Two years ago,  I reviewed Sanguisugabogg’s Tortured Whole debut album and previous to that I reviewed their Pornographic Seizures EP.  With their debut album, I said  “Sanguisugabogg’s blow-up throughout the underground metal scene is really only just the beginning”.  And that is precisely what happened with the band right after the release of the debut. […]

Imagine, if you would, finding a way to beat the odds and make a legitimate career for yourself in music. Dope! You’ve already lived out the dream of myriads of artists around the world. But not only are you making a living, you’re literally spearheading an entire musical movement – laying a foundation and becoming […]

New Jawsey’s finest brutal technical death metal act, and friends, Mortal Decay have been around for over 3 decades.  Insanity!  I have many fond memories playing shows with them and when I was back with Internal Bleeding in 2018 Johnny and Joe came to the show and had printed me a Mortal Decay logo shirt-so […]

International (Canada/ US/ Australia) act Dragoncorpse, has garnered quite a bit of on line hype with their take on deathcore meets power metal and anime (self-described power core), with three rip-roaring singles,  as well as a rather amusing online presence full of memes and self-deprecating humor. Well, now it’s time to see if the hype […]

The forests of Eastern Europe hold secrets, the landscape wears the scars of battle like badges of honor; trenches and bunkers dot the countryside where years of war have done their worst. This region has contributed numerous bands to the Pagan Black Metal scene over the years, they stand out for their use of traditional […]

The weight of expectations can sometimes be quite heavy. Like your mother. So here comes Ashen Horde to give her a piggyback ride… or something. I don’t even know how to follow up my own analogy. With their new one on the incomparable Transcending Obscurity Records, they (and by “they” I mean Trevor Portz) have […]

Bizarrekult hail from Norway, but originally was from Russia-go figure?  Starting out in the mid ‘00’s the band went on hiatus a few times and really got their basic start in 2019 with the first EP, but it was in 2021 they released their debut album – Vi overlevde.  I became an instant fan, especially […]

Now on album number 5, the UK’S Memoriam should not need an introduction. But for those that don’t know, Memoriam is a project involving Bolt Thrower and Benediction members and was started as an homage to fallen Bolt Thrower comrade Martin Hearns (RIP). And if you also have not heard the band yet, I’ll give […]

Sometimes you hear an album, and it awakens something in you. It pulls you in with long, skeletal arms and shows you sights you never imagined. Cursed lands where Black Metal reigns supreme, and the sky is always overcast with storm clouds. Allow me to introduce Wormgod, two insane Motherfuckers from Bucharest playing uncompromising Black […]

As someone who was really cutting his teeth in the more extreme metal scene during Metalcore’s heyday, it’s safe to say that it will always have a special place in my heart. Even when the genre fell out of fashion and became more a butt of every gatekeeper’s jokes, it remained a regular part of […]

Intro, take 2. Let’s talk about some filthy, nasty, ass sweat-inducing death metal. Last year, I had several albums that could fit this description on my year-end list, with a few just short of it. I think the only band in the genre I did not see live last year was Tribal Gaze, but maybe […]

Germany’s Atrocity has been kicking around their interpretation of extreme and oft-kilter brand of death metal for 30+ years.  I stopped following the band after their 1992 album Todessehnsucht, although I do enjoy their 1996 ep The Hunt, weird?  Their Hallucinations debut album, Blue Blood ep and Todessehnsucht material, imo are untouchable.  Perfect blend of […]

As I’m sure most of you know, …And Oceans returned after an 18-year hiatus ( not including the Havoc Unit years) with 2020’s superb Cosmic World Mother. And after a relatively quick tuned around have returned with their second post-hiatus album, As in Gardens, So in Tombs. Now, there is sometimes potentially a bit of […]

New year, new reviews, right? That’s the name of this tune, anyway. December of 2022 had a lot of surprises, and this tight little cassette split was one of them. Seven tracks, the longest being Fluids’ “Heaven-Sent” (3:17) and the shortest being Nunslaughter’s “It’s You I Hate” (.31). Neither band needs an introduction, Nunslaughter has […]

According to the promotional emails, Godiva is one of Portugal’s longest-running melodic death metal bands and has a large symphonic element, so I had to check them out. They were formed in 1999, but haven’t been super productive with a few demos and EPs in their early years, but nothing other than a single since […]

Hailing from Greece, Wothrosch started in 2018 but Odium is their first and only album, and what a scorcher to start of 2023.  We get 8 songs with one word titles and this guy appreciates that quite a lot. Opening with “Child”, it’s immediately evident this is some doomy sludgy black metal.  Rather than having […]

Much like my porn, my tastes in power metal are very specific. And also, both usually involve cosplaying, elves, dwarves and….. dragons?… anyway I digress…. What I’m trying to say is that there are only a few power metal bands I truly enjoy, and one of them is Sweden’s Twilight Force. Heck, 2019s Dawn of […]

I’m going to lay this out on the table (like I did your mom, son) and just let you know I am a Worm fan. I’m a fan of the Worm. I like Worm, see? This all may have come out wrong, but if I do my job right, you’ll all be ready to take […]

This album seemingly dropped out of nowhere towards the end of 2022, with an impressive array of musicians. Morbikon consists of: Matthias “Vreth” Lillmåns/vox (Finntroll, Festerday, etc), Quotidius/vox, Phil “Landphil” Hall/bass&guitar (Cannabis Corpse, Iron Reagan, Municipal Waste), Dave Witte (Municipal Waste, Brain Tentacles, Human Remains &1,000 other bands). The band is international, as you have […]

Okay, first and foremost, hats off to Mr. Teeth of the Divine himself, Erik Thomas, for sending me Shroud of Despondency‘s latest album, Air of Abrasion for review. Having no experience with the band I wasn’t sure what to expect. I damn sure wasn’t expecting from Air of Abrasion to turn out to be one […]

It’s been 9 years since the Australian one-man project (aka D.) Woods of Desolation dropped As The Stars, one of 2014’s more critically acclaimed black metal albums that leaned hard into the Ghostbath, Vallendusk, Alcest, Spectral Lore, Mare Cognitum, Deafheaven style of atmospheric/post-black metal. Well, again assisted by Drudkh’s Vlad on drums and keyboards, D. was […]

A late 2022 release that I got my hands on even later in 2022, Lunar Mercia is a post/atmospheric black metal band from Birmingham in the UK, and resides in the same dark, dreamy, melodic, jangly space as Ghost Bath, Wolves in the Throne Room, Woods of Desolation, Harakari for the Sky, Alcest and such. […]

Long-running UK trashers, Onslaught has been one of my fave thrash bands and certainly my fave UK thrash band since their 1985 debut Power From Hell, which I purchased on vinyl when it was released.  To this day their second album The Force, from 1986, is still my favorite release from them, but all their […]

Sirrush (a dragon from Babylonian Mythology) is a new-ish Italian black/death metal band from Italy, They have been around since 2011, though Molon Labe is their first full-length album, and I had to review it as it tackles one of my favorite historical events of the Classical Age- The Battle of Thermopylae. No matter your […]

What do you get when two powerhouse Death Metal legends come together? A fucking blistering Death Metal album that would make the nineties blush. Marc Grewe (ex- Morgoth, Insidious Disease) and Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Revolting, Ribspreader) have joined together to create Leper Colony, a healthy slab of chest-bursting brutality that has… melody and manages to […]