And so as 2010 winds down there’s still a few late arrivals from 2009 in my mailbox, but only a few are worth mentioning. At the top of the list is Sickening Horror’s follow-up to one of 2007’s very best death metal CDs: When Landscapes Bled Backwards. While these Greeks have a tall order to […]

After seven years off (not counting 2005’s Zero Comfort Margin EP), one of Willowtip’s first bands returns to the fray with an absolutely sick release that shows that brutal death metal/grindcore can be way more than power chords, pig squeals and comical cover art rife with porn and zombies. The aptly named Psalm of the […]

Miss Uphill Battle? Enjoy blackened hardcore or crust tinged blackened punk? Then check out the debut from this hungry San Francisco act who with their brief but feral Misanthropy and Godlessness, have delivered a half hour of urgent, enjoyable metal with vast crossover appeal. Featuring an incredibly punchy Zach Ohren production, the album’s feedback littered […]

ENSLAVED has been producing quality music throughout the years. Sure, some of the albums have been better than others, but the band has been amazingly consistent with their releases none the less. Their new album, Axioma Ethica Odini, is just around the corner. How does it stack up? Is it a failure? Best album of 2010? Find out and read our review!

British Heraldic Templar Metal? Monty Python metal? Hey Nonny Nonny core? Whatever you call it, the brain child of The Meads of Asphodel founder James Fogarty is certainly one thing: Fun! Imagine if you will the “Knights of the Round Table/Camelot” song from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail -movie done to metal (it’s a silly […]

There was a time up until about 2005’s Anomalies that Cephalic Carnage were a no questions, blind buy for every release. Challenging, heavy, creative, humorous and of course driven by weed, the band seemed to be on the very cusp of exploding out of their pot fueled basement and into mega stardom. But with Anomalies […]

There’s very little justice in the world of music. Even in Finland—a country of mere five million inhabitants that’s often regarded as a heavy metal mecca—bands destined for great things fall into obscurity after releasing one or two excellent albums. Take for example Sancnity, who could have contributed immensely to the progressive metal revolution in […]

King Giant may hail from Virginia, but the sludge they dish out on Southern Darkness sounds like something raked up from the bottom of a muddy Louisiana swamp. The sound is dense, like a dark, menacing beast that pays tribute to metal legends like Black Sabbath, walks hand-in-hand with sludge contemporaries like Down and Crowbar […]

A Lizard Skynard album arrives in your inbox. Before listening to it, you guess what it might be. Do you guess: a) A groovy, psychedelic mix of southern rock and thrash? b) A cheeky mix of lounge music, psychobilly and sludge fronted by a guy in a lizard mask? c) A lurching blend of hardcore […]

I can’t really explain why it’s taken me so long to review one of 2010’s most impressive and disturbing black metal albums. I listen to it regularly, mentally gushing over it, and writing the review in my head each time I listen. I actually wonder if some dark occult force is preventing me from putting […]

It’s this writer’s opinion that it’s time for more people to take notice of Florida’s The Absence. What we have here is an American band with a mostly Swedish sound (yeah, nothing new, I know), devoid of any “core” influence, that blows away nearly everyone, including the Swedes, and if I may be so bold, […]

I remember when I used to get excited about a new Blind Guardian release, but since their 1998 masterpiece Nightfall in Middle Earth, everything they’ve released has been somewhat disappointing. That, unfortunately, doesn’t change much with their latest, At the Edge of Time. For me, this record is often maddeningly frustrating as it offers short […]

Back in the symphonic black heyday of the mid to late 90s, Norway’s Limbonic Art released three albums in a highly pompous, gothic, orchestral style: Moon in the Scorpio, In Abhorrence Dementia and Epitome of Illusions. 1999’s Ad Noctum: Dynasty of Death and its follow-up, The Ultimate Death Worship, switched up the Limbonic Art sound […]

For a brief period in the late 1990’s, Texas black metal band Of The Fallen set about terrorizing the territory. Along with Bloodstorm, Demonic Christ and Darkmoon, they helped make up what was becoming a deeply rooted USBM scene. Guitarist Scythe (aka Steve Perez), drummer Scott Palmer, vocalist/keyboardist Crom (aka Jon Quick) and bassist Ogre […]

Gamleby – the town in Sweden in which Demiurg hail from. Slakthus – slaughterhouse. An apt title for such a death metal juggernaut of an album. Their third, Slakthus Gamleby really knocked me on my ass. I couldn’t place it at first – why it reminded me so much of Edge of Sanity, one of […]

For those familiar with my musical tastes, it might come as a bit of a surprise that I was never a big fan of Accept. Oh, I’ve got a copy of Restless and Wild and Balls to the Wall, but for some reason I never really connected with the band. When it was announced that […]

Like their label brethren, A Plea for Purging, Impending Doom are at that “difficult stage,” in their existence―namely that all important third album―which, as stressed in the APFP review, can be the first step to greatness or to decline. The progression on There will be Violence, is in ways similar to that of The Marriage […]

When Killswitch Engage vowed to kill off “Nu Metal,” eight years ago, it was what the masses wanted to hear, and kill it they did, annihilate it in fact; as the scores of terrible bands that had spawned from the late nineties to the beginning of this millennium were all bit exterminated (with exceptions). Although […]

For heavy metal music, the 1980’s was a time when anything was possible. Bands from all corners of the world aimed for the target that bands like Ratt, Quiet Riot, Tesla and Dokken seemed to have hit, hoping for rock star success. Had the internet been a factor in those days, I’m sure we would […]

Residing on the same label that has or had the likes of xRepresentx, OnexChoice, xTyrantx on its roster, there’s no surprise in what Seattle’s Parasitic Skies―despite the lack of an x in their logo―play; tough as nails, straightedge metallic hardcore. No frills, no melodies, no trendiness. Just a beefy (no pun intended) vegan beat down […]

It’s probably not a good sign when your 3-year-old digs a metal album more than you do. But there he was, strapped in his car seat and still singing “Rockin’ and a Rollin’ Tonite!” after I’d skipped past the first track of Armour with a mix of impatience and disgust. Guess I don’t need to […]

I’d never been the biggest fan of Profanatica, although that had as much to do with my limited exposure to the act as any kind of outright distaste of the sonic pungency. While it’s not like I’m a loyalist now, the last couple of years gave me a new appreciation for Paul Ledney’s (Havohej, ex-Incantation, […]

It’s more than common knowledge that the third album is one of the pinnacle pressure points of a band’s existence. Getting the balance right is so important in avoiding to take that wrong turn to the inferno of decline and instead ascending to the heavens of greatness. The immortal list of the eponymous third album […]

The first time I heard Otargos was their blackened death metal waltz “Hexameron” that apropos of nothing turns into this stripper-friendly fuck-me groove featuring what sounds like a sampled philosophy lecture. Okay, fine. Maybe you’re just cooler than me. Maybe you’ve already been into and tired of the whole blackened death-metal, stripper-friendly, fuck-me groove/philosophy-lecture craze. […]

Bear with me here. Despite being a sworn in US citizen, adapting almost all American traditions (good and bad), there’s a few American-isms I just can’t get into. Chewing tobacco and Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The weird thing is that I love peanut butter and I love Jelly―it’s called Jam fer’ crying out loud―when […]