As expected from the fickle metal community there has been both a lot of hype and hate towards the debut release from this one woman black metal project from Denmark. From the elitist ‘no women in black metal’ to ‘Deafheaven suck’ crowd and those that think this is the future of black metal. And as is normal, the […]
Prolific and consistent are two words that spring to mind when assessing the career thus far of Boston’s Revocation. Finding cunning ways to manipulate and expand their signature technical death thrash formula has been a key to much of the band’s success and creative progress. Yet when it was announced that their year-by-year release trend […]
First off, many thanks to Paul Shaw, the owner of Blast Head Records, for recommending this band’s debut EP, Song of the Crippled Bull awhile ago. I instantly knew these progressive death metal-playing Pennsylvanians were onto something special, and now the debut full-length cements that fact. For those lamenting Opeth‘s swing away from death metal and […]
While I’m sure upcoming reviews of the new Obituary and At the Gates albums will get well deserved traffic and attention, it’s releases and the opportunity to do reviews of releases like this that keep me interested in metal and this whole reviewing thing. Hailing from Chile, Siaskel’s debut album will more than likely be one of […]
Bondage babes, leather, chains, beer, sleaze and hellraising riffs are just some of the things that spring to mind when jamming the sophomore full-length from retro metal fiends, Midnight. No Mercy for Mayhem might channel very similar territory to its much praised predecessor, Satanic Royalty, but it does so with such infectious energy and skin […]
Tim Call is one busy son of a bitch. In addition to owning and operating the quite excellent label/distro, Parasitic Records, he provides drums and sometimes also vocals for various bands including Aldebaran, The Howling Wind, Weregoat, Sempiternal Dusk, Terror Oath, Ealdath, and I’m willing to bet he’s T in Ardour Loom. Just this year […]
Despite an impressive lineage from some of Canada’s best technical death metal bands like Atheretic, Neuraxis and Vengeful, the debut from Phobocosm plays more like Dark Descent’s typical, cavernous, devastatingly heavy doom/death sounds of Binah, Lvcifyre , Lie In Ruins and notably Corpsessed and it rules. But was there really any doubt? With a crushing Colin Marston mix, Deprived […]
We had to wait 13 years between Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age and its second chapter, Dialogue with the Stars – which has since become one of my favorite metal albums of all time. Now Vindsval has only taken 5 years to deliver Saturnian Poetry. Don’t hold it against him; in the meantime, he’s started and completed the 777 trilogy, […]
10 years after Onwards to Mecca, one of the elder statesmen of New Yawk death metal, like Pyrexia last year, has reformed and are giving it another go on Unique Leader records. And like Pyrexia’s Feast of Iniquity, Imperium is a relatively successful reunion, if still in the shadow of Suffocation and Dying Fetus all these […]
I must confess I am not well versed in Krieg‘s back catalogue, being more familiar with Neil Jameson’s work with Twilight. I enjoyed The Black House but I haven’t listened to it in years. However, Krieg is a key USBM band that stands alongside the likes of Leviathan, Mutiilation, and Nachtmystium in terms of importance […]
If you ain’t gonna reinvent the wheel, then you might as well slap some nice rims on that bitch. That, my friends, is exactly what Septycal Gorge have done with their latest release Scourge of the Formless Breed. Septycal Gorge is a band I’d recognized from their first LP that I own, Growing Seeds of […]
So, if like me you were underwhelmed by the last Triptykon record, here is another Swiss metal act to fulfill your needs for controlled, slower, moody and progressive dark metal that is a real undiscovered gem in 2014s metal releases. Contradiction is Schammasch’s second album albeit my first introduction to this trio, but it won’t be my […]
Panopticon and Bindrune Recordings is a match made in heaven. A label that has released some truly special atmospheric, organic and naturalistic metal (Falls of Rauros, Nechochwen, Blood of the Black Owl, Obsequiae) finally releasing a more accessible and wider CD release of Austin Lunn’s 5th album under the Panopticon banner, a project that personifies organic, atmospheric and naturalistic. […]
Here’s another early release from the UKs fledgling Rotten Music, who brought us the creatively named Facefuck. This time is a Polish band called Vomit Your Brain, and this EP compiles the band’s first 2 demos into one 6 song, 18 minute slab of no frills, slammy brutal death metal. Less grindcore and toilet humor […]
Milwaukee’s Emblazoned just ripped our heads off last year with their debut Deepsend Records release with The Living Magisterium ep. I enjoyed their blackened death metal brutality that also had plenty of nods to the 90’s death metal movement, which is what the band is heavily influenced by. Now a year later the band have […]
I don’t now a whole lot about Finland’s black metal duo Ordinance, other than it’s a couple of guys who have served in or helped out the likes of Algalzahanth, Night Must Fall and Slugathor. Now I know that the band’s debut album, Relinquished, released on a double LP containing 3 20-minute plus “sides”, broken into […]
Theoretically speaking, if one end of a wormhole could be held by a vessel travelling at near light speed into the future while the other remained stationary, information could pass through it into the past. Floridian technomancers, Ævangelist, seem to have discovered the means to do this, and have captured what came through. The recording […]
Adding some deathcore to Unique Leader’s well documented tech death onslaught, comes the UKs self described ‘politicore’ activists Acrania (a fetal birth defect) bringing the absolute heavy to the fray. Listen, if you don’ t like pig squeals, ‘reeeee’ styled inhaled growls, tons of bass drop laden breakdowns and some rudimentary if effective blasting, I’m […]
There is so much superficially wrong with the debut EP from Australia’s not so subtly named Facefuck that screams ‘godawful goregrind’; the name the cover, programmed drums, frog burp vocals, the logo, the song titles (“Indiginous Ectoplasmic Rectal Invasion”, “Infected Labial Secretion Obsession”), the over use of samples (including some from the movies Scary Movie […]
From the usually more death metal based Blast Head Records comes the debut from Denver’s Doperunner and its blistering mix of punk, grindcore and sleezy, Southern blackened sludge. It’s a volatile, fun release that plays like a mix of Nausea, Soilent Green and Eyehategod or Iron Monkey. The 14 grindcore length tracks deliver an ample […]
Solbrud hails from Denmark. Although this is the band’s second full-length, it’s my first encounter with them. The sound displayed on Jaertegn is vaguely reminiscent of darker, more raw European folk-metal acts such as Ygg and Wodensthrone, although to my ears this actually shares more in common with Cascadian black metal, such as Wolves in […]
I have to admit, past the Chris Barnes era, I am hardly a Cannibal Corpse fanboy.I mean I reviewed 2009s Evisceration Plague, and have steadily picked up used versions of Gallery of Suicide, Bloodthirst and Gore Obsessed over the years, but I have not even heard 2006s Kill or 2012s Torture. It’s not that don’t care […]
Back in 2012 these yanks released, The Chills, a damn fine Stockholm styled death metal album that made it into the top ten of my 2012 year end list. I was curious as to how the band would follow it up and keep up with the retro trend that’s been top notch since and especially here […]
Here is the debut, 6 song EP (after a couple of demos) from one man Swedish death metal act Putrified. A. Death (also of black metal act Infuneral) plays all of the instruments, performs vocals and does a pretty good job of it as well as capturing the essence of old school death metal with a heavy dash of […]
Through tremendous work ethics, perseverance and a non-stop willingness to break down and twist the conventions of the doom genre, Eugene, Oregon’s YOB are deservedly regarded as one of the most innovative and revered bands in the modern doom landscape. The formidable trio, led by mastermind Mike Scheidt (vocals, guitar), disbanded following 2005’s excellent The […]