An Isis clone from….Switzerland on an English record label. Yup, you read it right, and a pretty solid clone at that. Fledging UK label Codebreaker Records, somehow found this lot amid all the chocolate and cheese, and unearthed a pretty punishing, draining three-piece with their influences firmly emblazoned on their sleeve. Centered around droning, mid […]

After sullying myself and this site with an abundance of glossy, wimpy stadium metal, I felt the need to get dirty and grimy and seeing as I already reviewed the Lair of the Minotaur, the UK’s doom merchants Ramesses fit the bill perfectly. With four lengthy, filthy, down tuned, buzzing hymns of lumbering war anthems, […]

Often, the terms “progressive”, “experimental” and “avant-garde” are overused (my self included) to describe any music that simply can’t be pigeonholed, categorized, or maybe defies our metal shuttered concepts of what should be construed as “metal”. Bands like Arcturus, Ulver and Solefald, who break the mold of metals restrictive constraints are either hailed as geniuses […]

I could take up half of this review discussing the viability of Cradle of Filth as a bonafide black metal act and their subsequent litany of either crazed fans or haters that pass them of as pop stars slithering under the banner of a more extreme exterior. But instead, let’s just talk about the album […]

I’m not normally that impressed with album artwork, but with band named after Horiyoshi’s epic book and equally Eastern themed artwork, 100 Demons piqued my attention. Hailing from Connecticut and with one album, In the Eyes of the Lord under their belt courtesy of Goodlife Recordings, 100 Demons should not surprise with their style; angry, […]

New blood can rejuvenate. Plague Angel proves this. Arioch is a good choice for Legion’s replacement. When Legion took over vocals I was not won over for awhile. I got used to his style and started to think of him as one of the best of the more deathish black style even overlooking his rather […]

Around since 1989, New Jersey’s Vicious Circle has been rather unprolific with only 2 full length albums (including this one) in their rather long and unspectacular tenure. Well, like a fine wine, age has graced Vicious Circle with the ability to grow better with age. And while The Art of Agony is hardly a world […]

Roughly translated as ‘Lord, You Are Not Worthy’, Domine Non Es Dignus is the highly anticipated follow up to the utterly devastating debut The Codex Necro which due to its caustic, barren and apocalyptic sound, arguably made England’s Anaal Nathrakh one of the most extreme black metal acts around. So how does album number 2 […]

Just like the band finding no need for lyrics or song titles, this music defies words of description. You simply have to hear it for yourself. The instrumentation is often excellent and those sections that the metal-in-the-narrow-sense fan would recognize are well done but simply not very important in the overall makeup of the album. […]

Orange County straightedge bruisers Throwdown have been filming themselves since their first ever show. Now, all of the footage has been artfully edited and interlaced with interviews to chronicle the band’s history in typical Jackass meets Behind the Music fashion. With footage from their first 1999 tour, Warped Tour in 2003, European and Australian tours, […]

Every so often, an album is released that contains a markedly higher level of anticipation around it. Promises of a “groundbreaking” or a “genre-defining” effort are thrown around like so many empty words, as most people know that such promises rarely come to fruition. The latest such “big” album in the pipe is the next from […]

I’ve known about Arum since 2001 when they released their first cd. This is their second. This Brazilian black metal band is not bad but nothing extraordinary either. I do not want to trash them because I like the album and it shows effort, but nothing original here, which is usually not a sticking point […]

The artwork change for Singapore’s black thrash band Impiety demonstrates a renewed desire to enflame the general public. Piles of corpses from concentration camps adorn the cover and the cd. The booklet announces “man, the actual beast of hell, capable of committing the most bestial and heinous   great beast in all of us. And to […]

Mnemic is one of the next generation ‘mechanical’ bands that combine elements from and between Fear Factory, Meshuggah and to some extend Strapping Young Lad. And quite like certain parts of the history, Mnemic doesn’t seem to want to break out from the rat race as things haven’t really changed dramatically on The Audio Injected […]

Any band using a Michael Moorcock character is OK in my books and where Moorcock sought to invigorate the cliche-ridden, stagnant, Conan knock off fantasy realm, France’s Yyrkoon seek to invigorate death metal, and do so with a measure of success. If like me, you were (or will be) disappointed by Behemoth’s strangely pompous Demigod, […]

Boston drone duo 5ive have excreted yet another EP, this one containing no new 5ive cuts. Instead, they’ve re-released their two tracks from 2005’s vinyl-only split with Kid 606, recycled nearly the same album cover art, and tacked on two remixes of ‘Soma’ by Godflesh/Jesu mastermind Justin Broadrick that bookend the brief (by 5ive standards), […]

With former members of now defunct act Serberus, expectations were high for this Colorado band’s second album of self titled battle metal. Instead though, despite some fine individual performances the end results is nothing more than the usual Scandinavian influenced black metal, and while it might satisfy the most heavily corpse painted and spike ridden […]

On paper this thing sounds promising; a cool monikered folk metal album (albeit from Greece) with a cool cover, based on the Celtic legend of the Tuanna De Dannan tribe and the silver arm of their king, Nuada. Heck, it even starts promisingly with the epic intro to ‘Guardian of the Ancient Deeds’, but all […]

METAL!!! I’ve got absolutely NO business liking this album. By all rights, due to the Rob Halford/King Diamond-like squeals of Cam Pipes alone I shouldn’t have even made it past the first song. However, a few things not only keep me listening but actually end up making this a damn fine METAL!!! album. First, to […]

So the mighty Swedish super-group (as much as the band is loathe to avoid that term, it’s rather fitting) return to follow up their widely lauded and critically acclaimed full length debut Resurrection Through Carnage. There have been some big changes in the band since their last recorded outing. The mighty Dan Swanö has shifted […]

Founded in 1996 as a side project of Screaming Trees bassist Van Conner, Valis once boasted such membership as Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters and Tad bassist Kurt Danielson. Teaming up with his guitar-slinging brother Patrick, the band released their debut ’98 EP split with Kitty Kitty (Patrick’s full-time gig) on the sorely missed Man’s Ruin […]

Better late than never I suppose, but after purchasing this album (see not we reviewers are not always promos whores), I have a new addition to my top five albums of 2004.Hailing from Finland and caught in the vast net that entails melodic death metal, Insomnium are essentially what Amorphis should be now. While melodic […]

When I first started writing for Digitalmetal, one of the first discs I was received was Alien Breed by Internal Bleeding; a compilation of rare/demo tracks and one new track that was from the “upcoming” new album, Hatefuel. While I always kind of dismissed Internal Bleeding as nothing more than a decent Suffocation clone, the […]

‘Trailer-core’ was only term I could come up for this hazy Southern slab of fuzzed out, earthy metal. Equal parts sludgy, hazy doom-rock and groovy southern hardcore, BBTP have released an album that comes across as Crowbar and Floodgate meets Eyehategod and Down while in a Jack Daniels and Darvocet induced stupor and simply oozes […]

So former Ensiferum guitarist/vocalist Jari Maenpaa forms this solo project with the help of some session musicians (including Rotten Sound drummer Kai Hahto), and ends up delivering a debut album that instantly rises to the top of the Finnish metal heap, equaling his former bands pomp and grandiose scope while injecting the technical gregariousness of […]