Man this is definitely the best Unique Leader release I have heard this year so far. France’s long running Kronos waste no time in beginning their technical death metal assault off the gates with the opener “Infernal Abyss Sovereignty”. Pummeling blast beats and churning vocals set the stage for an incredibly entertaining listen. Being that they […]
Translated as ‘loss’, France’s Verlies is a new three piece act, and Les Domaines Du Hommes was self released back in 2014, but the re-release has been picked up fittingly by Hypnotic Dirge Records. So the combination o the band name, country of origin and the label should clue you in as yo what to expect here. Yes, […]
Okay this is both cool and a bit of a head scratcher, first the cool part. I know there are many of you out there that may miss Massacre both in the 90’s version and the recently aborted reformation of the selfsame band and if you are part of this fan base, you are in […]
Folk metal so often gets bogged down by excess layers of cheese, bombast and pretentiousness that it rarely moves me or finds a way into my listening rotation. But every now and again a style of metal that generally falls outside my comfort zone proceeds to blow me away and forces me to rethink my […]
Lately, my wanton lust for grinding, d-beat flesh is insatiable. It could be the nice weather, a mental illness or some other factor bringing it out of me again, but shit man, I got the bug. Scotland’s own sewerborn hellspawn Rats of Reality are really hitting me with a ball peen hammer right between the […]
Well here it is. At least based on this interview, this is Rory Heikkila’s final release doing business under the Shroud of Despondency brand. This is a huge bummer for those in the know, but I can’t be too sad about it, because Family Tomb is one hell of a consolation. I haven’t enjoyed a […]
This reissue was impossible to find in the U.S. For imports, as usual, I had to go and get it from a European distro and paid over $20 for it. But it was worth it since Odium is my favorite Morgoth album. In 1993 Odium was released and polarized a lot of Morgoth’s fan base […]
This was one of my most anticipated albums in some time; a supergroup comprised of Amebix’s Rob Miller, Michel Langevin (Away) from Voivod, Jon Misery from crust punk stawarts Misery, and Andy Lefton, from the devastatingly crushing War//Plague. I don’t know what I expected that to sound like, given how wonderfully eclectic Ambebix and Voivod […]
Wait… what the hell is this? A brutal death metal band that actually has… a BASS GUITAR?!? One that you can feel? And even the drums have a bit of pop to them? WTF?!? Yes, I can honestly say I was pleasantly surprised when the new Coathanger Abortion (CA) had all of the above. As […]
When James McBain the guitarist/vocalist of the excellent Rats of Reality isn’t breaking apart Pangaea with that band’s blackened, demonic d-beat, he’s at the helm of his solo project Hellripper. He’s a veritable one man wrecking crew playing all of the instruments (aside from Mark Lerche’s lead on “Trial by Fire”) and the end result […]
Well, well, well, look who decided to reform?? New York’s Immortal Suffering putting out a brand new 7 song 22 minute ep, ready to rip your head off. I could not think of a better cd to come back to sending in Teeth of the Divine some new reviews every once in a while. I […]
Australia sure seems to do a wonderful job of producing unbelievably groovy and polished death metal, Ulcerate and Psycroptic to name two that come to mind. Hailing from Perth, Western Australia comes Sanzu. Sanzu’s Painless EP is a testament to experimentation and really well thought out song writing. “18 days of Rain”starts off with an extremely […]
I liked a few numetal bands. There, I said it. I once read an interview with Gene Hoglan where he indicated, very strongly, that we are lucky to live in an age where even the shitty metal acts are better than much of the dross he (and, as I am around his age, I) was […]
There was a time in the late 90s and early 00s where England’s Cradle of Filth were one of my very favorite bands, and whether you liked it or not, they were legitimate superstars in extreme metal. I enjoyed 2000s Midian, 2003’s Damnation and A Day, and really liked 2004’s Nymphetamine, but I never really loved […]
Even for well-seasoned metalheads, grindcore is a tough pill to swallow. It takes some very skilled manufacturers to produce grind that can walk the tightrope between borderline white noise extremity and a whiff of actual songcraft and something for listeners to latch onto. Personally my tolerance for grind has lessened in recent years, mostly due […]
I think most death heads will agree that there are a few immensely satisfying experiences when it comes to death metal; 1) a random new find that kicks ass and 2) that moment when death metal is done perfectly, achieving the immaculate balance of speed, power and brutality. Well, on their second album Italy’s new to me acts, Inverted […]
Doom blues don’t get any better than the church crushing abandon of Goatsnake. ¾ of the original line-up return sans bassist Guy Pinhas (replaced by Scott Renner), and the boys haven’t lost a step. Jesus Christ, Greg Anderson’s riffs make me want to get down on my knees and say the lord’s prayer, vocalist Pete […]
Okay, lets see what we have here. If you are familiar with former Angelcorpse guitarist Gene Palubicki in the slightest, you know he’s a dude that does his thing and does it well, regardless of what band moniker he’s currently doing business under; and Blasphemic Cruelty is no different. What we have is about 20 minutes of […]
Dissident Clone’s State of Dysphoria EP makes for an entertaining albeit quick listen at a combined running time of almost eleven minutes. This Minnesota based two-piece combines a lot of different elements from death/grind/groove/crust and I think those are just the main ones that I can hear. The opening track “Waiting to Collapse” creates an […]
A long-standing pillar of sonic strength and consistency, High on Fire has built a body of work that demands your fucking respect, even if the album peaks have slightly varied along the way. The dependable quality of High on Fire’s music is increasingly rare to find in bands that remain active over such a lengthy […]
I have always been a death metal fan, from the moment I first heard it all them years ago – the textures, the percussiveness, the shear brutality. But I have been very slow and finicky about black metal. I was never taken in by the undergrounder-than-thou shit, which I found to have the same amount […]
Hate, the 2012 second album from these Aussie deathcore mongers, was a solid slab of techy modern deathcore/death metal, that grew on me a little bit as time wore on. And now, three years later it appears the hopes of deathcore have been but on TAIM and Holy War as the genre seems to be in a […]
Virginian, dual axe demons Valkyrie are back with this phenom of an album, their 3rd full-length to date and first for Relapse. I make no bones or excuses about loving these guys to death. I’ve seen them live thrice and they deliver more signed n’ sealed explosives than the Unabomber did in his heyday. Guitar […]
Downfall of Nur, both the band name and this album, are inspired in full by the Nuragic civilization that existed on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean from the middle Bronze age, until its dissolution in the early Iron age. The arc of this civilization is represented across the five lengthy tracks. Immediately I’m […]
For being a band in it’s infant stages of existence, Sweden’s Monolord certainly carries with it an air of age. I am only vaguely familiar with their previous release, Empress Rising, but they seem to convey a very agile & stable blend of doom with accents of the whole Palm Desert scene and an almost […]