Despite their early impact and influence, I’ve never been more than a casual Defleshed fan, for some reason preferring Hypokras, Carnal Forge, Darkane, Dew Scented, The Crown and I.N.R.I for my hyper-speedy, thrashy, melodic-ish death metal in the late 90s early to mid-00s. I own 1997s Under the Blade and 1999s Fast Forward, but both […]

Well, Chris Reifert and co. are still at it and back with album number 9, their fourth (depending on what you view the 2015 Skull Grinder LP) after returning from an extended hiatus with Macabre Eternal in 2011, an OK if an underwhelming return to the fray. But then we got 2013s The Headless Ritual […]

My love for French Black/Death Metal is not a secret by this point. Will Fall of Seraphs grow on me like a slimy fungus? I mean, 2022 has turned out to be quite the year for grimy, bleak Metal. From Dust to Creation sees Fall of Seraphs Blackened/Death machine blasting like there’s no tomorrow or […]

Let’s party like it’s 1985!!!! With original second Sepultura guitarist, Jairo “Tormentor”, The Troops of Doom, wipes the floor with anything Sepultura has released in 20+ years.  I reviewed the ep’s on here and this debut full length hit me without warning.  Antichrist Reborn is everything you would have wanted if Sepultura were still playing […]

The new Spellbook album is not as good as their debut. That could be the review. However, it’s not always so easy to explain. You see, there are still several excellent moments, but where the debut felt like a complete album experience, Deadly Charms feels like a collection of songs. That’s not necessarily a bad […]

When you run the risk of being simply known as “the band that Will Ramos of Lorna Shore used to sing for”, you’d better deliver on your album that you recorded after Ramos’s departure  …. And Boy to A Wake in Providence respond and let the blackened deathcore world know they are NOT simply going […]

12 full length albums since 2009 is not a band resting on its laurels. Malaysia’s tank tread Bolt Thrower worshipping maniacs are already in the process of yes, you guessed it, finishing album 13. I’ve been reviewing their albums since Turbulence from the Deep and yea I have all their albums and eps.  I even […]

I checked out the promo for the third album from this UK-based act as it dropped words like Nile and Behemoth as well as Roman and Greek Mythology. Sold! And I wasn’t disappointed as Ex Mortis Gloria (From Death Comes Glory) is a damn solid record. A little research into the band shows it comprises […]

It’s been five years since the Bay Area’s Acephalix released Decreation back in 2017, and there have been a few changes, as the band is now a five-piece again with a couple of lineup changes. But the sound has not changed; it’s still a filthy, death metal-based form of D-beat/crust that’s part Grave, part Nails, […]

Music critics are idiots (myself included). Especially so when it comes to reviewing what can pass for a “big” release. Of course, this is metal, so that’s relatively speaking. If they say it’s the best thing since the blow job was invented, you can rest assured it sounds like pretty much everything else out there, […]

I usually don’t review digital-only releases, but when you stumble across a symphonic tech-death supergroup based on one of the greatest video games series’ of all time, I’ll make an exception. Video gamers will recognize the moniker as one of the weapons from the Gears of War series, and indeed Hammer of Dawn is a […]

Album number 13 sees Maryland’s Clutch getting better with age. I started out a fan with their early 90’s hardcore metal influenced ep’s and albums. I’ve seen Clutch multiple times live and they never disappoint. Last time I saw them was quite some time ago. I think I’m 2001 for the Pure Rock Fury album. […]

Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the oversexed, fast car, jumbo jet, yacht party lifestyle of a playboy heavy metal reviewer and get back to basics. You know, get back to the reason why you have an aircraft carrier full of Ferraris in the first place, check out some underground promos, and find […]

In 2020 I reviewed Seattle’s atmospheric black metal band- Izthmi’s impressive debut The Arrows of Our Ways. The band had only released a prior demo and I had never heard of them before and was blown away by the debut album. Album #2 Leaving This World, Leaving It All Behind sees the band progressing in […]

Have a seat, and grab a snack. This is gonna be a long one. Way back in 2015 I reviewed a pretty nondescript EP, Maleficium, from this New Jersey band called Lorna Shore. It was Ok, odd band name, and a few keyboards, but nothing really stood out. The same can be said for the […]

When I blindly downloaded the promo for the second album from Turkey’s Inhuman Depravity, I was fully expecting an utterly ‘broodle’ death metal onslaught of Comatose Records proportions. what I got was a far more varied and surgical old-school technical death metal record that reminded me if bands like Suffocation, Deeds of Flesh, and in […]

Singapore’s grindcore act Wormrot returns with their fourth full-length Hiss and while the band has had two previous periods of going on hiatus I would not be surprised if a third hiatus or disbanding altogether is imminent. It’s been six years since the third album Voices was released. During this time long time singer Arif […]

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I blindly hit ‘play’ on Bexadde, on Germany’s FDA Records after getting the CD in the mail along with the new Slaughterday. With that moniker, I was maybe expecting some fuzzed-out stoner doom? But I certainly not modern atmospheric/post-black metal, not exactly what FDA Records is known for. […]

Sometimes a promo comes out that I just need to review. The promo in question here is Revocation’s new slab, Netherheaven. However, it was about third or fourth in line, I thought I had a lot more time, and then the boss comes in, knocks my macaroni and cheese off my desk into my lap, […]

I reviewed UK’s Heavy/Power Metal band Dark Forest’s fifth album Oak, Ash & Thorn a few years ago. I raved about the album and now they have returned with a 5-song ep Ridge & Furrow. Opening with the longest track, “Skylark”, excellent double bass drums with the continued Iron Maiden influences all over the place with some melodic yet excellent power metal […]

I have no excuse why it has taken me to review the debut album from Baltimore’s Greylotus. I got nothing. It’s even sadder considering, I listen to it a lot, and it’s going to be a clear-cut album of the year contender for me, so let’s get to it. Basically, Greylotus’s Dawnfall is if you […]

I’m just gonna go ahead and set all my clocks back by like, I dunno, 20 or 25 years? Etsy has LOTS of Princess Diana calendars from 1998 available, so I’m well covered there. I hear JNCO jeans are sorta a thing again? So much denim. The reason for all this turn-of-the-21st-century behavior? MELODEATH IS […]

For almost a decade, German duo Slaughterday has been rendering their Autopsy worshiping ( Slaughterday is a song from the Mental Funeral album) tones with  3 albums and a couple of EPs. And with album number 4, even with the word ‘doom’ in the title, they continue that trend with another killer album. With an album […]

Nergal, the controversial frontman for black/death mainstays Behemoth is basically that kid in school who everybody thinks is kind of aloof, doesn’t talk to anyone, and people somehow like. That is until he gets his license, drives by you in his new convertible his parents bought him with the top down, hair flowing, listening to […]

Can someone in the Norfolk (UK) area please go and check on NRE? Seriously, from what I’m hearing on his sixth and final album under his And Now The Owls Are Smiling moniker, he must have undergone some drastically emotional shit since 2021s Dirges, a despondent but still atmospheric and at times melodic black metal […]