At first glance, Age of Silence seems like yet another post-black metal band with all the usual suspects (cough, Hellhammer) in place, and upon first listening, as Lazare’s powerful and unique voice guides the opening neoclassical narrative, the comparisons to Solefald seem totally unavoidable. While many of the elements of the individual member’s other bands […]

“Sybreed sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard…literally. Unless of course you’ve heard a hybrid mix of Meshuggah, Nine Inch Nails, Placebo and Fear Factory, all taking place on a sonic landscape that reminds you of the Matrix – complete with visceral screams of human suffering and the never ending madness taking place here on Planet […]

I am certain that up until this point in time, I would never, ever consider using the words ‘tough’ and ‘Swiss’ in the same sentence, but the latest burly offering from Switzerland’s Cataract has prompted the impossible. After the solid but more metalcore laced Great Days of Vengeance album and Martyr’s Melodies EP, Swiss straightedge […]

In my view there are few bands in death metal as emotionally gripping or with as complete a line-up as Amon Amarth. They have developed a sound completely effective and original within the established genre, and 2003’s Versus the World proved it with otherworldly vocals, into battle drumming, thick bass, and guitar leads to push […]

So in a year that sees albums from not only legends Grave, Entombed and Dismember, you’ve also got ‘supergroups’ Bloodbath, Murder Squad and Chaosbreed throwing in their respective homage to the Sunlight sound. And now comes another ‘supergroup’ giving suitable homage to ‘that’ sound and it consists of four unequivocally qualified heathens ready to deliver […]

The Swiss have really latched onto the droning ambiance and ebbing builds of Isis, Cult of Luna and Neurosis with the likes on Zatokrev, Overmars, Impure Wilhemina and Vancouver (which features members of Impure Wilhemina) making a name for themselves on home shores. Signed to the usually grindcore and death metal based death metal Deepsend […]

Sometimes you just know if an album is going to be good. Based on Disillusions The Porter EP, I just had a hunch this German three man project was on to something special. And they are.Essentially rooted in melodic death metal, Disillusion add so many nuances of other genres, to pigeon hole them is unfair, […]

Lets acknowledge that the depravity factor was been toned down significantly. The imagery and lyrics are tame compared to Hell Injection and the music is more controlled, less chaotic, less hyper, and slower in pace. Apparently they no longer want you to think your daughter will get tortured if they move in next door. The […]

Let’s start off by saying I was a huge Black Sabbath fan and an even bigger fan of the Sabbath update known as Candlemass. Now we have Candlemass updated. The highlight of this disk is most definately track eight. “Solitude” is a personal favorite, and Naahz’ vision has done it justice. Cover songs rarely impress […]

The bad/good/bad M.O of Crash Music again confuses me with this, a solid melodic death/black metal album hot on the heels of the god-awful Single Bullet Theory album. I know melodic death metal died eons ago, but its ghost often rises with a quality appearance and Colorado’s The Mandrake is one such example. Not bereft […]

I generally don’t care for most Southern Lord bands, but LOTM had a few things going for them that piqued my curiosity before I even listened to it; Greek Mythology as the central lyrical theme, a very cool Minotaur’s maze etched into the CD, 2 members of 7000 Dying Rats (Steven Rathbone & James Barracca), […]

Wow, Level Plane is on a tear of late what with Anodyne, Coliseum, and now this. And while most of you will instantly dismiss this as yet more “core,” watering down an already saturated US scene, many of you open to the noisy post-hardcore stylisms of Mastodon, Anodyne, Swarm of the Lotus and Burnt By […]

3XM doesn’t waste any time bullshitting and gets right down to business hacking up bodies and pissing on corpses on this now cult gore-grind platter, a blood-soaked splatter-fest that features more porn references than the back room of your local video store and enough psychotically-motivated violence that this band would have been banned damn near […]

It’s amazing what a great production can do. This band’s debut album Behind Inquisition hinted at a perfectly blended array of grinding death metal and metalcore, but was rendered pretty flat because of a subpar production. Now as the genre is burgeoning to the point of saturation, WDHR have timed this nice little EP perfectly […]

When I first picked up the new (and the band’s first) Demonoid CD, titled with an original name Riders of the Apocalypse, prejudiced views and harsh opinions stormed my head filling it with negative images. The neatly done artwork displaying quite traditional images of destruction and hatred along side with the band name (that asks […]

I wonder if my wild imagination as a kid and the countless of hours watching Robotech (yeah yeah, I know that it’s watered down from the Macross series) in the ’80s did the damage or what, but I grew a perversion for Japanese metal bands, especially those that played something resembling thrash metal. It seems […]

So here is the follow up to 2002’s artfully sublime Reflection of the I from Norway’s heralds of classically laced metal. For those that don’t know, Winds is the brain child of one piano progeny Andy Winter, who has garnered the aid of some of Norway’s most respected extreme musicians to help him deliver his […]

I think most metal fans will agree that last years supposed “comeback” effort, Hell’s Unleashed was a laughably bad joke of an album, that one can only blame on the band’s inactivity or some form of cruel practical joke. So it was with some trepidation I approached this album, wondering if one of Sweden’s death […]

The Funeral of God proposes that God has died leaving us to live completely upon free will. Some may not like Zao’s sound but many agree; they are influential and forward thinking with every release. Zao are a band constantly in a state of change. Just in the last two years so much has happened […]

Lets be honest, after being of on the cusp of black metal elitism with their first two albums, Svartalvheim and The Cainian Chronicles, Norway’s Ancient became pretty bad, pretty quick, peaking with 2001’s embarrassingly bad Proxima Centauri, and as a result have become pretty much irrelevant in black metal circles. So with some lineup changes […]

2004 has been an important year thus far for American metal. With Unearth, Killswitch Engage, Bleeding Through, Beyond The Embrace all issuing that all important second album and Shadows Fall moving on to album number four, US metal seems to be as strong as ever. Massachusetts’ All That Remains made quite a stir with the […]

Slovakian grindcore on Obscene; you know what you’re getting here. The self anointed ‘mincecore’ of Abortion, while not as eviscerating as label mates Squash Bowels and with a irreverent sense of catchy humor, Abortion aren’t doing anything too special but it will probably please most die hard fans. With a classic Napalm Death/Carcass sound including […]

A Perfects Murder’s debut album, Cease To Suffer was a solid slab of Hatebreed inspired hardcore that didn’t really do anything special, so it was a surprise to me, that after a switch from Goodfellow Records to Victory, APM would come out with this absolute monster of a disc. Pure vein popping, chest swelling, boot […]

A taster EP to follow-up the ravaging Retaliate debut album, Dissent, released on the band’s own label, is a 5 song EP with the title track split into four parts. With Kevin Talley back in the fold for this EP’s recording, the drumming becomes immediately improved and is also emphasized immeasurably by a Scott Hull […]

Steve Austin, the man whose gloriously deranged mind state forms the axis by which the cataclysmic sonic universe of Today Is The Day revolves, is not exactly the kind of person you would trade places with, but for reasons that have little to do with his actual madness. Sadness Will Prevail, the oft-maligned follow up […]