I’ve been anticipating this one. Why? Well, Wormwitch’s last one, Heaven that Dwells Within, seemed to be praised by everyone. While I dug what they were doing, I thought it could be greatly improved in a few significant ways. I wasn’t a fan of the production. While it wasn’t offensive, I felt it didn’t fit […]

Salt Lake City, Utah’s Wicked Innocence just reactivated as an active band a few months ago and that goes swimmingly with the reissue of their second album – Omnipotence from 1995.  I will not claim to be an expert on the band’s three other albums, because other than a few snippets here and there, never […]

Despite being one of the early deathcore bands to successfully add keyboards to their repertoire and become more of a blackened deathcore band 4-5 albums ago, Carnifex has been surpassed by the likes of Shadow of Intent, Mental Cruelty and Lorna Shore when it comes to this supposed  ‘blackened deathcore’ sound (and you could make […]

EP releases are a funny thing. There used to be a time when they weren’t really a big deal so-to-speak. Sure, occasionally a band would release something of some serious musical value i.e. Haunting the Chapel, Morbid Tales, Sentence of Death, In the Sign of Evil, Despise the Sun, as well as others, but for […]

Imagine heavy metal as a city. A city in, say, a cheesy 1980s film. You can walk down the streets and you’ll encounter the nice part of town. You have your Slipknot, Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold. The mainstream stuff. That’s fine, but on this day, you came to the city to try something else. Something dangerous. […]

One of Chicago’s best death metal bands, Fleshgrind, finally gets their two (2) demos  Holy Pedophile 1993 and  Sorrow Breeds Hatred… Bleed on Me 1995 released on cd with bonus content.  Fleshgrind would eventually go on to record 3 full length albums but their demos are special for a number of reasons.  The main thing […]

Here’s a release I completely overlooked earlier this spring, but as I was searching through the vast Teethofthedivine promo library in search of melodic black metal similar to stuff I recently reviewed by Warmoon Lord, Winter Eternal and Runespell, I stumbled across the short but excellent gem of a debut from this Spanish black metal […]

A little while back in the Teethofthedivine break room, we were talking about our favorite albums so far this year. Someone mentioned one album gave them a “holy shit” moment, and I realized I had yet to experience such a thing this young year. While I choked down my microwaved frozen gas station burrito on […]

The ever productive Matthew Schott is back with another Sxuperion album, that’s 6 in 6 years, along with a few splits and Eps as well his output in Garden of Hesperides,  Valdur and Oreamnos. I reviewed 2019s Endless Spiritual Embodiment but never got around to covering 2020s Omniscient Pulse, (Sorry Matt, I’ll blame covid). However, […]

Infestation were a rather short lived, but no less important, death metal band from Massachusetts in the early – mid 90’s.  With the death metal scene in New England putting out some killer bands, such as Tyrant Trooper, Scattered Remnants and Desolate, that entire area were also competing with the Boston Hardcore scene as well […]

Sun of the Suns is a new band from Italy featuring members of tech-death act Carnality, deathcore stompers The Modern Age Slavery, and symphonic death metal band Nightland, but also features  Francesco Paoli from Fleshgod Apocalypse helping out on drums. And for once, the FFO recommendations in the promo actually nail it pretty hard, mentioning […]

Sweden’s Havamal ( ‘the words of Odin’), is a relatively new Norse/Viking-themed melodic death metal band with one album under their belt from 2019, Tales from Yggdrasil, which I have not heard. I was in the mood for something Viking -y to tide me over until the new Thyrfing, and this has fit the bill […]

Who is the mood for some awesome new U.S Epic Doom? Sign me up!   Being from Minnesota and friends of Brad Miller (Among the Serpents) I was extremely excited to hear he was assembling this group.  Come June 2021 here we are with Grief Collector’s En Delirium. I must say that recruiting Robert Lowe (Ex-Candlemass, […]

As I said in my review of Passéisme’s album of the year contender, Eminence, Antiq Records is becoming a very good, consistent label, plying black metal that’s a bit medieval , a bit avant-garde and sometimes both, as in the case of the French act, Ascète and their excellent debut album, Calamites & les Calamités. Also, […]

Last year Sinira, a 1 man black metal band, self-released this debut album The Everlorn.  The album went unnoticed and he eventually inked a deal with Northern Silence Productions to put out the album physically and with an alternate album cover for 2021. .  So this year when I first heard this album I really […]

You are starting to hear and feel the impact of covid and the chaotic final year of Trump’s administration on some albums being put out now. Albums that were written in seclusion, online, in depressive states, in rage. I think we are seeing a real creative burst in the metal scene, that might be one […]

Back in 2018 when I was back again with Internal Bleeding and we headed up to Canada, for part of the Bloodletting Tour, I met Phil Brousseau and Nickolas Lauzon and took a picture with these young gentlemen.  They really enjoyed our set and super cool dudes.  Fast Forward to 2020, a little bit right […]

Denver’s Noctambulist return with their second album, The Barren Form.   I was not familiar with this group and wanted to check out their material.  It is quite pummeling and reminds me a bit of Hate Eternal and Virtriol at times.  I do wish at times that the guitars had a bit more clarity as at […]

And so the killer, 2021 Bolt Thrower/ Hail of Bullets worship/homage continues, this time from notable Australian duo, Dave Haley (drums/recording) and Jason Peppiatt (vocals, guitar, bass, artwork) of Psycroptic. And if the prospect of these two delivering 8 songs about various battles in history doesn’t give you a howitzer-sized boner, then move along. Of […]

Fuck. So back in February, I swore that Ominous Ruin‘s Amid Voices That Echo in Stone would be the tech death album of the year. Then shortly after that, Stortgren’s Impermanence,  was definitely going to take that mantle. But then Hannes Grossman dropped To Where the Light Retreats, earlier this summer, and THAT album was […]

Austin Texas’s Cathexis return with their second full length effort Untethered Abyss.  I have been spinning this album for the last few months and my first impressions of them were a black death band with influences like Immolation and Ulcerate.  They are a bit more varied in terms of groove and riff variety.  The Title […]

Germany’s Empyrium have been around for close to 30 years, with a hiatus in the 00’s.  I’d always seen the band name, but always stayed away from them because of not quite grasping the folk metal genre, until relatively recently.  Their prior releases are a mixed bag containing a variety of sounds, vocals and instruments.  […]

I’ve interviewed Alestorm twice over the years, both at this very site. And in both interviews, legendary Brit fantasy metal act Bal-Sagoth comes up as a huge influence on Alestorm’s Chris Bowes. Now, he developed that influence a little bit in his power metal outfit Gloryhammer, but I’ve been waiting for him to truly flesh […]

I rather enjoyed 2019s Tyrannotophia, from this Dutch downtempo band, as it ended up being one of the better deathcore/ downtempo releases I have still heard. Then I found the follow-up EP, Dawn of Curruption a bit boring, and the band got surpassed by label mates Bound In Fear as the best band in the […]

GO! Now that I have that totally necessary exclamation out of the way, let’s talk about At The Gates’ new album, The Nightmare of Being. A title I totally feel right now, guys… but this isn’t about me, although I’ll probably inadvertently do my damnedest to make it. On full length #7, and the third […]