If you have ever sat around ad wondered “What the heck happened to Swedish band Crowpath? Those noisy fuckers were one of Willowtip’s best bands?”, your question has now been answered. While only two Crowpath members are in Tellusian, their influence is apparent, but not overwhelming as two other members of this exciting new act […]

After a bunch of splits, a couple demos and a debut (that honestly, I have not heard) and a live album (?) Sacrificial Blood release Souls for Sale. Man, I hope they didn’t sell theirs. I feel bad for saying that, but doing what I do is oftentimes that of the executioner’s blade and I […]

Wow. 2014 is shaping up to be a banner year for technical death metal. You’ve got Unique Leader’s killer 2014 releases (Soreption, Beneath, Near Death Experience as well as upcoming Pillory and Inanimate Existence records) Willowtip chipping in with Abysmal Torment Cultivate the Apostate, Italy’s reliable masters Hour of Penance withRegicide, respectable US efforts from Rivers of Nihil, […]

If you were to introduce someone to extreme metal, and they hadn’t heard the genre or weren’t previously a fan, you could do little better than to throw on the new Aborted album. It’s all that is right and enjoyable about the metal genre, and on their 8th full length album these Belgians show absolutely […]

Greece is not a pretty place to be right now. Allochiria takes their album’s name, Omonoia, from a neighborhood of Athens that has undergone significant urban decay. They play a style of post-metal that exists in a middle ground between the meditative atmospherics of bands like Pelican and mid-era Isis, and heavier sludge band akin […]

Australia is a scary fucking place. Not only does the country have some of the most dangerous animals on the planet, but it also is home to some really vicious Black Metal ( Bestial Warlust and Destroyer 666 to name just a couple), Erebus Enthroned could very well have moved into that company with Temple […]

A fair amount of controversy has followed Chicago’s Lord Mantis upon the release of their third album, entitled Death Mask. The subject of art verses shock value has been debated at length, with frontman Charlie Fell in the firing line over the symbolic meaning of the disturbed image donning the cover art, created by Jef […]

I can’t tell you a whole lot about Ontario’s Thantifaxath other than that they are Canadian. No members are listed in the CD or on line anywhere, no Facebook page, no official website. But what I can tell you is that Dark Descent’s first real foray into black metal amid of the label’s excellent death metal […]

One could argue that all of the iconic, old school death metal bands that took time off, or broke up then came back (Grave, Morbid Angel, Pestilence, Obituary, Fear Factory etc) , Autopsy has had the most successful return of all without a single hiccup or misstep in their comeback. . Three albums in after […]

Convulse return from the grave with their long over due 3rd album, Evil Prevails.  I had never heard the band before until recently until a friend recommended I get up off my rear and get the reissue of their 1991 debut, World Without God and I love the album.  I heard their second album, Reflections […]

When Killswitch Engage very publically parted ways with lead singer Howard Jones, I was worried about how the new KSE album would sound.  Well last year’s Disarm the Descent was to me a massive disappointment, even with the return of original vocalist Jesse Leach.  The vocals were easily the biggest letdown on that album, and I […]

Hailing from Iceland, Beneath is a tech death metal band who share two ex members with the only other death metal band from Iceland I have ever heard,the pretty damn solid  Ophidian I, who released their debut back in 2012 on Soulflesh Collector Records. The Barren Throne is the band’s second album, and it’s no surprise […]

Wow. Fucking wow. Aleph Null, a Germanic trio of sludge-like proportions, mix the best of everything you remember best about grunge combined with a whole lot of sludge, 70’s rock freewheelin’ experimentalism, and just enough catchiness to give Torche a run for their money in the “we’re sludgy-yet-grungy-yet-catchy” department. This album is equal parts fuzz, […]

Gamma Ray have been pumping out quality Power Metal for almost twenty years with a workman-like attitude that only Germany could produce. So at this point in their career they don’t have much, if anything to prove, and Empire of the Undead is the perfect album to show that fact. Gamma Ray wasted no time […]

Back in 2009, Spain’s Teitanblood erupted onto the scene with their debut full length album, Seven Chalices, and gave everyone nightmares with a disturbingly filthy take on bestial black/death metal. Well now they have returned with the simply and aptly titled Death, and while it isn’t as nauseatingly ritualistic  as Seven Chalices, it is far […]

As I detailed in my review of 2011s One for Sorrow, Finland’s Insomnium have become a predictable but brilliant stalwart of melancholic melodic death metal, a gradual, subtle shift from their more doomy beginnings. They have their sound and they know how to wield it perfectly, even at the expense of progression or growth, instead […]

Cognitive is an up and coming young band from New Jersey, playing death metal that is of the brutal variety with a strong emphasis on technicality.  Their self released 2012 ep, The Horrid Swarm is an incredible piece of Tri-State area brutality.  They have finally secured a record deal with Spanish label, Pathologically Explicit Recordings; […]

Spring and summer bring blooming flowers and whatnot, but Kaunis Kuolematon (‘Beautiful Immortal’) manages to slip in a bit of gloomy darkness just before everything turns to green and people forget their rotten misery and empty lives. Not surprisingly, the Finnish group skips picking up dandelions and instead throws in a melodic death/doom mix with […]

Unique Leader Records is on a definite upswing. Dating back to last year’s Rings of Saturn,  Pyrexia, Deeds of Flesh and Deprecated releases and opening up 2014 with Soreption’s killer  Engineering the Void (one of my contenders for album of the year), Alterbeast, and Iceland’s Beneath (review coming soon)  and this, the third album (though the first I have heard) from […]

Ever-increasing globalization has led to a decline of the development and endurance of regional sounds. The stylings of Bay Area thrash, Swedish death metal, and Norwegian black metal can come from anywhere now. Bucking that trend is the Québécois black metal scene, where a proud yet unpretentious style has evolved and remained unique to the […]

Coming seemingly out of nowhere, Germany’s Hangatyr has exploded into 2014 with a superb slab of Norse black metal that is as infectious as it is intense. Bristling with a sonic ferocity as it should in this genre of metal, Hangatyr also has crafted their music around swirling melodies and catchy, simplistic riffs. While the […]

Deathcore poster children Whitechapel are back with  album number five, a nice shiny clean logo, a contrived album title and cover and the waning hopes of a fading genre resting on their shoulders. How will they fare? To be honest you either like Whitechapel and deathcore or you don’t, and I’m not about to convince […]

Angelic Encounters 8 long years had passed since the second album, Realm of Ecstasy, was released from Thanatos and I had eagerly anticipated Angelic Encounters, but was let down by the production and this had nothing to do with the songs, as they are some of the best the band had ever done.  Armed with […]

 USBM is an interesting animal. When placed next to it’s European counterparts it seems more savage, feral if you will. Like it feels like it has to prove something in order to be accepted. Sad but true, and while there are great American Black Metal bands, Helgardh is going to have to work to be […]

After storming out of the gate with their first two releases, Brutally Deceased‘s Grave worshiping Dead Lovers Guide and Chaos Inception’s excellent, Nile busting The Abrogation, Czech label Lavadome productions went quiet for a bit. However, they are back in business in 2014 with new releases from Chaos Inception and Destroying Divinity in the works […]