Let’s start off by saying “female-fronted metal” is not a thing. Well, let me walk that back. It’s definitely a THING, it’s just not a genre. If you’re one of those who thinks it is, I pose to you; Do Jinjer, Arch Enemy, Brutus, Nightwish, Capra, Lady Beast, and Cripper all sound the same? I […]

I know what you’re thinking, “Why the hell is Flotsam and Jetsam‘s latest full-length, Blood in the Water, being reviewed now, months after the album’s release in June”? Well, I can give you two reasons for this. First, and this is the most important reason, Blood in the Water is 100% THE SHIT. This album […]

Hot on the heels of solid, recent, and upcoming majestic, melodic, second wave black metal homages like Warmoon Lord, Arna, Sinira, fellow one man project, Winter Eternal, Kjeld, Wooden Throne and such, comes prolific lone Aussie ‘Nightwolf’ (also in Blood Stronghold and Eternum) and his 5th releases in as many years. And while it’s my […]

This was a heavy duty order for me to review, Senjutsu, the 17th album from my favorite metal band of all time, Iron Maiden.  Maiden’s earlier output from the debut up until Fear of the Dark are all my favorite Maiden albums.  The first time I heard them was when I was 10 years old […]

Pessimist started in Maryland in the early 90’s and had a bunch of hype surrounding them and I became friends with guitarist Kelly Mclauchlin through mutual friends.  To see him see me back with Internal Bleeding 3 years ago in the mid-west -wearing the Voracious Contempt purple tour longsleeve from the tour was a huge […]

“Our stories won’t be written with ink and mirth. But carved in flesh and the soul of the earth. The whispers of the wind will cease to be. All we hear is the wailing of the oceans plea” – “The Archive”. Arkivet (Archive) is the third album from stellar, fast-rising new Swedish melodic black metal […]

The debut album, Misery Sermon from these track suit and mask wearing Russian deathcore thugs was one of my guilty pleasures of 2017, but then they went a bit quiet for a couple of years. But a flurry of singles and videos in 2019, 2020 and 2021 (and even got the famed metal gunner/drummer treatment […]

Do not be alarmed, but the UK’s Beyond Grace are about to unleash an absolute BANGER on your unsuspecting asses. If you listened to their debut Seekers back in 2017, you may be expecting it a little bit, but son, you don’t even fucking know. If you haven’t heard it, definitely check out Seekers because […]

The UKs Necronautical (which I’m now learning means ‘to explore death’, and not something maritime related…) first appeared on my radar their second effort, 2016s, The Endurance at Night on the then reborn , legendary UK label, Cacophonous Records. They were a solid , enjoyable, but unspectacular symphonic black metal act with innate Cradle of […]

New Jersey’s Lorna Shore has come a long way since I reviewed their 2013 EP, Maleficum, a decent but standard deathcore release that had a few symphonic elements here and there. But through  2015s Psalms and 2017s Flesh Coffin, they gradually added more epic, symphonic elements, but they really didn’t register as something special at […]

2020’s Kuarahy caught me completely by surprise. It really hit the spot at the time, despite it not staying in my rotation for the entire year. It was a great debut for White Stones, and I recall it scratched… a certain… itch. Anyway, let’s check out their new one, which upon first listen certainly sounds […]

Much like Warmoon Lord‘s recent opus, you can tell just from the moniker, the ‘not Emperor’s Into the Nightside Eclipse art work at all’,  cover art and song titles (“Crossing the Blackest Skies”, “The Illusive Wings of Death”, “Crown of Stars”, ) and the cover of Gates of Ishtar‘s “Dawn of Flames”, what you are […]

I grabbed this EP (originally self released digital last year) from North Carolina’s duo Snogard (Dragons spelled backwards apparently?), due to the cover art, with looks like a cross between Ian Miller artwork, and something I would have drawn on my 7th grade notebooks, as well as EP themes that explore different protagonists/antagonists in fantasy, […]

I’ve been anticipating this one. Why? Well, Wormwitch’s last one, Heaven that Dwells Within, seemed to be praised by everyone. While I dug what they were doing, I thought it could be greatly improved in a few significant ways. I wasn’t a fan of the production. While it wasn’t offensive, I felt it didn’t fit […]

Salt Lake City, Utah’s Wicked Innocence just reactivated as an active band a few months ago and that goes swimmingly with the reissue of their second album – Omnipotence from 1995.  I will not claim to be an expert on the band’s three other albums, because other than a few snippets here and there, never […]

Despite being one of the early deathcore bands to successfully add keyboards to their repertoire and become more of a blackened deathcore band 4-5 albums ago, Carnifex has been surpassed by the likes of Shadow of Intent, Mental Cruelty and Lorna Shore when it comes to this supposed  ‘blackened deathcore’ sound (and you could make […]

EP releases are a funny thing. There used to be a time when they weren’t really a big deal so-to-speak. Sure, occasionally a band would release something of some serious musical value i.e. Haunting the Chapel, Morbid Tales, Sentence of Death, In the Sign of Evil, Despise the Sun, as well as others, but for […]

Imagine heavy metal as a city. A city in, say, a cheesy 1980s film. You can walk down the streets and you’ll encounter the nice part of town. You have your Slipknot, Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold. The mainstream stuff. That’s fine, but on this day, you came to the city to try something else. Something dangerous. […]

One of Chicago’s best death metal bands, Fleshgrind, finally gets their two (2) demos  Holy Pedophile 1993 and  Sorrow Breeds Hatred… Bleed on Me 1995 released on cd with bonus content.  Fleshgrind would eventually go on to record 3 full length albums but their demos are special for a number of reasons.  The main thing […]

Here’s a release I completely overlooked earlier this spring, but as I was searching through the vast Teethofthedivine promo library in search of melodic black metal similar to stuff I recently reviewed by Warmoon Lord, Winter Eternal and Runespell, I stumbled across the short but excellent gem of a debut from this Spanish black metal […]

A little while back in the Teethofthedivine break room, we were talking about our favorite albums so far this year. Someone mentioned one album gave them a “holy shit” moment, and I realized I had yet to experience such a thing this young year. While I choked down my microwaved frozen gas station burrito on […]

The ever productive Matthew Schott is back with another Sxuperion album, that’s 6 in 6 years, along with a few splits and Eps as well his output in Garden of Hesperides,  Valdur and Oreamnos. I reviewed 2019s Endless Spiritual Embodiment but never got around to covering 2020s Omniscient Pulse, (Sorry Matt, I’ll blame covid). However, […]

Infestation were a rather short lived, but no less important, death metal band from Massachusetts in the early – mid 90’s.  With the death metal scene in New England putting out some killer bands, such as Tyrant Trooper, Scattered Remnants and Desolate, that entire area were also competing with the Boston Hardcore scene as well […]

Sun of the Suns is a new band from Italy featuring members of tech-death act Carnality, deathcore stompers The Modern Age Slavery, and symphonic death metal band Nightland, but also features  Francesco Paoli from Fleshgod Apocalypse helping out on drums. And for once, the FFO recommendations in the promo actually nail it pretty hard, mentioning […]

Sweden’s Havamal ( ‘the words of Odin’), is a relatively new Norse/Viking-themed melodic death metal band with one album under their belt from 2019, Tales from Yggdrasil, which I have not heard. I was in the mood for something Viking -y to tide me over until the new Thyrfing, and this has fit the bill […]