One of the best things about metal is the breadth of styles and genres available, and finding a band out of nowhere and being blown away by their style is something that will never get old for me. The debut album by Oakland natives Secrets of the Sky is just that type of find. Playing […]
Here is one of those reviews I hate writing. The debut from the UK’s Craven Idol has gotten a lot of buzz in media metal circles. Playing a form of black/thrash death and replete with band member names like ‘Scourger’ and ‘Immolator of Sadistic Wrath’, this British trio were the apparent second coming of Destroyer […]
Ok, here is a brief history of Pestilence & some out there may have similar viewpoints. Their first 3 albums are legendary in my book, therefore pointless to comment on. The 1993 release of their progressive, jazz-fusion hybrid death metal album, Spheres, polarized their fan base so much that fans dropped off the face of […]
Dang it. I wanted to like this sooooo much more. Oblivion sees former All Shall Perish founder and guitarist Ben Orum reunite with buddies Nick Vasallo (vocals) and Luis Martinez (drums) from his pre ASP band, Antagony, a vastly under rated progressive deathcore act from a decade ago (seriously, go listen to the bands second […]
Graced with with one of 2013’s most striking artwork (courtesy of Paolo Girardi also responsible for Inquisition’s Obscure Verses for the Multiverse), the second release from San Francisco Vastum is a simple, yet tense affair with lyrical themes based on Oedipal complexes, incest, child abuse and patricide. With former members of Acephalix, Vastum share a similar crusty/death […]
It’s their shortest record to date. They are treading less new ground. It’s less chaotic. It doesn’t quite strike the listener like Outre. Now that all of the things you’ve already read about Vexovoid have been reiterated, we can concentrate on just how mammoth of a record it really is. If you’re not already familiar […]
It’s been a pretty down year for deathcore, with few good releases coming out that really struck a chord with me (Joe Deathcore Hater: dude there’s NEVER been a good year for deathcore! Deathcore sucks! Well, this review wasn’t written for you JDH, so pour some cold water down your pants and go fire up […]
I’ve had a hard time coming up with a review for this album. It’s so good–and its sound is immediately familiar, yet hard to pin down in words. Agrimonia takes so much influence from all over the metal map, but rolls it into one seamless, devastating package, that it is not only difficult to pinpoint […]
Outsiders often refer to our beloved genre as “scary music” or just “noise.” This jaded, 20+ year fan of extreme metal got a sense of how they feel the first time I listened to Omen Ex Simulacra, Ævangelist’s second full-length and first on Debemur Morti Productions (the most appropriate label for this band). Last year’s […]
I’ve always had a hard time reviewing material that involves people I ‘know’ whether in person or e-friends. Such is the case with Rae Amitay, former co scribe from my Metalreview.com days. Luckily, she has given me so such reason to worry as displayed on Thrawsunbalt’s stunning 2013 release, Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings, […]
It’s been 6 long years since Pyrexia’s last album, Age of the Wicked, was released and what we have here folks is Feast of Iniquity, the fourth album in this legendary NYDM band’s repertoire and it’s a bulldozer of an album. WOW-Zeus mixed and mastered this bad boy at his Planet Z Studio and one […]
If crossover was the result of punk and metal’s liquor fueled party hook-up, surely sludge was the junk addicted offspring born during the dark times they spent shooting tar with rusty works in an abandoned building. Sludge’s early years were spent as the musical gutter child of the vitriol and speed of punk and the […]
My first exposure to Sweden’s Blood Mortized came by way of the 2012 EP Bestial, and subsequent album, The Key to A Black Heart , a solid but unspectacular addition to the Swedish death metal revival and . Since then the band members have been busy with other projects including super group Just Before Dawn and […]
Boal is a brutal death metal band, hailing from The Netherlands, playing a really chunky style of death metal that is mostly U.S. influenced, with some European tinges. Album opener “Deranged”, blasts right out of the starting gates and the vocals are exceptional, alternating between ultra low gutturals and some screams. If you’re a fan […]
Last year Scott Kelly, founder of the highly influential experimental metal band Neurosis, stated that the supergroup he was involved in with several other metal luminaries, Shrinebuilder, would probably never convene again. Sad as I was at this, the subsequent announcement of his partaking in another side project, entitled Corrections House and containing Sanford Parker, […]
Even after a name change from So Hideous….My Love, this New York post black metal act is still going to be labeled a ‘pretentious’ band and lumped in with the likes of Deafheaven, Liturgy and such, but personally I don’t give a fuck, as Last Poem/First Light improves upon the same taught, orchestration filled, post black metal […]
Year of No Light have been around for a while now. When I listened to 2006’s Nord, I thought it was a competent but unremarkable sludge album. Ausserwelt came out four years later, and their sound had evolved to more than make up for the time elapsed. While that album wasn’t perfect, it contained moments […]
Deprecated were a band who featured bassist Derek Boyer (Deeds of Flesh, Disgorge, Decrepit Birth) before he joined Suffocation, and now reunited, the band now features Terrance Hobbs (Suffocation), Matt Sotelo (Decrepit Birth) for this, the rerecording and rereleasing of the band’s sole release, the 1998 EP, Deridng His Creation. And a scorcher it is. […]
Florida’s Brutality return with their first official recording since the outstanding 1996 album, In Mourning. We only get 2 songs, but they are really good songs and this also marks the return of the original band logo. The 8 minute title track opens the album and the return of the signature Brutality blast beats hits […]
Several years ago, I was reviewing a steady string of super heavy, angular, metal bands like The Minor Times, The Red Chord, Apiary, Swarm of the Lotus, Harlots, Engineer, Animosity, Ion Dissonance and Into the Moat. Well, Dallas TX’s Seeker has tapped into that sound on their Victory Records debut and unleashed arguably one of Victory […]
Stuck in a perpetual ’80s thrash-punk time warp, Joel Grind’s Toxic Holocaust are a prolific institution in the retro metal field. Already this year, Grind has released a retrospective snapshot of Toxic Holocaust’s non-album material (From the Ashes of Nuclear Destruction) while also releasing a fun little solo gem with his Yellowgoat Sessions project. Chemistry […]
Hope Drone is from Australia, but listening to their music, one could easily mistake them for a band from the U.S. Their 4-track debut EP demonstrates a bleak style of black metal strongly indebted to the Cascadian variety, specifically Wolves in the Throne Room and Altar of Plagues, played with surprising maturity and aplomb. The […]
When Sepultura burst into the scene in 1985 with the Bestial Devastation split LP in 1985 I was an instant fan and had the pleasure of seeing them on their SOS tour on their Beneath the Remains U.S. tour with openers Sadus and Obituary. This was a classic show and I spoke at length to […]
Man, I am loving this record! Other than Mortal Infinity’s District Destruction, not much of this thrash revival has grabbed my attention, so the likes of Revocation, Havoc, Toxic Holocaust and such hasn’t really floated my boat , but here comes Canada’s Besieged to kick me in the nuts and remind me why I loved so many metal […]
Calling yourself Ferocity is a risk, because if you’re going to give your band such a powerful name, you better make damn sure you bring the goods. Luckily Danish death metal band Ferocity has done just that. If you’ve followed the Danish death scene, there have been a number of heavy-as-hell acts coming out of […]