So not only is Earache experiencing a bit of a comeback, the UK Death metal scene appears to be getting very healthy in a hurry: Man Must Die, Detrimentium, Sarpanitum, Trigger the Bloodshed and now Bath’s own oddly named Ignominious Incarceration and their rather impressive debut. I’ll get this right out of the way now. […]

Fully titled Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum : Chaining the Katechon , this Single/EP is one track 22 minutes of typically deviant and caustic yet artfully malignant black metal from one of black metal’s very elite acts. It’s hard to review one 22 minute song, but luckily Chaining the Katechon has various segments and sections […]

On 2007’s The Final Dawn, Ontario’s Arise and Ruin delivered a solid if forgetful slab of thrash based metalcore and now with the follow up, even though the thrash element has been upped and the metalcore sound is virtually gone, Arise and Ruin prove a cool cover and album title does not a great metal […]

Finally getting a US/Worldwide release after coming out 2 years ago on Japan’s Toy Factory Records, the third album from super group Dimension Zero holds up not only after two years but as an album that would have sounded fresh and energetic whatever years it was released in. For me, the 2002 debut, Silent Night […]

The past few years have been an interesting time for metal music no matter how you look at it. The amount of reunions and bands reforming has become a blessing to some and tiresome to others. Some of these acts need to let well enough alone, while others are showing new appetite and rekindling old […]

To these ears, Houston’s Scale the Summit, ply an instrumental version of soaring, layered metalcore that’s basically like a slightly more progressive, post rock version of Misery Signals, Life In Your way without vocals. Then why aren’t I enjoying this more? Maybe of course it because I’m generally not a huge instrumental metal fan as […]

Hailing from Michigan (Detroit), Hellmouth are a snarling, gnarly crossover band that meld, punk, thrash and hardcore into a mix that’s a refreshing change from the usual Ferret fare though it lacks real staying power, once the initial burst of feral energy wears off. Citing influences like Celtic Frost, Black Flag, Venom, Black Sabbath and […]

Learn the Old Ways, pass them on, oral tradition was strong in the north in the old days. Throne of Katarsis carries on the tradition, continues telling the tales, songs inspired by the old masters. Can I call them that if most of them are younger than me? In the oral tradition individual storytellers adapted […]

Canada never ceases to amaze me with their wealth of technically proficient extreme metal acts. Bands like Into Eternity, Strapping Young Lad, Divinity and Quo Vadis have blown my mind time and time again. Once again, I’ve come across another of such bands, this time being the oddly and utterly atrociously named Deeply Confused, a […]

From the label that brought us the excellent When the Deadbolt Breaks comes a grooving, loping doom/sludge act, though this one comes with a thick stoner doom haze and features (former) Metal Maniacs scribe JJ Koczan on vocals. Hailing from New Jersey, Maegashira (some rank in Sumo wrestling I gather) is armed with a beefy, […]

Portland Oregon’s Nanda Devi (named after the second largest mountain in India) aren’t doing anything particularly original or inspiring with their take on the suddenly popular to hate post rock, Neur-Isis styled metal, but it’s a worthy entry into the genre. Five relatively rangy songs (6-10 minutes) and three untitled instrumental fillers make up the […]

Originally released on 625 Thrash Records back in 2007 and now re-released by arguably the original grindcore record label, Texas’s Insect Warfare continue where the monstrous grindcore recent efforts of fellow Texans Kill the Client, Maruta, Captain Cleanoff and Napalm Death, left off. Basically, Insect Warfare is like my mother in law; short, explosive, loud, […]

You can talk about winning streaks in metal all you want, but how many acts have been on one as long and consistent as Napalm Death? Think about it. The game was raised way back on 2000’s Enemy of the Music Business and continued with 2002’s Order of The Leach, then raised again on an […]

I really, really wanted to like this; an experimental black metal duo from New Hampshire, from a cult label with a history of solid releases? Cobalt anyone? Even more so after reading lots of positive press including our own Scott Alisoglu and a Nathan T. Birk interview of the band in Metal Maniacs that gushed […]

If your self released effort gets reviewed here, you must be doing something right, and the UK’s (Bradford) The Belonging show that a self released effort can compete with most label released efforts. I don’t remember much about the bands prior release, Setting the Scene, so it could not have been that good, but on […]

As I start to get to the last of my 2008 releases that I feel worthy of review, I stumbled across the full length debut from Modesto, California’s Better Left Unsaid, a band whose demo, The Silencing, I reviewed and enjoyed at another site. Now on Jamey Jasta’s Stillborn Records, BLU play a form of […]

Whereas the upcoming release, Lullabies For the Dormant Mind from label mates The Agonist is a vital, powerful and stunningly good example of female fronted metal done right, the debut from Wisconsin’s Luna Mortis is little more than a mish mash of styles that while, has some promise simply does not do enough to justify […]

If you have some interest in a gasmask clad Chicago black metal outfit which has members of Nacthmystium, Cianide and Dysphoria in its ranks, plying a form of relentlessly  simple yet effective, Marduk/Dark Funeral meets Impaled Nazarene styled thrashy black metal, then look no further than Kommandant. There’s not much more to elaborate on really; […]

Nearly 4 years is much too long for a follow up to such a bad ass album, that being Rumpelstiltskin Grinder’s (RG) 2005 opus Buried in the Front Yard, an album that knocked me on my ass from the word go. I remember reading a review of it and thinking “this sounds like my kind […]

There was a lot of buzz about the Relapse debut of Germany’s tech death band Obscura, especially since being joined by Necrophagist members Christian Muenzner (guitars), Hannes Grossman (Drums) and Pestilence bassist (for Spheres) Jeroen Paul Thesseling. Now I’ve had about a month to let the album, sink in, I can confidently say the hype […]

It’s been a while since I heard anything remotely metal from Victory Records, but all of a sudden they release a slew of records in the form of Arise and Ruin’s improved thrash attack, Corpus Christi’s As I Lay Dying impression, Wretched’s impressive The Black Dahlia Murder worship and this fine melodic death core assault […]

Mellotron is a fledgling Prog Metal band from Michigan. This, their debut EP, is loaded with some accomplished musicianship, tight changes, nice ambience and good variation. Don’t let the EP tag fool you, these 5 songs clock in at right around 35 minutes. With songs ranging from just over 5 to just over 9 minutes, […]

Hot on the heels on Century Media’s Kivimetsan Druidi, come another female fronted, dirt, fur and paint covered folk metal band infusing classical/orchestral elements into the tried and true Finnish take on folk/pagan/Viking metal as plied by the likes of Ensiferum, Turisas and such. The results are largely successful, mostly due to Helena Haaparanta who […]

I was anxious to check out Bridges to Burn, the new 16 album and the first since 2003’s Zoloft Smile, which was not only a top 10 selection for me from that year, but also remains one of my all-time favorites. There is just something about the combination of harsh, riff-based groove, the easily remembered […]

Being a Hate Forest, Astrofaes, Nokturnal Mortum, Lucifugum, fan made it an obvious leap to Khors. Mysticism is now the third Khors album I have been on board for, and as it turns out, they have only three albums released. Even though band members are shared with the above mentioned bands as well as Runes […]