And so the template laid down by Between the Buried and Me gets aped again; chaotic metalcore/tech metal, ambitious, proggy injections, quirky off kilter song structures, soaring arpeggios, etc.. Then throw in some Horse the Band 8 bit styled video game programming and you have Maine’s Last Chance to Reason and their forgetful debut. Though […]

If I told you that Darkest Hour’s Deliver Us would be the second best thrash/metalcore record that Victory would release in 2007, you would have called me crazy, but if you actually give the Victory debut from Nodes of Ranvier an open minded listen , you might not think I was so crazy after all. […]

Neaera put up a convincing argument in today’s flooded metalcore genre. You want to like them but it’s hard. Following in the footsteps of fellow countrymen Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn, this style of Gothenburg influenced chugging is just enough to peak interest. However, Armamentarium leaves itself up for quarrel and occasional play. This CD […]

Here’s two separate EP’s preparing the hardcore/metalcore world for the band’s Lifeforce Records debut, Decisions that will be released later this year. Munich Angst is a re-release of the bands 2006 MCD and Munich Valor is an EP of 6 newer tracks and neither gets me too excited for the forthcoming album. Plying a form […]

Wow, In This Moment didn’t mess around getting their second album out on Century Media. Their form of female fronted KSE styled metalcore core meets Evanescence must have moved a few units for this quick of a turn around. Except this bio here sheet says ….they are now from Canada and erm…..the singer, who is […]

We all know that France has been responsible for some of the more extreme black metal, but what about the nicer side of things? Not black metal or even white or grey metal, lets call it ‘green’ metal. Plying a sprightly, uplifting form of acoustic heavy, folkish metal that seems to cull from the likes […]

I was a long holdout from the cd format, resisting until 1994 when I could no longer find things on either vinyl, first choice, or cassette, second choice, so when Horna started releasing vinyl only releases, even though my turntable was broken, I purchased each and every one of them starting with Sota. Eventually I […]

First I must state that these releases represent one thing, classic limited releases selling for exorbitant prices are now widely available. As a bonus, these songs are on cd format for the world audience. I already own both the vinyl and cd releases of these gems and purchased the cd version because I was too […]

First I must state that these releases represent one thing, classic limited releases selling for exorbitant prices are now widely available. As a bonus, these songs are on cd format for the world audience. I already own both the vinyl and cd releases of these gems and purchased the cd version because I was too […]

I was a long holdout from the cd format, resisting until 1994 when I could no longer find things on either vinyl, first choice, or cassette, second choice, so when Horna started releasing vinyl only releases, even though my turntable was broken, I purchased each and every one of them starting with Sota. Eventually I […]

True story: So I recently went through a Stormlord revival phase and while listening to the bands superb Supreme Art Of War I was messages on myspace by the owner of Canada’s Northern Storm Records, asking if I would mind reviewing the label’s first effort, the self titled debut from Toronto’s Will of The Ancients. […]

Personally, I never really had Malevolent Creation ranked as one of death metal’s Floridian elite. Even with the four album run of The Ten Commandments, Retribution, Stillborn and Eternal, the band never seemed to hit me with the legendary status of say Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide and Obituary, as they were more of a quality, […]

While Kenose was only my first introduction to Deathspell Omega, it had me hooked instantly and solidified the band into blacks metal’s elite after Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, the album that saw this French band progress and evolve from standard black metal to their current, labyrinthine, deformed, and twisted take on black metal. As Good […]

As the deathcore genre becomes ever more burgeoning and ever more hated by them (the haters, shit talkers and internet dawdlers) who demand that the bands plying this style stop ‘breeing,’ claim they write poor death metal and have too many shitty metalcore breakdowns etc. But of course, their salient directive is that these bands […]

So recently, as if to beat The Black Dahlia Murder to the punch before the release of Nocturnal, I’ve received a slew of surprisingly good ‘Swedecore’ bands; (Woe of Tyrants, Sons Of Azrael, From the Shallows, Bring Me The Horizon, etc) all plying a heavier handed, more death and black metal based form of At […]

While being interestingly named, Hungary’s Vorkuta (named after a city where a major Gulag labor camp was based during Stalin’s years and where thousands of political prisoners died or disappeared) is still a relatively average, crawling, ambient black metal band with a few bursts of Norwegian frost. One atmospheric intro, followed by six lengthy songs […]

I wish I could take a record for what it is the first spin through. I literally wrote off this disc before I captured the brilliance within it. That happens a lot though. I find myself returning to albums sometimes years after it initially didn’t take. With that said, once you feel you are in […]

In today’s musical world, we are lucky enough to receive DVD’s of some of our favorite artists. Underground or not, it’s just as important as the damn CD anymore and even no name acts are scrounging up the money and producing low budget concert footage. It may not be as good as actually attending the […]

The latest solo record from Stratovarius frontman Timo Kotipelto really offers no surprises. It’s a collection of melodic and power metal tracks designed to show off his vocals, and overall it’s a very mixed bag despite a lineup that features Children of Bodom keyboardist Janne Wirman, Stratovarius bassist Lauri Porra and Thunderstone drummer Mirka Rantanen […]

Seeing the words “all-star lineup” these days is almost enough to make me not even want to listen to a record. While the idea of a supergroup may seem kind of cool, the truth of the matter is it takes more than names to make music. For a band to truly be tight and locked […]

This is a weird one. The Vision Bleak is an act consisting of two guys from Germany. Remember Empyrium and Nox Mortis? The Vision Bleaks two members, Allen B. Konstanz and Ulf Theodor Schwadorf hail from those bands and what we have here is a goth, horror, thrash metal band. Seem strange? It sounds strange. […]

Much like country and label mates Stigmatized, Germany’s Symbiontic are a Death worshipping band plying a form of old school death metal, but with a heavy Testimonies era Pestilence feel as heard on this re-issue of their self released 2002 debut. Stylistically Symbiontic and Stigmatized are virtually the same except Symbiontic have a more guttural/layered […]

Germany’s Stigmatized REALLY like their rather influential luminaries Morgoth, especially vocalist Michael Lay, who apes Marc Grewe to a T. So then expect a lot of mid era Death influenced death metal as well as some Asyphx, Pestilence and early Floridian influences (namely Obituary) in their debut record, a re-release of their 2006 released effort […]

God bless Lee Dorian. His Rise Above Records is bringing us some very cool Doom oriented Metal these days. Winters play a Cathedral-esque, rough-around-the-edges sort of Doom Metal with a healthy dose of Indie Rock. In other words, it’s heavy on the roots of Doom while having some body part (or parts) firmly entrenched in […]

OK, here’s the thing about concept records. There are only just a few like Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime and Savatage’s Streets that are great from start to finish. The reason is that when you focus on writing songs to fit into a story or theme rather than writing songs you feel, there are always going to […]