My first exposure to Virgin Steele was last years godawful The House Of Atreus Act II. I still place that record high on my “Worst CD’s I have ever heard” list. Had I heard their older material first, not only would I have been just as scathing in my review, but I would have been […]

America’s heartland is a good place to find quality progressive chunk-rock, and Norman, Oklahoma’s Traindodge have been aiming to please since 1999. Their third full-length, On A Lake Of Dead Trees is raw talent: no Pro-Tools, over-production scams, or other chicanery here. Opener “Beckon The Inferno” brandishes the typical Traindodge sound of cranked-up, Season To […]

This Swedish melodic black metal band is back with their fifth release, The Crowning Carnage, their shortest album title ever. That is all that has changed, which should come as no surprise. Thy Primordial has not significantly altered their style, and they deserve recognition for staying true to that style. They have improved greatly over […]

There must be some foul work afoot in England. First Akercocke, now Anaal Nathrakh. England is producing some supremely evil and menacing music once again. This two-piece project follows hot on the heels of the recent neo-black metal craze, with also a nod to the industrial programming of The Berzerker and the result is some […]

The opening of Warmen’s second full-length album, Beyond Abilities, is an excerpt from some movie that ends with an old codger stating, “Too many notes.” Truthfully, I couldn’t agree more. Warmen, a project featuring Children Of Bodom’s blazing keyboardist Janne Warmen, Tunnelvision guitarist Sami Virtanen and a slew of sparkling Finnish metal celebrities, is basically […]

The Kim Anderson-ish cover art should clue you in as to the direction this previously very doom/goth melodic death metal outfit have taken with their second album. And yes, they have evolved and matured, but to be honest I think the new material suits them better than the hodgepodge mix of musical styles that was […]

Vanden Plas is a band I latched onto back when their second full-length The God Thing came out. At first listen, I thought it was pretty similar to Dream Theater, but different and good enough to warrant plopping down my hard earned cash. Further listens revealed a band with their own sound, their own style, […]

Timo Tolkki is one hellacious guitar player! I mean this guy can flat out shred with the best of ’em and make a lot of them say, “Woah! That guy can shred!” Starovarius is deservedly one of the most celebrated and beloved bands in modern power metal. Unfortunately, one listen to Hymn To Life will […]

Keep Of Kalessin is either an under appreciated cult band or an over hyped clone band, depending on who one speaks with. Mercenary Musik has brought Through Times of War to American audiences for the first time as an official North American release. Originally released on Avantgarde in 1998, it has aged well and is […]

Keep Of Kalessin has been around sine 1997, since 1993 if you include their time as Ildskjaer. In nearly a decade they have released only two full lengths, 1998’s debut and 1999’s Agnen, both on Italy’s Advantgarde. Not very prolific, and so I was surprised when WWIII/ Mercenary Musik re-released both albums in North America. […]

By nature, the somewhat static structure of death metal doesn’t allow for too many innovators, i.e. there’s only so far a band can stretch those boundaries before their music is considered either a rip-off of an already established band or an incorporation of other musical styles shunned by purists. Flipping through the CD booklet, one […]

I wish I were in New Orleans, out on the veranda of a garden apartment on Carondelet, sipping a Pim’s Cup and reading Nabokov and blasting mosquitoes out of the air with Television’s amazing “Marquee Moon” album. (If you call yourself interested in guitar music and aren’t familiar with “Marquee Moon,” you’re simply a cock. […]

Our hearts pump brimming blood of hate and our bodies will be the seed which, fed by our blood, will give rise to an oak grove. Every oak tree will contain the soul of a dead warrior. The forest will symbolize the eternal union of these souls. The above passage is from the song “Forest […]

E.N.T. = grindcore. Not surprisingly, as many older metal acts return to their roots (Napalm Death, Cathedral, and, to a certain extent, Megadeth), the Extreme Noise Terror-ists rear their mega-ugly heads with an album that’s so old-school that it sounds like a tribute to Brutal Truth’s debut meisterwerk, 1992’s Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses. Yep, […]

Now that fellow labelmates and countrymen My Dying Bride have two excellent retrospectives in the proverbial bag, Anathema get their turn to compile and assemble a collection or two of their own. While Bride’s dual slabs of melancholy were voted by the fans on the group’s website, Anathema here seems particularly adamant over what tracks […]

Three long years in development, you’d start to think that Honour Valour Pride, Bolt Thrower’s long-awaited seventh full-length album, was some sort of top-level military secret. While the second departure of longtime growler Karl Willets made headlines all over the metal world, not a word leaked from the Bolt Thrower camp about their whereabouts until […]

Chapter III, not surprisingly, is the third full length by this German band. The title underscores the main issue with this band – Agathodaimon are just not very imaginative. They are accomplished musicians and the production is quite good, but there is something lacking. It is hard to really listen to the entire album. Invariably […]

Hot on the heels of Carnal Forge, The Forsaken and nearly every other band in Sweden rocking to the success of At The Gates comes Alingsas-based Arise. Admittedly, I would have instantly liked The Godly Work of Art, say, two years back, but as more and more bands appropriate the upper echelons of Swedish death, […]

I still listen to The Grand Leveler, along with Gorefest’s Erase; they ranks as one of my favorite all time Euro-Death albums. Since The Grand Leveler, however, Benediction has done little to recreate the magic on that release. I am happy to say that Organized Chaos presents a return to form for Benediction. After two […]

As a music genre, I had always thought of hardcore as the middle ground between punk and metal. The ideologies of punk and with the edge and aggressiveness of metal blended perfectly without teetering one way or the other. Generally these days when someone refers to a ‘hardcore’ band it’s more likely they’re speaking about […]

In theory I should love this album. Being a fan of Cruachan, Skyclad, In Extremo and other folkish inspired metal acts, I was looking forward to reviewing Waylander’s second album. Adorned with Celtic knot work and pagan icons and also having song titles like, “Morrigan’s Domain”, and “Balor of the Evil Eye”, you know what […]

This French band plays orchestrated black goth, and is tailor made for Cradle of Filth fans. The cover art says it all, they are not very original, but the great production makes it worth listening to. I have known about this band for awhile but had never had any desire to listen to them so […]

Everyone, who has followed Anathema’s illustrious career as intensely as this writer, should have seen this album coming. In purest form, A Fine Day to Exit is nothing less than a masterpiece. Not unlike Katatonia’s newest magnum opus Last Fair Deal Gone Down, the album is fueled by relentless emotive energy mixed with precise musical […]

South Florida’s Until The End is a veritable hardcore supergroup of sorts. With members from Red Roses For A Blue Lady, Walls Of Jericho, Where Fear And Weapons Meet and Morning Again, you can tell from this all-star line-up Until The End mean business. Blood in the Ink, their Eulogy debut, is 100 percent tough-guy, […]

For true proggers, this album is best purchased in its Limited Edition version, which contains a bonus disc of covers, demo snippets, and an interactive CD-ROM section, all housed in a hard cover with a beautiful full-color booklet and copious studio notes. The regular release of Bridge Across Forever is legend enough, as it’s easily […]