Italy’s Absentia Lunae bills itself as warlike, hateful avant-garde black metal – yeah, that’s a mouthful, but it’s also pretty accurate. Warlike, definitely – especially with Belphegor’s Blastphemer turning in a blistering and surprisingly technical drum performance. Hateful? Absolutely. Vocalist Ildanach rants, sneers and screams as if he’s gripping and slamming the sides of a […]
Over the last ten years, Fear Factory has tarnished even the most dedicated fans’ view of the band. Under pressure from Roadrunner, the band bridged a gap between their heavy industrialized sound and the mainstream, causing a downward spiral of events that eventually led to what we all thought was the band’s ultimate demise. Chug-master Dino Cazares left the band due to mounting tension with lead vocalist Burton C. Bell, and pursued Divine Heresy, which was a lackluster copycat of Fear Factory in most fans’ eyes. Though Bell and company kept the motor running with Archetype, 2005’s Transgression was a clusterfuck of an album that sealed the deal for most followers. Well, those days are ancient history and I am ecstatic to say that the machine has returned, and someone has switched it to kill mode.
I think there are a few comparisons between Snowblood and Fall of Efrafa. Both are from the UK (Snowblood hail from Glasgow) and are (were) relatively unknown. Both have a trilogy of Cds, both have the same recycled, cardboard Cd sleeves with simple effective artwork, and both are utterly magnificent. And unfortunately both have called […]
Spewing forth from the same sick Dutch mind as Gnaw Their Tongues’ Mories, Migdal Bavel is the second album that Mories has created under this moniker and while still a sick, nasty record, its more of a black metal based record than the droning insanity of Gnaw Their Tongues. And I say that very loosely […]
Talk about black sheep. While the rest of their countrymates are content to make a clattery, blastbeating black metal racket, this Bergen, Norway-based act crunch out a mix of groovy doom and gravelly 90s Swedish death. Call it Entombed in ice. Although A Dark Burial is only Syrach’s third full-length in thirteen years (there was […]
We live in a time where certain aspects of metal music are having an identity crisis. I’m an open-minded person and I do enjoy some of these more unique sub-genres that are manifesting, but some leave me utterly confused and perplexed. Most noticeable experimentation is happening in the black, sludge/noise, and post rock divisions. With […]
If you play death metal, getting endorsed by Possessed’s Jeff Becerra is a bit like getting a nod from American Idol’s Simon Cowell. Headhunter D.C.’s label Ibex Moon even drafted a press release trumpeting the news. While an endorsement like this can raise your profile it can also bring the critics out ready to bat […]
So, here we have the third album from Day of Fire, my introduction to the band. It’s apparently the new project of Josh Brown, former singer of Full Devil Jacket, a nu-metal outfit that I vaguely remember from the late 1990s. Apparently Brown got a little big-headed in his previous band and then overdosed on […]
It never fails. Every year when I put my year end list together and get it posted, an album comes along within days that knocks my socks off and could have easily made my top 10. Metal of Honor, the fourth full length from Detroit’s Nocturnal Fear is that album this year. You know something […]
Any package that includes releases from Napalm Records always gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m pretty sure that I’ll enjoy most of them, on the other, I know I’ll have to deal with voiceovers on at least half the songs. (Come on, guys, the watermark is sufficient for most everyone these days). […]
Here’s another album that caught me completely off guard near the end of the year. Hailing from Arizona, Vektor are yet another young entry into the retro thrash craze, but have a decidedly different approach than most of their peers. The first thing many will notice before even pushing play are the similarities of Vektor‘s […]
While The Fallen Within’s debut comes with the melodic death tag, but it’s certainly much more to the melodic side of the coin than the death side. The band obviously takes its cues from two of the giants of that genre, In Flames and Soilwork, but generally speaking, there are far lighter moments than you’d […]
When I checked out Urna’s 2006 release Sepulcrum, I was struck at how similar it sounded to Arcana Coelestia’s Ubi Secreta Colunt. Both featured a fusion of funeral doom and black ambient, of cosmic light bleeding through waves of crushing darkness. A quick trip to the Metal Archives cleared up my hunch – they’re both […]
Arcana Coelestia’s last release, Ubi Secreta Colunt, was one of my favorite discoveries of 2007 – the kind of gem that makes a few hours of web-surfing and shot-in-the-dark downloads worth all the effort. Essentially one long composition, its four tracks delivered an all-consuming experience that blended crushing funeral doom with astral post-rock grace. I […]
Released last year independently and now more recently distributed by Saturnine Media, California’s Cormorant has released a stunning melodic death metal album that that’s adventurous, ambitious and brilliant. I’ve seen the likes of In Flames, Opeth and Slough Feg mentioned in reference to this band due to the prevalence of melodic riffage, heavy metal backbone, […]
Here we have the debut EP from Amorphead who hail from Italy and play a modern form of death/thrash. Psychotic is a 6 track offering book-ended by an intro and outro, cleverly titled as “Dreaming” and “Awakening”, respectively, leaving four proper songs. From what I can tell of these four, they have a slightly different […]
This new Finnish supergroup boasts members of Swallow the Sun, Amorphis, Moonsorrow, Kreator and October Falls. Given that line-up, you know Barren Earth is going to be awash in the lush, soaring melodies and crushing doom-death tones that make Finnish metal so recognizable. That’s convincing enough for me, but the addition of progressive-death structures and […]
Here’s another late 2009 release that is worth your while even if you can look past the fact that the moniker, label, logo, cover art and band’s looks scream Hot Topic deathcore. The fact is though, Australia’s The Red Shore, despite all the above going against them they are more along the lines of As […]
As usual for this time of year, I’m trying to get onto 2010 releases for review, but there are always a few worthwhile, late 2009 stragglers that I feel deserve a mention and your ear. One such release is the debut from Tennessee’s Enfold Darkness. I know Sumerian Records get a lot of flack for […]
If you think about it, for gruff metal heads a lot of us are accepting of some pretty mellow non metal acts: Tenhi, Nuen Welten, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, old Mortiis, Summoning, Dornenreich just to name a few, seem to get a free pass with metal heads and as artistically brilliant as many non metal […]
When I reviewed (for another site) the 2008 album, Behind Enemy Lines, from New Zealand’s Christian metalcore/hardcore act, I suggested that Facedown/Strikefirst Records would be a good fit for this band for their next album. Booyah. Ok, enough of that – onto the album. The fact this album is on Strikefirst (Facedown’s baby brother) should clue […]
With a name like Semen Datura, you’d expect something filthy, depraved and unpleasantly psychedelic. So I was surprised when opener “Fons et Origo” kicked off with the shimmering, punchy tones of Isis or Burst (and no, it had nothing to do with the mention of Origo – I didn’t have the songtitles in front of […]
Just as you’re recovering from last year’s Teitanblood assault, here comes The Beast of the Apocalypse to scratch the scabs from your ears and let the blood trickle out anew. A Voice from the Four Horns of the Golden Altar proves once again that you don’t need to use reedy, tremolo guitars and thin production […]
First off, the packaging from this EP is pretty unique, though its bound to drive storage-o-phobes nuts: the CDEP comes in a LP sized sleeve, with the CD resting in the middle on a spinner and the inlay is an LP sized folding poster. I just wish the music was as adventurous and creative as […]
Here’s the deal. If you get all uppity about black/war metal productions that are about 1,000 miles from Pro-Tools and can’t deal with a mix that, for the most part, buries the guitars in a maelstrom of blasts, includes a bass….ah shit, forgot about the bass, ain’t no bass, and hatefully sermonizes with harsh, abrasive […]