees founder Dennis Mikula add members from the band’s first 2 releases as opposed to go it alone as he did on 2015s Moonlover, my […]

Those following this project know that Memoriam is a UK death metal super group of sorts born of sadness, loss and friendship. With the passing of Bolt Thrower drummer Martin “Kiddie” Kearns in 2015 and the death of Benediction’s Frank Healy’s father  just 3 weeks later, former members of both bands came together to form a cathartic […]

I’m far from an Immolation fanboy. In fact, I’m a real late bloomer when it comes to these guys. It wasn’t until I recently (2011) picked up 1999s Failures For Gods that I started to get an appreciation for the band, picked up the back catalog and looked forward to each new release. And I […]

Friends, thrashers, metalheads, lend me your ears! OverKill, the most consistent metal band on the entire planet, is back with their 18th (yes, I said 18th ) full-length album, The Grinding Wheel. If you are new to metal and/or are unfamiliar with OverKill, and somehow you have made your way to this review, then stop! […]

Germany’s Kreator really needs no introduction and despite a few mishap albums in the 90’s, for me, remain the best German Thrash Metal act to this day.  I will venture to say I remember when Endless Pain was released in 1985 and 1986 brought about my favorite album by them, Pleasure to Kill.  ’92-99, is […]

Aided by the whimper of Whitechapel’s Mark of the Blade, once the genre’s flagbearer,  deathcore appears to be on a hard downswing. Even for me, a staunch fan of the genre, other than a hand full of EPs (Falsifier, Pathways) little has really blown me away recently or even over the last year or so. But here […]

  I can remember cruising through my local record store some 20 years ago as a young teenager and blindly purchasing Testaments Souls of Black solely on the cover art.  It was a rewarding purchase to say the least, and so began my admiration for one of heavy metals finest acts. What I now have […]

Opeth’s 12th album is upon us, and as promised, Sorceress is their heaviest in years – certainly since Watershed. It is also their best since then. The pendulum has not swung back to 2008, though. This is still not a metal album, per se – certainly not the progressive death that made them so beloved […]

Germany’s Equilibrium has resided atop the viking/folk metal hill for a while now, with 2005s Turis Fratyr and  2008s Sagas remaining two of the very top albums in the genre. And while Rekreatur was a transitional solid release after a line up shift, the band stormed back with Erdentempel in 2014. So now here with album […]

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 […]

After more grindcore beginnings, one could argue that the modern deathcore movement peaked with either 2005s The Healing Process or The Ills of Modern Man, this Canadian act’s third full length album, in 2007. My vote is for the latter. But after 2009s Day of Mourning, the band split up as deathcore began to fade and wane under […]

Hatebreed’s last album, The Divinity of Purpose, was a very hit or miss output for me (with more misses than hits), that made it the only one of their albums that I did not purchase.  Still wary from that last full length I came into their new one a bit apprehensive to say the least, […]

With 2014s excellent The Flesh Prevails, Fallujah really came into their own amid a saturated deathcore/djent core scene, forgoing the tech death forays of the debut, The Harvest Wombs in favor of a more dreamy, elegant and progressive pastures.  Well, the critical success of The Flesh Prevails was parlayed into a deal with Nuclear Blast, so […]

Since transforming into a fully orchestral, symphonic death  metal band with 2011 Agony (my very top album of that year), the band has been pretty divisive with an either love them or hate them approach. Some claim the band is soulless, forgetful tech death with no riffs, simply window dressed with symphonics. Others, myself included […]

The Beginning of Times and Circle were both solid Amorphis albums, each with a few memorable standout tracks, yet I haven’t returned to them often. Instead, when I’ve been in the mood for some of the Finns’ melancholic majesty, I’ve chosen Skyforger, which I think is the quintessential album for the band’s now-lengthy third era (by my classification, anyway; era 1 […]

“SLAYERRRRRRRR!!!!” “PLAY SOME FUCKIN’ SLAYERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!” You hear it at every show you go to, it seems. There’s always that one or maybe two douchebags that scream at the band on stage to play some “fuckin’ Slayer, man”. I feel it’s more than likely one of the prime reasons why Slayer gets a mostly bad rep […]

Any band with 20+ years to its name is bound to evolve, but Fear Factory has never gone through massive upgrades to their OS (band members though, different story). Soul of a New Machine was industrial death metal in its molten form, and Demanufacture refined it into cold blue steel. Remanufacture sent it through the crusher and the chop-shop. […]

One could argue that after four classic albums (Among the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka, Black Seeds of Vengeance, In Their Darkened Shrines, Annihilation of the Wicked), South Carolina’s Nile could be construed to be running in place for their following 3 albums, culminating in 2012’s At the Gates of Sethu. While unmistakably still a Nile album, production issues plagued […]