While generally, most US black metal seems to be either one man grimness, rather superficial attempts at 1990’s Scandinavian with little or no creativity or identity, or even have some sort of metalcore tinge, California’s The Funeral Pyre have delivered one of the most surprising melodic black/death metal releases to come from a very young […]

Imagine owning two paintings, Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son and Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. The first would be hung in the living room for all the guests to admire; the second would be hung in the study for special guests to admire. This new disc by Xasthur, if it was a painting, would […]

Here’s my first exposure two this dual drummer owning band and their hefty form of crumbly, dissonant sludge and Im sort of torn on it. On one hand when absorbing this release on a 300 watt stereo at full volume, the Mastodon-ish vibes that careen from the speakers with muscular and angular tones and shuddering, […]

I assume if you actually clicked on this review, you are either a Killswitch Engage/metalcore fan, so will forgo the usual metalcore is saturated and KSE is the darlings of MTV 2 spiel and get too it.Despite plying basically the same sound as the previous record and an overall sense of metalcore cliche overload, As […]

I’ll make no bones about it. I liked this band. A lot. In fact, I prefer them to the like minded Darkest Hour and The Black Dahlia Murder as far as their modern take on slightly melodic, uber tight thrash metal is concerned. That’s right, I said I liked them better than Darkest Hour, and […]

Like semi commercial Christian metalcore? Like Demon Hunter, As I Lay Dying, A Love Ends Suicide, As Cities Burn and War Of Ages? Just go ahead and grab this and forgo my review. Though not as heavy as label mates Becoming the Archetype and August Burns Red, Destroy the Runner are neither as commercial as […]

Supreme Death/Black Metal Art part six. Is it black metal? Is it death metal? Does it really matter anymore? Belphegor has been blurring the line for better than a decade. Call them a black metal band that has gone over to the death side or argue they were always a death band with black influences, […]

I’ll be the first to admit that none of My Dying Bride’s post As the Flower Withers albums haven’t really done much for me. First, mainly because have always found Aaron Stainthorpe’s clean croon insufferably whiny. There, I said it. Secondly, 34.788% Complete just ruined the band’s legacy for me. Even with the band’s sort […]

Candlelight has brought us the first full length recording of Hungarian band Forest Silence. Forest Silence is one of those self released bands that falls into the cracks of obscurity and is probably dismissed without listening by most that see the cd, which is a shame because this is not simply old Norwegian worship as […]

Although St. Louis, Missouri hardly has a thriving metal scene, it does have a handful of dedicated and consistent metal bands that always seem to surface when a national tour comes through. Such is the case when I covered a recent Dismember/Vital Remains/Grave/Withered show at the Creepy Crawl where one of the opening acts and […]

The acclaimed debut from this German three man act, Back to Times of Splendor, was my top album of 2004, and I was not alone in my praise for an album that took melodic death metal and made it exiting, progressive and challenging. However, as the release of the follow up Gloria grew nearer, I […]

Ah, the tribute album. It seems like everyone’s got one these days, from the most deserving legendary performers to one-hit wonders that have been around for less than five years. Usually, the performances are all over the place, from the occasional interesting interpretation to straight up karaoke versions to someone royally fucking up a great […]

First, after re-listening to The Codex Necro in preparation for this review, there is no doubt in my mind that the debut album from this British duo was and is one of the most extreme releases ever and arguably the most important extreme record to come out of the UK since Scum. That being said, the […]

Does the world exist the way we perceive it or do we simplify things for the sake of our sanity. When two people communicate, be it with words or music, they do not use a shared language, but interpret what the other says according to their particular syntax. So the question of what the other […]

Blut Aus Nord comes from Normandy France and have just released their fifth full length recording. Their style is now called “metaphysical extreme metal” by the band. Mort is French for dead. This disc is 47 minutes in duration with eight tracks, no titles. This is mostly instrumental, unstructured ambient noise with electronic effects over […]

I was very curiouss to see how these depressed Finns would top Since The Day It All Came Down, on of the very best album of 2004, but as it turns out not only is Above The Weeping World a crowning achievement for Candlelight in an already stellar year, it’s the band’s finest hour and […]

Although last year’s Ascendancy was a near-masterpiece, breakthrough record for the young metal attack known as Trivium, heavy metal fans should consider The Crusade to be an indication of this future legendary band’s coming of age, a first true utterance of maturity. And in a year that has seen more stellar albums than most metalheads […]

Holy fucking shit fuck. I know most of you will switch or click off the moment I mention ‘core to start a review, but I swear to you this is some of the best aggro/tech/math/grind core I’ve heard. If you’ve recently been jamming Deadwater Drowning, Animosity, The Glass Casket and The Red Chord, this shit […]

German Funeral Doom trio Ahab reveals a plodding sound that gives an impression of the vast depths of the Ocean during this full-length debut. Inspired by Herman Melville’s oft-influencing novel Moby Dick, Ahab explores the depths of the blackest of waters, in turn coming up with one of the most impressive interpretations of this tale […]

fter plying her sultry tones in Cradle of Filth, Therion, Covenant, Mortiis and others, Sara Jezebel Deva goes head to head with former Without Face singer Jule Kiss (To-Mera) as ‘famous chick singer from another band now in her own band’, and both have pretty good results.Far more contemporary and orchestral than the more ‘proggy’ […]

I’ll make no secret of it, I happen to think Amon Amarth have been treading water for the last few albums, and frankly I have not ‘really’ enjoyed an album from these Norse death metal warriors since Once Sent From the Golden Hall. However, with album number six (and a more simple cover more akin […]

It’s still a bit strange to listen to hard-rockin’ UK group Firebird and remember their lineage: for the first twelve years of his musical career, frontman Bill Steer was one of a handful of the premier guitarists in extreme heavy metal. His first high-profile gig was playing on the first two albums by Napalm Death, […]

Five long years preceded the realization of Ancient Rites’ Rvbicon, and the wait proves to be well worth it for fans of these Blackened Folk trailblazers. However, neither time past nor shifts in the long-running Belgian outfit’s alignment have slowed the severe creativity relayed by this adeptly talented group. The influences that Ancient Rites derive […]

What are you expecting from a band discovered and signed by As I Lay Dying’s vocalist Tim Lambesis and subsequently signed to Metal Blade? Satanic, primal black metal? Political grindcore? Nope, this is decent quality Christian metalcore, and it comes dangerously close to being as good as if not better than As I Lay Dying’s […]

First off, I’d like to warn and apologize to Digitalmetal readers about the impending influx of contemporary hardcore/punk reviews about to inundate the site. It is fall after all. Second I’d like to tell Digitalmetal readers about the best of the bunch of this aforementioned contemporary hardcore/punk I’ve received in the mail in the from […]