Calmed By The Tides Of Rain released the killer album, Phaeton, recently, that I raved about in my review on here and now the Russian slam deathcore band are back with a digital only 3 song ep, Hives. One of the things that I spoke about is that they had more death than core to […]
Norway’s In Vain, according to the Encyclopaedia Metallum, plays Progressive Extreme Metal. Progressive is a tag that gets thrown around a lot and can mean practically anything. In In Vain’s case, the “progressive” is the same as applies to Borknagar or Emperor but to a lesser extent. In Vain tempers their progressive tendencies with a […]
Cadaver Mutilator is a brutal death metal band, from Italy and this is their debut album. One thing is for certain Italy is becoming the hotbed for ultra brutal death metal, these days. Many of the bands going for the jugular in their approach to music and if you’re a fan of bands, like Putridity, […]
Hailing from Texas, Cara Neir is one of those bands that will drive grizzled old school black metal fans crazy but fans of envy, Hiretsukan, Quantice Never Crashed as well as label mates The Makai and black metal upstarts Deafheaven and So Hideous should check these guys out. Playing a punked out form of hardcore and screamo tinged black metal, […]
While subgenres in metal tend to diversify (think of the many iterations of black metal or death metal going around these days), some genres seem natural pairs and have coalesced into genres of their own. Take for instance black metal and sludge. Ville Morgue, the first full-length offering from France’s Carne, plays riff-driven sludge metal […]
After tantalizing the death metal world and truly putting Dark Descent Records on the map with their 2011 EP, The Dagger & The Chalice, Finland’s strangely named Corpsessed have finally unleashed their debut album, and it, along with Dark Descent’s two other killer early 2014 releases from Lie In Ruins and Lvcifyre, have signaled some […]
It goes without saying that it’s difficult for a band to stand out in a crowded field. With dozens of bands all mining similar influences and plying similar styles, you either have to turn in an incredibly convincing performance that elevates what might otherwise be mundane or you have to apply a twist on the […]
Alcest is one of the very few bands for which I say: if you like it, you like it; if you don’t, you don’t. There is nothing bad about it. It needs to be taken on its own terms, and once it is, whatever opinion you form about it is your own, and it’s okay. […]
Dysmorphic is a technical death metal band from France and A Notion of Causality is their full length debut album. They have a self financed ep from a few years back that I have yet to hear. Some of the ep tracks appear on this full length and one would assume they have been revamped. […]
After some demos and EP of fairly standard Swedish death metal, Necrophobic morphed into a black/death act and released a handful of pretty revered albums in 1993’s The Nocturnal Silence, 1997’s Darkside and 1999’s The Third Antichrist. However, it’s 2002’s Bloodhymns that I will always have a soft spot for, being one of my very […]
Cadaveric Crematorium is a special band – it’s trying to do its own thing in a sea of clones and redundant brutal experts. It’s not the most groundbreaking band but the best reference to give it would be Broken Hope in the 90s trying to get innovative, breaking away from its ‘The Bowels of Repugnance’ […]
On a recent road trip, I was literally telling my wife how I was wanting another Jaldaboath album, as the band had seemingly gone dark after 2010 Rise of the Heraldic Beasts, one of my very favorite albums form that year. Well, lo and behold Grand Master Jaldabaoth, via the sorcery of email sent me […]
Sol Negro is this obscure Black/Doom Metal band from Seattle, Washington, which has been around since the late 90s but hasn’t really caught the eye of the international press or fans for that matter. It’s such a shame because this is an intriguing band if any. While it calls itself Black/Doom, it’s not wrong, but […]
Back when I was fronting Internal Bleeding, Deathrune was one of the local NY acts that we played with and I became friends with their singer Kelly Izquierdo. Killer dudes and a great live act as well. Dark Blasphemies Records has put together an absolute beast of a reissue/compilation, containing all of Deathrune’s material across a […]
Hateful is Italy’s best kept secret in the Italian Death Metal scene. It’s built its reputation the hard way, without any fancy labels or big guys in the band line-up – solely on the basis of its music. This is not to take away something from the other bands, everyone has worked hard and met […]
So do you like your brutal death metal with a razor-thin production, monotone vocals and no real attempt at songwriting? Well if so, then you’ll love the new full length from Italy’s Exhumer. It’s a straight forward exercise in how to do brutal death by the book, without really even caring to open the cover […]
The Netherlands has been a quite fertile breeding ground for extreme metal in recent times. The impenetrable blackness of Gnaw Their Tongues and Post-Black Metal wizards Cold Body Radiation are to name but a few of the exciting artists emerging from this small Northern European country. Another band sure to compel many is Fluisteraars, who […]
Hailing from France, Hypnos is a doomy post rock act that instantly reminds of the likes of Morne and Mindrot, that’s to say they are fucking excellent, and their self released debut album, The Fall is an artfully crafted, elegant and powerful album that any Post Rock fans should check out as well as fans of […]
I stumbled across this London duo while browsing the Facebook feed from fellow Brits, Dyscarnate and after a few preview listens from the band’s page, immediately ordered a physical copy of the CD. What we have here is a band that seems to initially cull from British metalcore act Sylosis, but adds a more epic, […]
Despite being one of the US’s longest running, oldest and most consistent death metal bands, Master never seemed to get the acclaim and recognition of say Obituary, Decide or Cannibal Corpse., and founder Paul Speckmann is OK with that. But by the same token, I think most would agree the band simply did not have […]
Oceano, after previously going into hiatus due to singer, Adam, becoming a father (congratulations dude), have returned with their 3rd deathcore inspired album that is a pretty good listen, from this Chicago based band. I love their debut album, Depths, which came out in 2009. Super heavy and the bass bomb drops were the heaviest I […]
On Kauan’s previous album Kuu.. from few years back, the last track “Suora Liila Sydänkäyrä” ended the excellent album in a weighty fashion, closing up the album but hinting of unfinished business. Not surprisingly, with their newest album Pirut, the merry band from Chelyabinsk continues from pretty much where they left off (and one asteroid […]
Celeste, a member of the still-burgeoning French black metal scene delivers its fourth full-length album, a solid, double-disc offering. I first looked into it expecting something more uplifting (as the name Celeste suggested something more, I don’t know, celestial) and got a pleasantly unpleasant surprise. Apparently the band has roots in hardcore, but I would […]
Germany’s FDA Rekotz has unearthed yet another homegrown band playing the classic Stockholm sound to join country mates Revel In Flesh, Slaughterday, Lifeless and Wound, by way of Harm and their debut, Cadaver Christi, a fun little romp through Dismember and Grave styled mid range goodness. All of of the above mentioned bands, Harm is the […]
With an upcoming full-length in the pipeline, I can only assume the young upstarts that comprise Ohio’s Dismemberment are doing some good old fashioned self-promotion by shooting their tidy sophomore EP, titled Denied Salvation and released last year, back into the promo portal. Whatever their motives, as a reviewer it’s always a nice feeling to […]