Since their last album, 2005’s How The Great Have Fallen, Raging Speedhorn has gone through a bit of a change. They added two new members, Bloody Kev (vocals) and Dave Thompson (bass), and apparently suffered some deep psychological trauma. That would be the only thing that could explain the vibe on the latest album Before […]

I don’t mean for this review to turn into a rant about Crash Music, but holy hell do they just seem to sign bands that ride the coattails of whatever trend is in vogue at the time. Take Ashes of Your Enemy for example. It’s like Crash realized there is a thrash revival going on […]

This band is pretty unstoppable at the moment in terms of output as Martyr Immortal follows not that long after the formidable ‘Vicious Skin,’ and split with Frightener. Even more impressive is that ups the intensity and class of their prior material but shows them expanding their darkened palette further to create an even more […]

With the break up of I Killed t he Prom Queen, Parkway Drive become Australia’s most prominent metalcore act, and with their second full length album, Horizons, cement the fact musically. While the much maligned metalcore genre gets its share of hate, when performed at a top notch level, I find it thoroughly enjoyable and […]

Jesus Christ. I tried to like this, I really did. It’s sort of melodic, experimental metalcore with lots of progressive moments, solos, clean vocals and such, but ultimately when delivered with such shitty musicianship and production; it pretty much ruined melodic metalcore for me. With tangible influences like Misery Signals, Shai Hulud, Bewteen the Buried […]

With former members of Cavity, Acid King and -16- , Black Cobra return with album number two of grimy, rumbling, tumbling metal for fans of Torche, High on Fire, Hail!Hornet, Negative Reaction, Kylesa and such. So yeah, if Mastodon were girthier, nastier and far far sludgier, you might get close to Black Cobra’s sound, a […]

Lethal Agenda first caught my attention when I saw the name Dave Ellefson, as I enjoyed his work with Megadeth. So first things first, I checked out their Myspace page and website, to basically find out nothing more about them except that they call themselves metal/hardcore/thrash (thanks Myspace), and after popping in the CD, I […]

After officially declaring …And Oceans dead with the transitional ..And Oceans/Havoc Unit/Sin Decay split, here is official full length debut from Havoc Unit, the newer and nastier incarnation of …And Oceans. While most will more than likely remember the last two …And Oceans offerings, AMGOD and Cypher as water down techno laced black metal, it […]

Death metal boomed last year, big time. Seriously, the amount of great death metal albums I came across in 2007 was astounding and what’s more so is the variation that has been provided. Virtually every sub-sub-SUB genre of death metal has been favourably represented whether it be straight up blasting death metal, total guttural slamming […]

OK, so there is melodic black metal and then there is Norway’s veteran act Enslavement of Beauty, who with their third album, deliver an uber sugary sweet mix of Gothic synths and very polite, catchy black metal/melodic death metal. Think early Children of Bodom mixed with maybe the synth laced melodic death metal of Lothlorien […]

So back in 1998, one of my many blind purchases back then was New Dark Age, by this Bradford, England classic doom act. Of course, at the time I was all about death metal and because of ‘England’ and ‘doom’ was fully expecting something akin to Paradise Lost, Anathema or My Dying Bride. Of course, […]

From the label that brought us arguably my favourite Stockholm Death metal album of the last few years (Evocation’s Tales From the Tomb)comes the debut from Sweden’s Demonical, and featuring basically most of the productive but now defunct Centinex line up (As well as current Grave drummer Ronnie Bergerståhl), there no secrets as to the […]

San Francisco aggro-doom trio High on Fire check in with their latest, Death Is This Communion. This marks the departure of Smilin’ Joe Preston (show of hands, who didn’t see that coming?), bassist extraordinaire from Thrones, Melvins, Earth, et al. but not quite metal enough to handle such a thunderous mantle. Enter Holy Terror axeman […]

To put a nid on someone is to curse them. One famous account is that of Egil Skallagrimsson who erected a nidstang against King Eirik Bloodaxe who had made Egil an outlaw. After killing a large number of the king’s men Egil placed a hazelwood pole in the ground and on the top of the […]

Back in 1998 I had no idea who Trelldom was, then Gaahl joined Gorgoroth, impressing me straight away with his dynamic range, so I looked up Til Et Annet… I assumed that Gaahl’s original band was put on ice because he joined Gorgoroth so I never followed developments over the years and was surprised when […]

The sound Irish metallers Primordial have developed over the last few albums is actually a lot like Ireland (namely Eire); it’s sweeping, rugged, majestic and also barren and beautiful at the same time. There’s also a sense of sadness and loneliness built into the fiber of both band and land. Nowhere is this more prevalent […]

As their album titles have become less wordy, Ohio noisemongers Harlots have become increasingly more experimental in their discordance. Though still steeped in technical, angular and caustic hardcore a la Ion Dissonance,Animosity, Engineer, Architect (and most of the Black Market Activities roster) and their ilk, Harlots have now successfully managed to weave in some moments […]

I picked up Pure Black Energy back in 1996, I don’t remember why, and was not really impressed. I ignored the band until they became Khold and everyone was raving about them. I still ignored them until Phantoms, which bored me, and then Mørke Gravers Kammer was not really impressive either. Then the dreadful Krek […]

I remember being very impressed with Rob Rock’s last solo record, Holy Hell. The Roy Z-produced effort captured the same vibe as Bruce Dickinson’s solo works without, of course, sounding like a Dickinson knock off. There’s still a bit of that sound on Garden of Chaos, but I’m finding it much harder to get into […]

One of Finland’s best kept secrets, Mokoma, are back sooner than expected with their sixth full-length album Luihin ja Ytimiin and the band seem’s to be on a roll. After two long plays their relationship with a major label went sour, they did a bit of a soul searching; currently selling more albums and making […]

Three things come to mind as I listen to this latest offering by prolific Malefic. The instruments stand out from the murk and get noticed, the songs have definite forward propulsion, though be it very slow, and the drums are real. The next thing that really makes a dramatic impact, which is difficult to do […]

While hardly a ground breaking release of thrashy, energetic ATG drenched metalcore, the debut from Arise and Ruin is a solid entry into the saturated genre and certainly is a lot better than some of Victory’s other recent/upcoming releases (Taking Back Sunday, Farewell to Freeway, Moros Eros, The Audition, etc). Canada’s Arise and Ruin are […]

After a promising debut of caustic tech grind metal, Tennessee’s Nights Like These, much like similar sounding act Harlots, Khann and Yakuza, have injected a sense of droning, sludgy experimentation into their lumbering dissonance and while a decent effort, it’s not quite as good as the recent Harlots release. What you get is an album […]

So here is the third and worst recent ‘metal’ release from Victory. A few years back I reviewed the promising Stillborn Records debut from this then metalcore act, but then with Embrace the Gutter, it was obvious the band wanted to be lumped in with All That Remains, Diecast, God Forbid and Lamb of God […]

Ancient Rites has been a favorite of mine for a very long time and I have Gunther and friends to thank for introducing me to country mates Enthroned. I, of course, picked up the Ancient Rites/ Enthroned split back in 1994, having never heard of Enthroned. They have been a mainstay in my cd changer […]