With all the metalcore suddenly gracing Metal Blade’s roster, it’s sure nice to see this veteran act still on the label and still churning out quality if rudimentary, but ultimately fun old school death metal. The easy thing to do would be cut and paste either their Revelation Nausea or Blood Rapture reviews and change […]

Unlike most, I really didn’t think that Digimortal was as big of an abomination as some make it out to be. Sure it had its fair share of jumpdafuckup-elemenets, but it was still unquestionably a pure Fear Factory album where the things done right overweighted the things done wrong. Guess the success of the album […]

I’ll admit, my review of 2002’s God Was Created was slightly overzealous, but Vehemence’s second full length album was still worthy of my album of the year title, so with their follow up I’ll try to be a little more level headed and objective, but still, Vehemence are on of my favorite bands. If anything, […]

While the prospect of a Kreator meets Carnal Forge or Dew Scented offspring has some appeal theoretically, its actual manifestation is far less promising. Hailing from Wolfsberg, Germany, Uppercut have taken the classic German thrash sound and spiced and tightened it up a bit with a sort of Swedish death/thrash razors edge, and like I […]

Formed from the ashes of legendary doom acts Dusk and Crawl, Wisconsin’s Aphotic have been hard at work forging a new band to carry on the ethereal, natural doom metal of their prior acts. Stillness Grows is the miserable fruits of their labor; 3 demo EPs on this one album. 2000’s self titled demo, 2001’s […]

Astarte is one of those bands that has a quiet history, usually making their presence known only when they release a new album. I’ll admit to not listening to them much at all over the years but when I pulled out my copies of Doomed Dark Years and Quod Superius, Sicut Inferius , which I […]

US black metal just never seems to find its way to these ears, and when it does it’s generally the grimier, warlike stylings of Epoch of Unlight and Forest of Impaled or the raw frozen grimness of Goatwhore and Leviathan. In the symphonic/atmospheric category, only Vesperian Sorrow has graced these ears with any true mimicry […]

Just under thirty minutes of “you just got your ass handed to you.” The first handful of tunes blaze like Lemmy’s secret punk band, and it all reminds me of the Supersuckers’ on-messageness; y’know, they’ve only got one song, but it’s a really good one. But then Zeke start flipping the pillow with some slower, […]

Imagine for a moment that teen deathsters Decapitated played screamo-punk instead of death metal, and that they were from Staten Island and Brooklyn. You would get Quantice Never Crashed; an adolescent gathering of talent equal if not greater than their peers. Part early Hopesfall, part You Fail me Converge, part Thursday and part Fear Before the March […]

We all know Willowtip does death metal and grind as good as or better than any other US label, but how will they fare in the European dominated melodic/black genre? Fucking phenomenally. As with most Willowtip releases, Arsis’s offering is the extremity tipped, red headed, bastard child of a parent genre. Arisis is to melodic […]

O Gods of Metal, I humbly bow and beg for thy forgiveness. I have been ignorant too long. I had heard thy decree that After Forever was indeed amazing and blessed by thee, but I ignored thy voices. Forgive me, O spiked and studded ones. Forgive me, for as thou hast said, After Forever is […]

Do you miss old Kataklysm? Do you miss the mystical hyper-blasting and over the top lyrical, otherworldly vocalizations of Sylvain Houde? Well, Country mates Cephalectomy are for you dear reader.Nova Scotia’s Cephalectomy have released a superb album that re-creates the Northern hyper-blasting of Sorcery; insanely fast brutal death/grind with surprising amounts of intricate, layered melodies […]

With a moniker like Vicious with and album title like Vile, Vicious & Victorious this band set themselves some pretty high expectations that they had better damn well fulfill. And this Gothenburg lot gives it a pretty good try, but it isn’t quite as promising as their namesake. A solid, competent take on thrashy, energetic, […]

A black metal project featuring members of Unmoored, Incapacity, Solar Dawn, Satariel and Setherial, the bloodlines of Torchbearer are certainly solid, but the results are surprisingly average. Sitting squarely in the blazing but melodic black metal realms shared by Naglfar, Necrophobic and The Legion, Yersinia Pestis (the virus that causes The Black Death) delivers plenty […]

As tempting as it was to cut and paste my review of Fragments of Unbecoming’s recent album, I thought you the reader and the band deserve slightly more than that. What other than melodic death metal would you expect from a band from Gothenburg with former Gardenian drummer Thim Blom in their ranks? As to […]

So here is album number 6 from one of Sweden’s pioneering and longstanding death metal stalwarts. A new Dismember album is always an event for me, a musical milestone I look forward too with glee, and while my fanboy approach to the band has to be stifled somewhat for an objective review, I find myself […]

The Finnish metal scene is more lively than it has ever been. I’m not talking about the inbred fans, the demented critics and the sort but the actual bands. There’s plenty of variety, there’s shitloads of quality and the battle for becoming better than the other guy is intense. Unfortunately, it’s a double edged sword. […]

I distinctly remember not being that impressed with the debut album The Bound Feed the Gagged from this Michigan quintet, but also sharing the sentiment of the Teeth of the Divine writer that reviewed that album in thinking “I’ve not heard the last from this lot.” And here they are with album number 2, and it’s a […]

This is Norwegian black metal. Elite is a new band, formed in 2001, playing an old style. There are many bands playing nostalgic black metal and a few that play it extremely well. From the opening cymbals to the closing laughter, truly a delightful surprise. Yes I find true black metal delightful. The misery of […]

I must confess to having ignored this talented Australian old school death band since 1997. They formed in 1994, have had many, many line up problems, and only ex-Destroyer 666 member Chris Volcano remains from the beginning. I picked up their split album with Mornaland, for the Mornaland half I must confess again, and found […]

Bestial Mockery is, of course, obsessed with chainsaws, and aside from that gimmick offer little to distinguish themselves. That being said, this album is surprisingly good. The nostalgia factor is high, bringing the listener back to the mid 80’s heyday of thrash when Slayer ruled. Slayer is a very obvious influence and the guitar work, […]

OH FUCK NO! Not again! I’m not talking about the global warming nor the upcoming nuclear holocaust, but a new atrocity committed against mankind. After suffering from a severe head trauma caused by the notorious Dust to Dust album, I was able to pick up the pieces and put myself back together and continue living […]

The far-reaching influence of At The Gates‘ Slaughter of the Soul has resonated throughout the death metal genre and as recent releases by Dew-Scented and Corporation 187 have shown, the influence remains as powerful as ever. Even the Middle East now has felt the ‘Gates influence seep ever further afield. While Israel has produced a handful of […]

I discovered this band accidently back in 1997 when the cover of Blutsabbath caught my attention in a record store. I had never heard of them and picked it up solely because of the cover. Shortly thereafter I found The Last Supper at the same store. Ever since I’ve been telling people about them and […]

Woods of Belial is a Finnish “industrialized black doom” band, borrowing from such acts as Skepticism and Abruptum and Darkthrone. They have been around since 1996, started recording Deimos XIII in 2000, and finished it in 2003. This is their first album, following two demos, and three labels. Firebox claims this to be “51 minutes […]