I’m not sure what to think about this. Bourbon Souls is the debut from Helsinki six piece Stråle (shimmer/shine/glow), and it’s a pure hard rock/alternative record, the first such that I’m aware on the usually death metal orientated FDA Records. The thing is, it’s kinda fun. This is open window, driving own the highway, singing […]

Imagine for a moment Abysmal Dawn were your average, every day, 9-5 productive cog in society. It’s not too far from the truth. After all, they do make death metal for a living (although, let’s face it, they probably need other jobs, too). They get up, go to work every day, do a great job, […]

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 […]

Jacob Bannon. Sean Martin. Mike McKenzie. Greg Weeks. Jon Rice. A musical collective combining parts of Converge, Wear Your Wounds, Twitching Tongues, Hatebreed, The Red Chord, Stomach Earth, Job For A Cowboy, and Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats together under one banner. So, rather than waste any more time talking about the checkered history of […]

Singaporean death/black/thrash/war metal blasphemers Impiety have been around since I was about 6, but my introduction to them was much later. If you have paid any attention to my words on this site at all, you have no doubt noticed I have picked up quite a few albums on a whim. While I am unsure […]

Ho Hum, another Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Revolting, Ribspreader,  The Grotesquery, Down Among the Dead Men) project. Let’s see who he has joined up with this time shall we?  Well, we have Wombbath’s Håkan Stuvemark on vocals and guitars, Jon Skäre of Defiatory on drums and Mathias Back from Fimbultyr on bass (what, no Jonny Pettersson?????). […]

With being involved in the music scene for so long both as a musician and a writer I still get stoked over the smallest things and am very thankful for some of the bands I have interviewed and reviewed over the years.  I have been fortunate to have reviewed all the Thanatos reissues as well […]

We all know who Alestorm are by now and what style of ‘love it or hate it’ pirate based thrash heavy metal they play, but I had an unnerving bad feeling about Alestorm’s sixth album before I even heard some of the songs. 2017s No Grave But the Sea was another solid effort of pirate […]

Oh, Forgotten Tomb. I’ve never forgotten you. How could I, baby? You gave me 2015’s Hurt Yourself and the Ones You Love. I purchased it on a whim in a record store that sadly no longer exists simply because the cover grabbed my attention. When gazing at the cover, one could easily dismiss it, call […]

Here’s is more excellent Finnish black metal from Purity Through Fire to go along with Kryptamok’s superb Verisaarna . This time in the form of the fine debut EP from the 5 piece collective known as Nôidva (which has members of The Watcher, Herr De Qual, Sacrificium Carmen, and others). Not as vitriolic or frosty […]

With over 10 years (and counting) as an IT professional, I was definitely intrigued when combing the albums to review here at TOTD, and saw one called Master Boot Record.  I was like “wait a second (as my IT nerd-dom kicked in)… that’s an interesting name for a band.”  Without reading too much I previewed […]

Ever have frostbite? Ever touch dry ice? Ever touch something so cold, your skin blistered up? Well, if you handle the debut album from Finland’s Kryptamok, you very well might experience those things, as it’s a brilliantly frosty, nasty display of second wave black metal. The brain child of Hex Inferi, formerly of Finnish black […]

Talk about a surprise band for me. This 4-piece British band has been around for close to 20 years, flying under my radar as they have released 4 prior albums to this fifth one Oak, Ash & Thorn. Dark Forest play a brand of Heavy/Power Metal. Think early Iron Maiden mixed with early Fates Warning […]

To this day, I still absolutely love Naglfar’s first two albums and Vittra and Diabolical remain two of my very favorite 90s melodic black metal albums. And while 2003 Sheol was a worthy follow up, with the departure of vocalist Jens Ryden, the band fell into a bit of a rut with subsequent albums  Pariah, […]

Here’s a little atmospheric, shoe-gazy, post rock serenity to break up the death and black metal by way of UK collaboration Dawnwalker, a project featuring members of UK acts Sacred Son (who you may remember for making metal headlines for their album cover a few years ago), Pijn, Metasoma, Gold Baby and a host of […]

From the promotional email: “For fans of Gorefest, Entombed, Bolt Thrower, Grave“ Fucking sold. OK, so the promotional email might have been a bit of a stretch, but aren’t they all?  And it certainly got me to check out the debut fro Switzerland’s Mnemocide (‘death of memory’). Entombed and Bolt Thrower might be a bit […]

Necrowretch, from France, return with their fourth long-player, The Ones From Hell. I have been a huge fan of the band since their ripping 2013 debut Putrid Death Sorcery and have reviewed all their albums and interviewed singer/guitarist Vlad years ago. Their last album Satanic Slavery was a massively intense album-and saw the band break […]

Have you seen those “Gonna tell my kids this was…” memes? Here’s a pretty good one. Here’s another OK example. This one is just, well, perfect. Anyway, if SOMEHOW I make it through this shit show and haven’t been rendered impotent by nuclear fallout or Lysol injection or whatever other goddamn plague is waiting on […]

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 […]

By the time you read this, the latest album from Katatonia will have already been on the streets for a couple weeks. I’m sure you’ve read some reviews by now and those are most likely from fan boys or former fan boys. I must give you a fair warning I am no such person. If […]

Lets get one thing out of the way first, I’m not Engutturalment Cephaloslamectomy over and over in this review, from now on its EC, get over it. Second thing that  I should address is that Indiana’s EC, while a Slam band of the slammiest order, it’s immediate from opener “Worthless Intro You Will Skip”, that […]

While it certainly never went away, the modern rise to prominence of the old-school Stockholm Death Metal sound is a welcome return for the world of extreme music. For me, those familiar buzzsaw tones and pummeling grooves are like being wrapped in a flannel blanket in front of an open fire, with a cup of […]

I decided to check out the promo from Texas’s I Am Destruction, as it was a Unique Leader release, and that’s usually a fire hit. Also, this band and features guitarist Paul Dundas, who used to play is fellow Texans  I Am, who I recently discovered and really liked, hoping for a similar styled and […]

Viogression hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, began in the hey day of death metal and although they released a second album in 1992: Passage, and the album suffered a lot from production and song writing issues, their crowning achievement is the 1991 debut – Expound and Exhort.  A 12 song album that mixed a blazingly heavy […]

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 […]