Like its namesake, Ghosts I-IV appeared out of nowhere, suddenly manifesting on nin.com with little advance warning. 36 tracks of ambient instrumentals, it’s exactly the kind of anti-commercial labor of love Trent Reznor’s been hinting at in his mounting criticism of the recording industry’s strangehold on artists and their creations. To that end, he’s put […]

Yet again more turmoil precedes a Soilent Green release, this time an album that’s surrounded by post Hurricane Katrina tragedy (last album, Confrontation was released mere weeks before Katrina hit), deaths of former band members, and a label change from Relapse to Metal Blade. And that’s before the John Van Fleet artwork was revealed… Artwork aside, […]

Kiuas 2005 release, The Spirit of Ukko, was one of those records that I dream of finding in a stack of CDs by bands that I’ve never heard of before. A mix of power, death, thrash and folk metal, it was one of those rare albums that I can honestly say sounded like nothing else […]

King’s X is a band that has lived a tumultuous life. They’ve found themselves on the edge of mass success, all the while watching other bands of arguably lesser talent cross that edge into worldwide stardom. They’ve had people on both sides of the Christian rock debate give them hell over their lyrics (ie too […]

Before its release, much had been written about Year Zero as a concept album: the anti-Bush/1984 storyline; the intricate alternate-reality-game’s online narrative; even how spectral analysis of certain soundbursts produce the cover’s bizarre Hand of God image. All cool stuff, but I’m more interested in how the music’s evolved. Since the days of The Fragile, […]

The Morningside hail from Russia and play a relaxed, melancholic brand of melodic death/doom. Brave Murder Day-era Katatonia and Morningrise-era Opeth immediately come to mind – not surprising, considering these bands are listed as influences. Aside from albums like Rapture’s Futile and some aspects of earlier Agalloch, this particular sound seems to be rare, so […]

After a nine year studio silence, the Bay Area legends Testament have given us The Formation of Damnation – a 10 song (11 with intro) thrash opus that delivers quality just as you would expect.As for the direction they’ve taken this time out, band founder and mainstay Eric Peterson mentioned before the release that it […]

Apparently, the sweep arpeggio is the new breakdown.  Arguably thanks to Between the Buried and Me and since successfully cloned by the likes of The Human Abstract, All Shall Perish, Protest the Hero, Veil of Maya and With Passion, here comes the second wave of kids trying their hand and deathcore/hardcore/metalcore meets arpeggios. Whereas the recent […]

Stand the old adage on its head; if it sounds good it is good. With Azaghal if it sounds bad it is good. Azaghal is one of those bands that never disappoint. There are many bands that are more talented and scores that are less talented but Azaghal keep on churning out enjoyably crude raw […]

Returning with the creatively titled third album, III, Canada’s Cursed, as with the likes of Advent, Black Cobra, Protestant, Harlots and such, prove they are still one of the most feral and angry hardcore bands around, and are actually above and beyond the simple ‘hardcore’ tag as far as tangible, snarling, tumbling metal. The 11 sonic […]

Despite hailing from Chile, hardly the black metal capital of the world, Animus Mortis have some experience with members all being or have been in obscure acts such as The Last Knell, Hetroertzen, Oculus, Ruined Sanctuary, Leuku, Nefastus Abbatia, Wildes Heer, Gorjeo Seglar, Hominis Nocturna, and it shows on the proper debut ‘on loan’ (licensed) […]

Moonspell has been a fan favorite of mine since the release of Irreligious, but I think the Portuguese lost their focus after The Butterfly Effect. Darkness & Hope, The Antidote had only a few good things going for them, rendering the releases quite forgettable. Moonspell wasn’t the only band in creative doldrums. Anybody care to […]

I was one of those people that thought Clayman, Reroute to Remain and Come Clarity were all pretty good records. (I am, however, in agreement with the majority on Soundtrack to Your Escape), but it still took me a while to connect with In Flames’ latest A Sense of Purpose. My initial reaction to opener […]

For those fans too ADD to sit through any previous albums by 5ive, these Boston psych-drone warriors return with their most accessible and arguably their best album yet. Hesperus is the band’s first long-player since 2001’s Telestic Disfracture, with two EPs (2002’s The Hemophiliac Dream and 2004’s Versus) and a solo project (guitarist Ben Carr’s […]

Bands outside the dominant demographics of heavy music (obvious internal Mecca’s being New York, Florida, Boston, Gothenburg, Quebec, etc, etc, countries there is no need to list we all know the whose who) usually fall into two divides. The first is that they take their influences (which can be easily detected) and compose thrilling pieces […]

Prolific is a word that’s often used to describe the Toronto-based experi-metal duo Nadja, as they’ve released over a dozen recordings in the past two years. How many of them are worth a listen is another story, but Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, woodwinds, drum machines) and Leah Buckareff (bass, vocals) dip into their past on […]

This is a difficult album for me to review. After three above average albums and one stellar one we get Eidolon, in your face aggression, straightforward song structures and a distinct lack of intense melodic lines. If I had never heard this band before I would be giving it high marks but after the amazingly […]

Though there was a time that I really enjoyed it, I’m tiring of folk and power metal with classical female vocals. I think pretty much everything that can be done with it has been done with it, and frankly, I’d rather hear the women in metal sounding a little more aggressive. Of course, there’s always […]

“MONTANA?!” Is what I said to myself when I discovered where one of Candlelight’s newest death/black threats, Martriden hails from. Who would have thought the state of Montana, which I always kind of regarded as Bum Fucked Egypt, was capable of producing talent in the metal world? I for one certainly did not, but I […]

Despite a rotating cast of musicians, no one in the melodic/power metal realms has produced more consistent records over the past several years than Firewind. Their latest record, The Premonition, is the second record for Century Media and the second with the same lineup, a first in the band’s history. While it doesn’t bring any […]

Originally released in 2006 on JCM records (RIP), Metal Blade apparently saw enough in this Minnesota band’s second effort to send the band back to studio to re-mix and re-master (and add two tracks and new cover art) to the follow-up to 2003’s promising but flawed effort, V.II R.VI. With considerable line-up changes, Epicurean appear […]

So, three years after the caustic Converge-meets-Isis worship of Luce, Italy’s The Secret return with yet another well-done, brittle and calamitous slab of noise — with a thin post-rock visage. And while the genre has certainly seen its fair share of Converge wannabes over the last few years, The Secret are by far one of […]

How many years has it been since Mr. Coverdale & Co. graced us with a new album? Well over 10, I’m sure. They’ve been back on the touring circuit now for a few years and have given us a live album & DVD, but this is the first album of all new material since 1997’s […]

Knowing that Power Quest was formed by keyboard player Steve Williams and bassist Steve Scott after leaving Dragon Heart (now known as Dragonforce, of course) in 2001, you might expect some resemblance between the two bands. The good news, however, is that Power Quest spends less time showing off their technical wankery and puts more emphasis […]

Chilean Gothic Doom Metal. This is the simplest, most concise description of Mar De Grises’ (Sea Of Gray) music. All the requisite elements are present to warrant this description as well. Within the 64 minute release, we find plenty of slow tempos, sad, depressing melodies, Death Metal vocals & an overall darkly romantic vibe. Now, […]