Milwaukee hardcore/crust band Enabler have said about their new full length – the world is fucked, and this is the soundtrack to its demise.  Based on their lyrical themes it’s a pretty accurate description, albeit a bold one.  With bleak artwork and song titles such as “Fuck Today” and “Save Yourself”, you can tell these […]

Stepping deeply into the endless chasm of spiritual enlightenment and partaking on a journey to discover one’s true meaning comes the latest album from Seattle’s Blood of the Black Owl. Light the Fires! is an adventurous creation of music and one that begs the listener to look deeply into spirituality, lift one’s spirits, and hopefully […]

Back in 2008 Sweden’s Necrovation dropped Breed Deadness Blood, an authentic,  throwback but modern Swedish death metal record that was retro, before retro was vogue. It was widely regarded as a new classic of sorts and was a deservingly acclaimed record. 4 Years later Necrovation are back and have added a second guitarist, and those […]

My boys and I sometimes look under the stones around our property. We know what we will usually find – dry, dusty things, the occasional beetle, maybe some fungus. Occasionally we are surprised by a lizard or newt, if it is wet enough. And so it goes with bands like Mystagog, from Hungary. I know what […]

Back in 2009 we reviewed the self titled, self released debut from this Australian doom outfit, and by most accounts it was a solid effort of European styled doom/death metal  culling from the British and Finnish school of the genre, recalling the likes of My Dying Bride, Anathema, Shape of Despair and such. I recall […]

There is heavy metal, and then there is metal. It bugs me when some people (either not metal fans, or religious authorities, or simply older people who likely still have Tipper Gore/PMRC headlines echoing in their heads from the early 80s) call it all “heavy metal music.” Heavy metal is a specific genre, mostly from […]

This spring/summer has seen the German death metal scene deliver the goods with the likes of Tombthroat, Sophicide and the second release from Deadborn. All three delivering something a little different, with Tombthroat going for the throat, Sophicide making people forget Necrophagist and with Deadborn you’ve got a band that lie some where in between. […]

If Poison Smile doesn’t get the attention that American Dog deserves in North America (Europe has been reveling in it for years now), then I don’t know what will. Then again, the Ohio band’s DIY approach to releasing albums on this side of the pond makes it a little tougher to get the word out, […]

Recently I’ve been on a bit of a symphonic black metal kick, dusting off the likes of Anorexia Nervosa, Skyfire, Stormlord, Arthemesia, Dagor Dagorath, Sirius, Covenant (when they had a a ‘C’) as well as good ol’ Dimmu and Cradle of Filth. And during this time, something struck me; Other than Carach Angren‘s Where the […]

”Scooping the Cranial Insides’‘ is the type of release that has me wondering how I could possibly miss out on Grog‘s existence up until now. Originally released last year and surfacing on Murder Records in vinyl format this summer of ‘012, it sure as all heck goes to support the statement that grind is in […]

I’m not generally a fan of post-metal, what with its simplistic, introspective riffing that goes nowhere and boring atmosphere, all in the hipsterish conceit that it’s actually more thoughtful than being, I dunno, good. But then there’s Portugal’s Process of Guilt who put so much venom and nightmarish tension into the post-metal compositions on their […]

Death metal will always be my passion, and there has been some really good stuff dropping as of late (Amon, Tombthroat, Miseration, Relics of Humanity). But there does come a time where one can get death-metalled out so to say, and a break can sometimes be in order. That prompted me to grab the second […]

So those of you currently enjoying the glut of old school metal bands fronted by smoky, female crooners (The Devils Blood, Christian Mistress, Witch Mountain, Jess and the Ancient Ones, Jex Thoth, Blood Ceremony, etc) here’s a short little EP that should appeal to you by way of the debut EP from Nevada’s Demon Lung […]

Hailing from a country where professional boxing is illegal, Resurgency certainly doesn’t pull any punches with their debut album False Enlightenment. A relentless slab of punishing death metal this is, Resurgency has clearly demonstrated that they have zero intentions of employing the overly technical or melodic angle of the genre. And that’s a bonus for […]

I had a hard time coming up with a description of Burnsred and their impressive debut album. So, I thought I’d simply lift the band’s own description of themselves as it sums the sound up perfectly: “Loosely fitting into the doom/sludge/post-metal genre, Burnsred play music which ebbs and flows through harmonic progressions, tempo changes, and […]

Hail Satan! That’s certainly what the folks of Nexhymn have been doing in the mountains of Colorado. Black Horizon is the self-released EP, and it’s essentially a relentless assault of brutal, hateful death metal. Think Suffocation meets Origin…but with a killer female vocalist. Angela Gossow would shatter under the sheer intensity of Holly Wedel’s voice […]

So I had to do a little research to discover that ‘Binah’ means ‘understanding,’ and is ‘the second intellectual sephira on the kabbalistic Tree of Life’. Oh yeah, it also happens to be the name of a new young English death metal trio, and their debut album is the best retro Swedish-styled death metal album […]

Jess and the Ancient Ones are: a) an improvisational theater group at an old folks’ home b) a rival band on ‘Josie and the Pussycats’ c) the latest entry to the female-fronted occult/psychedelic hard rock revival B would be cool, but yep, it’s c. And that’s a good thing, ‘cause it’s been one of the […]

For four albums I reviewed and extolled the virtues of War of Ages as a top notch Christian, melodic death metal/ metalcore act who were deserving of As I Lay Dying type attention, peaking with 2008s Arise and Conquer. However, with 2010s Eternal, the band shifted into more commercial territory morphing into a more predictable […]

Think of the current metal scene as a vast metropolis. Profound Lore  might be the artistic quarter, Nuclear Blast the bustling, successful yet respectable commercial hub, and Roadrunner Records the aging, somewhat dilapidated but culturally rich heritage district. Some miles away, we have Victory Records, which I may liken to the ghetto of this city, […]

Released around the same time as Malfeitor‘s Dum Morior Orior and on the same label, Intestinal are also an old school Swedish death metal band who are actually from Sweden currently enjoying the genre’s resurgence. This is the band’s second effort after 2010’s Human Harvest, which I have not heard. And while I enjoy The […]

I had no idea what to expect from the debut from Ireland’s Eternal Helcaraxe. The cover and logo hinted at something Viking or Pagan, the moniker just reminded me of US death metal act Helcaraxe, and the album title was just ‘meh’. And they were from Ireland- with a few exceptions (namely Cruachan, Waylander, Primordial […]

“If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Everyone knows that Nietzsche quote. The man is featured on the cover of Ihsahn’s fourth solo album – inverted, but there nonetheless – but I’m not going to choose that overused and pithy bit to describe the darkness contained within. Too obvious. Instead, […]

I’ve been struggling with this review for several weeks now. On one hand I feel its  typically strong Dark Descent release that adds another quality act and release to their excellent roster. But on the other hand, it’s a strange record that struggles with influences, identity and consistency. Notably featuring members of Belgian black metal […]

Battlescarred is an apt title on a couple of levels for Abominant, Kentucky’s Death Metal mainstays, an act with no less than eight full-length albums under its collective bullet belt. Sticking to their bullshit-free USDM approach no matter the trend or the financial risk, Abominant wear those USDM scars proudly, while their brand of scalding […]