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 […]

Yet more sludgy, earthy, rectum splitting noise to add to my stack of Lair of the Minotaur, Ultralord, Black Cobra, Starkweather and Desolate Void. Honestly, I think I’m losing my hearing, and TAIS is partly responsible as listening to this album repeatedly made me kind of feel like that first torture victim in the movie […]

When I looked at the promo copy of the new album and saw the first track was “Black Terror Metal” I thought this was a compilation cd, I have a demo tape by that name. It turns out to be a re-recording of the classic song. Luciferin Valo is the 22nd Azaghal release in my […]

I’ve always thought there was something pretentious and lazy about self titled albums. A self titled alum smacks of either “This album is so good we don’t need to put any thought into what it is called” or “This album is so bad we couldn’t be bothered to name it”. Luckily, Suffocation’s much anticipated 5th […]

This band was my first introduction into the present day metalcore scene. Obviously, metalcore was around way before that, but the mixture of Gothenburg melodic death and hardcore was just undeniable when Unearth slammed the metal world with their debut The Stings Of Conscience. Since then, the band has proved that in a sea of […]

Many, many year before they turned into rock stars, I saw Korn in concert to support their debut album. The opening act was this wretched electro-nu-metal, programmed pile of puke called Cradle of Thorns. Upon listening to the god awful Anticore I briefly thought I was listening to the same band. This album only further […]

Of all the big metalcore releases this year, the sophomore album from Misery Signals was arguably my most anticipated, however with the superb, similarly styled debut from Rosesdead basically stealing some of this bands thunder, I was wondering how Mirrors would stack up in the melodic, layered and emotional metalcore sweepstakes. It stacks up just […]

Finally a re-issue from Paragon Records that’s a worthwhile release (sorry, the Rigor Sardonicus and Black Crucifixion releases didn’t cut it for me). Originally released in 1998 on Mascot Records, this Latvian pagan metal gem is arguably, along with the more infamous Nokturnal Mortum, the godfather of Eastern Europe’s Pagan metal movement that took some […]

For What Once Was… is the premier release for the one man band called Bothildir, formed in 2004. Ardroth is sole creator. Bothildir is based in my home state of Maine. Though Ardroth has only lived here a few years, I’ll still give him home ice advantage even though he is not a true Maineiac. […]

If you, like me, wish that Protest the Hero’s excellent Kezia was a little harsher (especially vocally) and less emo or that Between the Buried and Me’s Alaska had even more sweeping arpeggios and less chaos, the fine debut from LA’s The Human Abstract should be right up your alley. Right now I’ll tell you, […]

Here is album number two from French tech deathsters Gorod (formerly known as Gorgasm) and in a year that has seen such tech death metal luminaries as Decapitated, Gory Blister, Spawn of Possession, Psycroptic and Anata deliver arguably their finest efforts, Gorod enter the fray with their own equally exceptional offering to the genre.Though they […]

This is a really good record ‘ for 1985. I have to admit that I struggled a little with this review because there was a time in my life when I would have hailed this as some of the best stuff I’ve ever heard. But that was a long time ago, and Mystica, while very […]

Is it bad that I want to see who would win in a fight/make out session between Walls of Jericho’s Candace Kucsulain and Bloodlined Calligraphy’s Ally French? Anyways, arguably Kucsulain is one of the most venomous female mouths in modern metal and it appears that the band, with their third album, is on par with […]

I’m not sure if there is a more perfect marriage of label and band than The End Records re-recording and releasing Giant Squid’s 4 year old debut record. Though certainly falling under the doom/sludge/ambient umbrella of the likes of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican and Mogwai, as you’d expect from a band on The End, Giant Squid […]

Like Deathcore with a hint of melody? Dig bruising breakdowns? Enjoy Through the Eyes of the Dead, Job For Cowboy, All Shall Perish, Antagony, The Classic Struggle, Embrace the End, Winds of Plague and Iscariot? Get this CD. I could leave my review at that and honestly feel that the correct audience is indeed going […]

It’s become increasingly apparent to me that the tech-core, discordant metalcore movement seems to be entering a second generation of sorts. While the first generation thrived on pure Dillinger/Converge discord and angular complexity, this second generation, taking more than a nod from Between the Buried and Me, is more willing to experiment and evolve their […]

I don’t think I need to rehash the history of Deicide here, but the short version is pretty much; great- (Deicide, Legion), suck -(Once Upon the Cross, Serpents of the Light, Insineratehymn, In Torment in Hell) and back to form -(Scars of the Crucifix). Then you have this years very public and very nasty split […]

Xasthur is addictive. Never great, often dull, amazingly addictive. Modern Psychedelic US Black Metal is what the Moribund press release calls Xasthur. At least we have finally gotten past the suicidal depressive tag that was always misleading and inaccurate, despite the reappearing noose. They do however use the words despair and dreary. Maybe it is […]

If you’ve read my staff picks for 2005 I’m sure there’s no doubting my partiality towards this album. From Mars to Sirius is at once menacing, brutally heavy, ambient and introspective. From Mars to Sirius is the definition of massive; massive melodies, massive heaviness, and massive riffs and beatdowns. And now you get to hear […]

Here is a very competent, visceral and exceedingly tight death/black metal record, but what would you expect from a band featuring drummer Dallas Toler Wade (who plays guitar in Nile) and bassist Mike Poggione (Monstrosity)?That being said, credit should not be taken from the other members (guitarists Christian Lofgren and Chris Hollis and vocalist Hohenstein) […]

While Century Media and Roadrunner easily dominated the nineties with, with each label delivering their share of strong metal releases, the stakes have been raised in the battle for metal dominance amongst the plethora of burgeoning imprints in the 21st Century. Candlelight USA is leading the way. In 2006, the imprint has released more noteworthy, […]

Apparently seeing enough in this California Deathcore act to re-issue their Amputated Vein debut Hate. Malice. Revenge, Nuclear Blast must have known they were on to something special. They most certainly were, as I can safely say, The Price of Existence is a massive improvement from breakdown heavy singularity of the solid the debut, and […]