Dauntless are a Helsinki, Finland based band that find their beginnings as far back as 1991. Since that time, they have gone through a few member change ups, and have recorded no less than seven demos, passing shitty record deal after shitty record deal along the way. In 2006, the band finally scored with Firebox […]

So I suddenly find myself innundated with a plethora of deathcore releases by bands like Misericordiam, The Partisan Turbine, Rose Funeral, Whitechapel, Suicide Silence, Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky and many others, yet the most low profile, yet surprisingly competent is this self titled debut EP from Ontario’s Dear Black Diary. Though hardly […]

I’m big enough to admit that Sonata Arctica got a bit of a raw deal from me on their last record, 2004’s Reckoning Night. It landed on my desk at a time when I was really burned out on power metal in general, and I just was not in the mood to hear it. So […]

I enjoyed Masterplan’s last record, Aeronautics, and was looking forward to hearing the follow-up. Perhaps its because of the loss of vocalist Jorn Lande or perhaps its because I’m listening to it shortly after I’ve been impressed by the chances taken on Sonata Arctica’s latest record. Whatever the case, I’m underwhelmed with what I’m hearing […]

It’s about time we got a new Soilwork record. And when did the hot bass player join the band? … Oh, wait a minute. sorry. Only a few notes into the Nuclear Blast debut by Sonic Syndicate, it’s easy to see how I could have gotten confused. Among certain circles, Sonic Syndicate will lose credibility […]

Whatever it was that I once liked about Metalium has apparently left my system. I don’t dislike the band, it’s more like a pleasant wallpaper pattern to me these days. While it’s in the CD player, I might remark on how nice it sounds, but once I’m no longer listening to it, I quickly forget […]

There are albums, that no matter how many times you listen to them, you just can’t get your head around them. Ironically, a lot of them have come out on The End Records, and in the case of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s In Glorious Times, no amount of mind altering substances will ease the process of […]

As far as Christian metalcore is concerned, with 2006’s Pride of the Wicked, Pennsylvania’s War of Ages elevated themselves into the same realm as As I Lay Dying after a pretty ho hum self titled debut in 2005. Well, they must also have felt the same about the debut as here it is again, rerecorded […]

Now this is what I’m talking about. This is real progress right here. No trendy zeitgeist clamoring, no superfluous adornments that pose as surrogates for progression, no sir, this is the real thing, pure, honest, progression. Seeing that Despised Icon have been making an unholy racket for a while now and furthermore seeing that this […]

Ok. Christian hardcore history lesson time, don’t even try to scurry away from this one, this shit’s mandatory, and you’ll feel all the better knowing the ins and outs of those rockers screaming for Jesus once your through with this review. As the Christian scene continued to expand and diffuse through the latter part of […]

Jeff Waters is to Annihilator was Dave Mustaine is to Megadeth. The Main Man. The Chief Dude In Charge. The Head Honcho. When the High Exalted Potentate of this mighty Canadian Thrash Legend that is Annihilator chose to utilize “guest appearances” on his new album, aptly titled, Metal, the decision was met with groans & […]

So in my recent discovering of all things black metal, one band that kept coming up as a band I had to hear was Sweden’s Watain. Lo and behold, Sworn to the Dark shows up in my mailbox and I play it expecting a nasty, evil and malevolent tide of blackened blasphemy. Instead what I […]

Though an ambitious debut from these Utah youngsters, there’s is just too much popular music scene culture colliding all at once. Although rooted in the post rock tones of Isis, IATO also throw in some progressive, angular rock a la modern Dillinger and The Deftones as well as some emo/screamo quirkiness for good, kid appealing […]

This is going to be interesting…. After two lauded releases of visceral, chaotic and brilliant tech-metal, Canada’s Ion Dissonance, with new, more hardcore sounding singer Kevin McCaughey at the helm, appear to have made a slight tweak to their sound, and one I actually prefer, though most may be a bit on the fence. With […]

There was a time when a new Finntroll release would have had my spewing troll semen all over myself in a gushing review about 45 seconds after the release date. So why then has it taken my so long to review the 5th album from a bad that has arguably been one of my top […]

Since 1988, New York’s Unsane have laid waste to the hardcore competition with every successive release. Pioneers of the noisecore subgenre, their 1991 debut featured a decapitated man on a train track (an idea that Mexican death-metal junkies Brujeria would later tweak for their debut album art), and every album cover since then has highlighted […]

While I enjoy the far more fruity elements of traditional Viking metal such as beer hall wocals and chants and galloping synths and such, I wish a few more bands plied a slightly darker, more brutal visage of Viking metal. Enter New Jersey’s Helcaraxë. Named after the huge wastes of grinding ice from J.R.R. Tolkien’s […]

When Boston doom-metal mavens Grief rose from the ashes of crust/punk band Disrupt in the early ’90s, even the band didn’t think they’d last as long as they did. Unknowingly, they helped to found sludge metal/doom alongside Crowbar, 13, Eyehategod, and Buzzov*en. After five critically acclaimed albums on various labels—including a one-off on Century Media […]

Often I wonder which is the bigger anathema, metalcore or melodic death metal? Most will decide the outcome of this debate in a nanosecond and of course the former will be lauded as the current whipping boy of heavy music. Regardless, melodic death metal’s credibility and relevance has been hanging precariously in the balance since […]

A Swedish band on a Finnish label. I tell you, those Scandinavians, they’re thick as thieves, when their not deliberately fixing the downfall of other nations in football (soccer), they are constantly collaborating to try and take over the worlds of heavy music. However, where so many Swedish, Finnish and of course Norwegian bands have […]

A peculiar name for a peculiar band, Seattle’s Lesbian operate with the same style-hopping liberty as Kayo Dot, Estradasphere, Mr. Bungle, and Between the Buried and Me, in that they phase between techniques/moods much like hyperspace micro-jumps in the Star Wars universe. Unlike these comparisons, however, they tend to frequent doomier and more psychedelic realms, […]

I’m sure these re-issues, which are now apparently available for the first time domestically in the US are no big deal to 95% of black metal fans seeing as most die hard fans no doubt already own Marduk’s first four albums. However, for black metal noobs like me whose first exposure to Marduk wasn’t until […]

Volumes have been written on North Carolina’s Between the Buried and Me and their meteoric rise to math-/post-core demigods. For those latecomers who started paying attention after 2005’s benchmark Alaska, Victory has re-released the band’s sophomore album, 2003’s The Silent Circus, with expanded liner notes by the group and a bonus DVD of concert footage, […]

Sometime after their 2004 split with noise-mongers Burmese on Crucial Blast, Ohio sludge-slingers Fistula parted ways with drummer Aaron Brittain and lay idle for a year or two. Discussions with -16-/Scumchrist drummer Jason Corley lead to his joining the group and recording this five-song EP in anticipation of their full-length album, due later this year. […]

At least I don’t feel quite as guilty stating this album’s rather predictable take on female fronted Goth metal as I did with Elis and the tragic death of their front woman, Sabine Dünser. As with virtually all of Napalm’s Goth metal roster, you pretty much know what you are getting; operatic female vocals layering […]