The chances of one liking Emmure is determined if they can withstand an album chock full of breakdowns. Not just a breakdown here or there–no way–this is a situation where the album is one giant breakdown that also gave birth to little breakdowns and… hell, you get the picture. Anyway, Emmure are back with another […]

With 2005’s The Gathering Wilderness, Primordial turned the tide and rose from minor obscurity into everyone’s playlists. Two years later, To the Nameless Dead refined the band’s sound even more. Some bands become content and start to follow a formula, but with Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand, Primordial once again thrusts their sound forward, much […]

I so rarely get a physical product these days with review copies that I think I get way too excited when I get a nice one in the mail. The trappings of Three Thirteen’s Full Tilt aren’t all that elaborate – it’s a folding slipcase, designed a bit like an old LP cover, with a […]

1. A noxious atmosphere or influence: “The family affection, the family expectations, seemed to permeate the atmosphere . . . like a coiling miasma” 2. a. A poisonous atmosphere formerly thought to rise from swamps and putrid matter and cause disease. b. A thick vaporous atmosphere or emanation Fucking perfect… Considering Dark Descent’s obsession with […]

When I got a CD in the mail, by a band called Monsterworks–whom I had never heard–I really had no idea what to expect. I was maybe expecting a new band doing some sort of new metal. Boy was I wrong. It turned out that Monsterworks is a UK/New Zealand collaboration that plays a form of experimental thrash/death/heavy […]

Welcome to the blackened, blasphemous, and incendiary world of Hells Headbangers. Welcome to the blackened, blasphemous, and incendiary world of Flame. You’re familiar with the phrase “fits like a glove?” Welcome to Hell. You’ll make all those connections within seconds of raging inferno opener “Black Realm of Satanas” from March into Firelands, a collection of […]

If you like electronic music, particularly proggy synth music, and especially synth-based horror and sci-fi soundtracks from the late ’70s and early ’80s, then you’ll love Zombi. Simple as that. Cosmos, the Pittsburgh-based duo’s 2004 debut, was heavily influenced by Goblin (Dawn of the Dead, Buio Omega, Suspiria) and Italian giallo horror soundtracks in general. […]

The differences between the last four records from the UK’s preeminent black metal duo, Anaal Nathrakh, have been subtle and nuanced; so much so that it can really make a reviewer feel like a complete nitpicker. This is where being a fan of the band’s abrasive-yet-dynamic black metal shredding, and perceiving their subtle shifts under […]

I’ve been able to assemble a hell of a KMFDM playlist over the years, yet I don’t think the band has ever released a truly perfect album. NIHIL comes really damn close, but the rest usually play out the same way: a few awesome tracks of propulsive, riff-fueled industrial dance/metal, some solid filler, a couple […]

Ah! The tortuous sounds of one man black metal. Music so different it prefers a more shrouded and mysterious nature. But sometimes it comes out from the woodwork and deserves everyone’s undivided attention — except for scene kids, tools, and anyone that loves MTV. One man black metal is a hard genre of music to […]

The days of getting a new Black Label Society record every year seem to be over, and that’s probably not a bad thing considering the way Zakk Wylde seemed to have burned out of good riffs on the band’s 2007 record Shot to Hell. So instead of a follow-up to last year’s outstanding Order of […]

I’ve not really been a huge fan of the current Incantation worship movement in US death metal. Partially because I was never an Incantation fan in the first place and secondly the current Swedish death metal worship movement is much more entertaining to me. However, the debut full length from Houston’s Blaspherian has got my […]

This is one unholy clusterfuck of an album. OvO create all manner of ruckus on Cor Cordium and cull influences from all over the map to create something as unique as it is difficult to describe.  Written as a tribute to English romanticist Percy Shelley, the duo merge droning noise, death metal, doom and noise […]

Parental Warning: Explicit Language. You’ve been warned. You couldn’t possible come up with an album that is better described as “death metal punk.” Punk is the operative word, both in terms of Zach Rose’s (Nunslaugher, Crucified Mortals) snotty, fuck-it-all vocal enunciations, and the short, stripped down arrangements, which also share similarities with Nunslaugher’s primitivism. More […]

The combination of heavy metal and horror is usually a successful one when both aspects share similarities in subject matter and atmosphere. While it’s often attempted, many times the outcome falls short of being memorable. Thankfully, Razorback bands tend not to let listeners down in this area, with Wooden Stake being no exception. And although […]

Horseback is a unique musical entity that challenges the definition and boundaries of the epithet “band”. Of course this notion isn’t entirely new. Many musical outlets exist that seem to morph in and out of “projects” or “collaborations” and so on without being decidedly active or touring regularly. And when the style of musical output […]

And I thought Journal‘s Unlorja was ambitious! Imagine if Kayo Dot, The Pax Cecilia, Orphaned Land, Unexpect , Between the Buried and Me and Opeth all got together and contributed their DNA to a new breed of experimental, musical  genetics — the resultant zygote would be Ana Kefr. Meaning ‘I am Infidel’ in Arabic, California’s […]

Well, my ears are still ringing after blasting this one on the MP3 player, so you know those black metal minor note “melodies” were pushing the treble reading beyond the red and into the abyss, as any USBM album worth its corpse paint should. Beyond the infliction of audio terror upon the listener, Bloodbath of […]

You’re a Deceased fan, aren’t you? I figured as much; I could smell it. Odds are that you fancy a bit of ye olde Slayer too. Am I right? Let us assume for the sake of argument that I am in fact correct in my calculated assumptions and throw in the gamble that horror themes […]

Kampfar is back with a new album but one essential ingredient is missing. These are the first recordings post guitarist Thomas. It was a major blow when I read he had left the band and one of those “what can they do to compensate for the loss” moments. The reality is they missed a few […]

Upon beginning this review, it quickly became apparent that typing the words into my computer was somehow an injustice to this album — there is some force about Jordpuls that pulls back to things more natural, and less synthetic. In fact, it was impossible to write until I pulled out pen and paper, opened the […]

Wormrot’s 2010 full-length debut Abuse kicked my ass six ways from Sunday. It seems I wasn’t the only one that left the experience with ass bruises either. In fact, Abuse and Infanticide’s From Our Cold Dead Hands (Willowtip) ended up my two favorite grindcore albums of 2010. The Dirge EP picks up right where Abuse […]

I really enjoy Edguy, but can’t stand Helloween. Same thing with flowery goth-metal – Nightwish is great, but Epica doesn’t do it for me. And as for Blind Guardian, man, do I really want to love that band. They pen catchy, soaring epics, scored by tasteful orchestration and the right amount of power metal crunch. […]

To make this easy and let you decide whether to finish reading this review or not — I’ll lay it out right away: Alabama’s Gideon are essentially a typical Facedown Records band. They are Christian and they play metalcore. There. While not as impressive as label mates Your Memorial or the new Hope for the […]

Listen- this is my first exposure to Woods of Ypres, so this review isn’t going to go into the bands apparent shift from respected black metal into whatever they are being called now (Hippys, posers, sell outs, etc). What I am going to get into is how this Earache re-release of the bands 2009 fourth […]