One of the best perks of writing for Teeth of the Divine for a couple years now is that bands I’ve previously reviewed, such as Mountaineer, are releasing new material. Their last effort, Bloodletting, scored high marks from me, but their brand of post metal overall has not done much for me since then. On […]

This review is brought to you by Google Translate.  Par le sang versé, the 2019 sophomore album from these epic/medieval French black metallers, snuck into the back end of my 2019 year-end list, but I if were redoing that year’s list, it would have been a top ten, maybe a top 5 release, as I […]

Being a huge New Orleans Saints and LSU fan, I’m generally up for anything from Louisiana, especially musically where the likes of Crowbar, Soilent Green, and Goatwhore are concerned. There’s just something about that swampy, sweaty, moist riffage that appeals to me, so checking out the debut album from Lafayette’s Golgothan ( a literal ‘shit […]

In 2020 my then girlfriend and I planned a trip to London.  The timing was based on convenience of our schedules and not any particular event.  I’m a bit of an Anglophile and was excited to find music events going on whether it was electronic, metal, grime, indie etc in one of the most densely […]

Pros of the band Hath: Pretty much everything. Cons: They make me think of Hoth, which makes me think of Star Wars… and unlike many of my peers, I do not care for Star Wars. There. I said it. With all of that out of the way, here’s Hath’s heavily anticipated All That Was Promised. […]

“Then a new sound droned into our ears, the sound, deep, all-encompassing, with no notes in it, just a gigantic faraway surge of doom-like sound. It was the heavies, coming on with a terrible slowness in flights of twelve, three flights to a group, stretched out across the sky. I thought it would never end……and […]

Seemed like yesterday I discovered UK based metal/hardcore/crossover/thrash/blast beat Flying Killer Cobs From the Planet Bob, Lawnmower Deth.  Their 1990 debut Ooh Crikey It’s… Lawnmower Deth, on Earache Records is still one of my all time favorite albums.  The band always having a laugh and incorporating humor into their various and eclectic musical styles and […]

Whales Don’t Fly, eh? Who is going to tell Gojira? Considering I mentioned on my year end list that their latest album was not a masterpiece but was indeed just okay, maybe it should be me. After all, I’m pretty good at breaking bad news. What I’m not good at is finding promos to review. […]

I am not overly familiar with Iceland’s music scene.  I know some quality death metal bands and maybe 1 or 2 black metal bands, but for the most part that country is not swarming with a gigantic scene, as far as I know.  As for power metal, unless I saw Power Paladin were from Iceland, […]

I had to check and see if this second album from Spain’s customed troupe, Crusade of Bards wasn’t on Napalm Records a few times, just to be sure.  They have ‘that ‘ sort of sound with symphonic, female-fronted operatic bombastic, gothic-tinged metal, and a few heavier elements (gruffs death metal vocals etc) sprinkled in here […]

I had no idea that Nuclear Blast Records founder Markus Staiger had a split with his label last year and had formed a new label, the not so subtly named Atomic Fire Records, with some of his former Nuclear Blast folks. Not only that, they have pulled over some serious heavyweights over with them like […]

“This is great, but maybe a little too long” is a phrase that comes to mind when describing Allegaeon’s new album Damnum. Not when it comes to describing my penis, though. Kind of the opposite. That’s not why we’re here. If you are, though… Call me. I’ll leave my phone number coded in this review, […]

Man… now that is an album cover. In the annals of heavy metal/extreme music, the writings of JRR Tolkien have long resided in largely black metal  (Summoning), power metal (Blind Guardian), ‘garb-core’ (Battlelore) and even death metal (Khazaddum). But what the world was clearly lacking was some Tolkien-based, technical, blackened deathcore. Well, here comes Washington […]

2022, comin’ in HAWT. You know it’s true because of the way I spelled it. I already have 3-5 albums which are sure year end contenders and I’m writing this sentence on the last day of January. I’m not one to complain about an embarrassingly high amount of excellent metal, but it’s already been difficult […]

So after an absolutely ridiculously good year for tech-death in 2021 with the likes of First Fragment, Obsidian I, Obscura, Hannes Grossman, Inferi, Stortregn, Alustrium and others, it took exactly one month for 2022 to see its first stellar tech-death record. Leiden (suffer or endure?) is the second album from this Tacoma, Washington act who […]

Holy crappers- Acts of God is Immolation’s eleventh album.  Man, I feel like time has flown right by me.  It seems like only yesterday I was at Spark’s on Long Island, NY watching them headline once Dawn of Possession was released.  I remember speaking with the entire band, buying merch.  I would bring said DOP […]

I do not need music to help me achieve a depressed state, Hangman’s Chair, okay? I do very well with that as my default, thank you very much. However, if you’re unlike me (for your own sake, let’s hope), maybe you just need that nudge or like to feel miserable sometimes. If so, A Loner, […]

Germany’s Vorga burst into the scene about 6 years ago and released an EP, but Striving Toward Oblivion is their debut full length album and showcases a trailblazing style of black metal. Opening this 8 song 45 minute album is “Starless Sky” and what an opening ripper of a lead off song. Massive blasting equipped with […]

I try and keep myself open to covering things that normally don’t float my boat, hence me taking a break from deathcore and technical death metal to take stab at the third album from the UK’S black/crust act Wolfbastard. But they had a couple of things going for them; ‘Wolf’ and ‘Bastard’ are two of […]

If you have the balls to say “chilling-yet-breathtaking ruminations harken to the golden days of melodic, nature-inspired black metal, back during the mid ’90s. Names invoked include old Borknagar, Kvist, Arckanum, Old Man’s Child, Norway’s Gehenna, and even earliest Dimmu Borgir” in your promotional materials, you had better fucking back it up, and luckily the […]

San Francisco’s progressive metal band Hammers of Misfortune released their debut album The Bastard in 2001.  They would go on to release 5 more incredible albums, their last one the phenomenal Dead Revolution in 2016.  HOM is an eclectic band with influences ranging from Manilla Road, Fates Warning, Iron Maiden, Solstice (UK).  But they have […]

As I’ve stated many times before in these very pages, I’m very picky about my heavy/power metal. It’s not a genre I generally really enjoy or get into, but I’ve certainly come to appreciate the likes of Blind Guardian, WindRose, Dragony, Fairyland, Thy Majestie, Grail Knights, Pathfinder, Twilight Force,  and the 23 Rhapsody related bands, […]

January of 2020, specifically January 14th, was quite the day for deathcore. You had releases from Worm Shepherd, Fit For An Autopsy, Enterprise Earth, and a new Ingested single, as well as album number four from Connecticut’s Shadow of Intent, one of symphonic deathcore’s top bands As with 2019s excellent Melancholy, which tackled mental health […]

Deathcore is having another moment. This new wave is being led by such heavyweights from last year such as Worm Shepherd, Osiah, Mental Cruelty, Signs of the Swarm, and Bound in Fear, and looks to be off to a good start with new Worm Shepherd and Shadow of Intent due out in January along with […]

I’m pretty new to Wilderun’s form of symphonic classical, folk, and progressive, heavy metal/death metal smash-up, with the reissue of 2019s Veil of Imagination being my first exposure to the band to which I then picked up their more folk-tinged prior records. I described the band as a mix of Opeth, Dream Theater and Blind […]