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 […]

I grabbed this 5 song EP for review for 1 simple fact; Jon Huber. The former vocalist of I Declare War, Pathology, and I Detest ( as well as live vocals for Whitechapel back on the day), has been one of my favorite vocalists for a while now since I heard his blast furnace of […]

It’s a shame when a band, especially one so far into their career, doesn’t know who or what they want to be. With a discography in the range of good to great, unfortunately it feels like this is where we find deathcore veterans Fit For An Autopsy. I’ll explain… While the opening track, which is […]

My first 2022 release review is the self-released and self-titled album from Canada’s Maule.  This four-piece act plays straight up balls to the wall heavy metal.  9 songs just shy of the 40 minute mark.  “Evil Eye” opening up the album and Iron Maiden are a true inspiration for this band – think vintage Maiden, […]

Symphonic or blackened deathcore blew the fuck up in 2021. Though it was certainly a thing before 2020, After the success of Lorna Shore‘s Immortal in 2020, the genre simply exploded with already established and new bands like Mental Cruelty, Shadow of Intent, Sin Deliverance, Dead World Reclamation,  Darker By Design, Carnifex, Assemble the Chariots, […]

Back before the internet, we metalheads used to rely on a few different methods in hearing and procuring our aural fix. One of these was the blind purchase. Sometimes the payoff was immeasurably fantastic. Sometimes the gamble was nothing less than horrific. Most of the time though, the results tended to fall somewhere in that […]

Potentially the greatest perk of writing for a metal site (if you call what I do writing) is getting to connect with underground artists such as Crawl Below’s Charlie Sad Eyes. Not long after his previous album and personal year-end lister, 9 Mile Square was released, he mentioned to me that the next Crawl Below […]

Late last year, NYDM brutal death metal veterans Pyrexia returned with their sixth full-length album, Gravitas Maximus.  They had recently announced the new album and honestly, it came out of nowhere-I was not expecting them to release a Covid album.  I guess since their last album Unholy Requiem, was released in 2018, they wanted to […]

Here’s an interesting one from FDA records. Released a bit before the latest Ophis album, Spew Forth Odium, earlier last autumn, The Tragedy is the third album from this Finnish doom act whom I have never heard and frankly had very little expectations for. The logo, the band/album name, the fact there are hardly any […]

‘And in the category for 2021s most unreadable logo the nominees are……. Vomit Spell..’ So what do we have in the sea of red and sinewy and blood contained in the NecroFrsot artwork here? The debut from a new German grindcore quartet, that’s what. And while Germany isn’t a renowned hotbed of Grindcore (Japanische Kampfhörspiele […]

In the rather full realm of Bolt Thrower worship, plenty of bands and staked a claim on the mantle left by the departed British warmongers; Hail of Bullets, Humiliation, Frozen Soul, Decaying, Creeping Flesh, Chainsword just to name a few, but you could argue the top two current Bolt Thrower homage bands are of course, […]

On top of Frank’s favorite new metal bands in 2020 was Lady Beast when I reviewed their fourth album, The Vulture’s Amulet.  A complete banger of an album incorporating traditional Heavy Metal in the form of early Maiden/Priest/Manilla Road/Dio.  So the early Power Metal influences were there as the band galloped along with quicker speeds […]

One could say, when it comes to black metal, I have a mature palate. By that, I mean I’ve tasted a lot of it. Literally and figuratively. I’ve listened to a lot, but also took a bite out of a Darkthrone cd. It did not cure my Transilvanian Hunger. I’m a fan of bands within […]

Up until 2017s The aptly named The Dismal Circle, I was unfamiliar with Germany’s death-doom veterans Ophis (‘snake’), but that album was a solid effort with some suitably crumbling, hefty death/doom that had strains of classic Morgion engrained in the moping lumbers. And that has continued for album number 5, and is possibly even a […]

Canada’s one-man project Haiduk (a term for Balkan freedom fighters) came out of the gate like barnstormers back 2021 with Spellbook, a pretty blistering black/death/thrash combo that had a lot of energy and influences from Dew-Scented Hypocrisy and even Dissection. However, the follow-up, 2015s Demonicon, with an increasing mechanical/programmed tone (especially the drums), came across […]

“What does music mean to you? I don’t know. But it’s full of emotion It’s not happy. No. It’s not happy”- from “Eternal Unrest”. Crikey. so I thought Christian Consentino was the only solo artist from Australia making epic, classically inspired, symphonic progressive black metal. Well, apparently there is another one who has been around a […]

“Good Things Come to Those Who Wait” – Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie. I’m not sure there is a more apt proverb than the above one when it comes to Dessiderium, (loosely meaning ‘an ardent desire or longing for something lost’), the solo project from Alex Haddad, also the guitarist/vocalist for tech-death metallers Arkaik. Both for […]

I’ve enjoyed Tacoma Washington’s Alda for a few albums now, particularly 2011s :Tahoma: and 2015s Passage, their last effort, on a match made in heaven label, Bindrune Recordings. But after 6 years of silence, and a split from Bindrune, I wasn’t sure where the band was at, considering some of their peers (Panopticon, Falls of […]

After several demos, splits, and one full length album, the incredible Desolate Landscape from 2017, Phrenelith has finally returned to what seems like no fanfare. If we didn’t dig our way through the figurative promo bin, this may have been missed altogether. However, if there’s one task at which I am very accomplished, it’s scraping […]

Reveal! Comes from Uppsala, Sweden and Doppelherz is their fourth album.  The cover, a painted face from the perspective of looking up at it from 45 degrees, is reminiscent of a more abstract nod to King Crimson’s In The Court Of The Crimson King. The music of Reveal! Is not ‘progressive’ in the technical, dual […]

Here s a pleasant little surprise in what’s been a pretty dry run of folk/Viking /pagan metal over the last couple of years, as only Blodiga Skald’s 2020 effort, The Undrunken Curse got me remotely excited for that genre recently. Arise is the second album from newish Swiss act, Nidhoeggr (the dragon that’s eternally chewing […]

Houston’s Malignant Altar‘s Retribution of Jealous Gods demo from 2019 perked my ears up quite a bit. I knew the band was going to be a force to be reckoned with. The 3 songs were heavy, dark n cavernous and really filthy and grimy death metal. Realms of Exquisite Morbidity is their debut album and […]

It warms my heart to see a band I have covered for two self-released albums now (2016s Memento Mori and 2019s Prokopton– which made my 2019 year-end list) have all the hard work pay off and get signed to a ‘big ‘ label, in this case, Napalm Records, and now deservedly rubbing shoulders with the […]

I have to hand it to Pathology, after fifteen years of existence the band comes sneaking in here at the end of 2021 with what may just be their best album yet, their eleventh full-length album(???), The Everlasting Plague. Througout the band’s career their consistency can hardly be rivaled. Every album has arguably been a […]

Listen, there’s no denying the place of Peter Tägtgren and Hypocrisy in the pantheons of metal over the last almost 30 years. I personally hold Penetralia, Osculum Obscenum, and The Fourth Dimension in super high regard with the latter arguably being the peak of their career as they shifted into more melodic death metal realms […]