That Maruta is a quintessential Willowtip band may be more of a tribute to label than artist. Always leaning slightly more to the grind side of the death-grind divide while releasing material that is often technical, but rarely polished; the now decade old label has certainly established a trademark sound at this point. That there […]

Formed in 1993 under the name of Ravner, then resurfacing after a brief hiatus in 2006 as Hat (Norwegian for ‘hate’), Hat are a duo of corpse-painted, spike clad Norwegians playing brittle, frosty, hateful orthodox black metal culled straight from the early ’90s. While that little description is probably more than apt for me to […]

I had no idea Protest the Hero was dropping a new album, so when this showed up in my mailbox, I was like a small child on Christmas. Now, I know that Protest the Hero are a like Between the Buried and Me, in that they are a pretty divisive act with one side thinking […]

As disappointed as I was to learn of the demise of what certainly has been my favorite underground metal band for the past decade plus, I hate to say I was a bit relieved in a way too. Satisfied that there would never be a shit Japanische Kampfhörspiele album, I raised a glass to them, […]

To me, The End Record’s roster has gone downhill quicker and more noticeably than any label in recent memory. Back in the ’90s and early ’00s, they were releasing game changing albums by bands like Arcturus, Epoch of Unlight, Agalloch, Love History, Antimatter, Scholomance, Sculptured and such. Now with a few exceptions (These Are They, […]

I wasn’t overly impressed with Abacinate’s 2008 debut  albummRuination, as it was a simple mix of hardcore and death metal. It wasn’t quite brutal enough to be considered deathcore or death metal, and came across as a hardcore sheep simply trying to unconvincingly wear death metal clothing. But on their follow-up, Genesis (are these guys […]

The human brain excels at patterns. It does this all day long, interpreting and rendering an endless flood of sensory signals into a cohesive and constant presentation of reality. A large part of this process involves prediction, based on past experience and feedback, so that we have a natural sense of the next step in […]

Fans of Protest the Hero, With Passion (RIP), The Human Abstract and Between the Buried and Me, take note. Detractors of all four, go click elsewhere. Plying a borderline pretentious, yet brilliant amalgamation of chaotic, spazzy tech metal, death metal, power metal and thrash, Californian six piece Journal have delivered an epic self-released masterpiece that […]

I really wanted to like Margin of Error’s second self-released effort a little more, as it mixes deathcore with a sort of electronica/industrial sort of The Berzerker sheen, but in the end, the fusing of the two elements isn’t quite as impressive as it could have been. With a thick heavy production that has a […]

Since losing vocalist extraordinaire Carl Albert in 1995, Vicious Rumors has attempted to carry on with no less than four other singers: Brian O’Conner (on 1998’s Cyber Christ), Morgan Thorn (for 2001’s Sadistic Symphony), James Rivera (of Helstar for Warball in 2006) & Ronnie Stixx (who toured with the band but never recorded). At one […]

This was a bit of a rocky road initially for me. By that I mean “getting into” the music of this split release from Wooden Stake and Blizaro. Given my often mood-driven response to CDs, it is not surprising that the first time or two this one wasn’t clicking. And that’s exactly why one or […]

Consistency is the name of the game with Decrepitaph. Wayne “Elektrokutioner” Sarantopolous (drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, backing vocals) and Sinworm (vocals, guitar, bass) will never be anything but an authentically doomy death metal band that plays with a passion for the old school and takes care to write the best songs possible within those parameters, […]

It seems lately I’ve been getting into this newer version of post-hardcore that’s been hitting the market. I never been much a fan of the genre, as most bands tend to sound the exact same, but I finally decided to give a few bands in the genre some spins. Low and behold, I’m slowly gaining […]

What is it these days with so many bands who will come out with a debut that will knock you on your ass but then turn around and release a sophomore effort that flat out sucks and/or totally jumps the shark? Add the young and once extremely promising thrashers Lazarus A.D. to that group. As […]

I have a vague recollection of enjoying the shoe-gaze influenced black metal debut, Renihilation, of this New York act,  but I have to admit that after it was reviewed by my TOTD-colleague Jordan Itkowitz, I sort of forgot about about it. It simply melded into the many of so called hipster black metal releases that […]

The story of the Grotesque Impalement EP is an interesting one, as it was actually self-released (on the band’s own Blunt Force Records) in 1999 as a “holdover” album between Killing on Adrenaline and Destroy the Opposition. Relapse has now reissued the EP with a new package, a remastering job, liner notes from Jason Netherton, […]

It wasn’t until 2000’s Destroy the Opposition that I discovered Dying Fetus, who were being touted as the heirs apparent to the then-on-hiatus Suffocation. Based on Destroy the Opposition and Killing on Adrenaline, which I picked  up shortly after hearing Destroy the Opposition, those claims were certainly founded at the time. But for those that […]

It’s hard to believe this album was originally released in 1996 on Pulverizer Records. Fifteen years ago? Really? What’s so surprising is what an obvious influence Dying Fetus—and albums like Purification through Violence—has been on the brutal death end of the spectrum, particularly the sub-genre known as slam metal. Check out the first break into […]

Regarded as Dying Fetus‘s first ‘real’ release, though not their first album, Infatuation with Malevolence was originally released in 1995 on Wild Rags Records and it compiled two demos: 1993’s Bathe In Entrails and 1994’s Infatuation with Malevolence. Serving as an erstwhile precursor to the bands full-length debut album, 1996’s Purification Through Violence, Infatuation with […]

Sweet Angel Dust is the first full length in twelve years of existence from French band Arcania. While I have no idea why it took them over a decade to produce a single full length, I do know it’s pretty damn good. Arcania play a mostly modern style of thrash, infused with bits of melody […]

It’s great when a press release can succinctly provide the fodder a journalist needs to describe a release without fluff — only descriptions, points of reference and a little background. BOOM. BAM. DONE. However, a simple bio regurgitation from a writer does not a good review make. So let’s elaborate on Canada’s Blood Ceremony and […]

Taking their moniker from the B-Sharps school of “we need a name that’s witty at first, but that seems less funny each time you hear it”; New Mexico’s Noisear has been cranking out the fast and furious since about the turn of the century, to gradually increasing recognition culminating in this, their debut album on […]

Freed of this Flesh, the second EP from Portland, Oregon’s Trees continues the pattern of their first release: Two 13+ minute tracks of crushing, droning doom.  Like contemporaries Habsyll and Otesanek, Trees occupy the outer reaches of doom, where riffs are stretched into the atmosphere and notes into decaying feedback.  It’s not exactly original but […]

Going solely by their name, you’d expect Lords of Bukkake to sound like one of those shitty goregrind bands with the pitch-shifted vocals and song titles like “Shit Eating Titty Whore Cunt Semen”. Thankfully, this is not the case. Instead of tedious goregrind, we’re blessed with some seriously classy doomed out sludge. The hack in […]

It’s kind of hard to take a band named Tuck From Hell seriously, particularly when their record contains song titles like “Barbecue Beast,” “Tuckerz” and “Italian Stallion” and the cover features a cartoon guy wielding a chainsaw and flamethrower. But if you’re a fan of old-school 1980s thrash, it’s kind of hard not to like […]