Part II of my Destruction reissue review series focuses on Mad Butcher, Release from Agony and Cracked Brain.  Part I contained Sentence of Death, Infernal Overkill and Eternal Devastation.  In 1987, 1 year removed from their amazing second album, Eternal Devastation, Destruction graced us with the Mad Butcher ep.  Years ago it was usually common for bands to release eps between full length albums and this ep marked an improvement in the production […]

Bear with me me here…….. back in 1992, whilst in college, I read in Pitch Weekly ( a free, alternative Kansas City paper) , that Entombed were playing at a local VFW. Of course, I was going, so that night, I loaded up up beers and other substances and headed out with a friend. Well, […]

Richmond Virginia’s Appalling return with their second full length album Inverted Realm out on Redefining darkness records.  I must admit I was not familiar with this group until reading the band’s bio in which Angel Corpse was mentioned as an influence.  Appalling play quite a catchy form of blackened death thrash that reminds me of […]

When stacked against the barren wasteland of the 2018 thrash metal scene, comparatively, 2019 is off to a much stronger start. The likes of Critical Defiance, Inculter and Exumer have dropped solid albums thus far. And now, up and coming Detroit band Euphoria Ω return with the follow-up to their impressive 2016 debut, Operation: Genesis. […]

I’m a little overdue on this one and frankly I didn’t really feel like chiming in with a review on Pig Destroyer’s latest platter of pain until some of the usual hype that comes with their releases died down.  They’re pretty much a love it or hate it proposition for most people at this point […]

Over the course of the Amon Amarth‘s 10 album, 20+ year career, they have been one of the most consistent bands in metal. If you were to plot a line with their albums on it, they are almost all certainly in a straight line when it comes to quality with a couple that go over […]

Germany’s Corrosive stomped onto my radar last year with their second album, Lucifer Gave US the Faith, a big, beefy mix of Grave, Entrails,  Illdisposed and Hypocrisy, that delivered a damn solid assault of groovy Swedish death metal and the follow up is improved enough to put these guys on the cusp of the genre’s […]

I’m not much of a traditional metal sort of guy. Of course plenty of exceptions have popped up over the years, but generally my tastes are aligned in different directions. However, Chicago’s Black Sites impressed with their deft mix of old school values and modern sensibilities with classic heavy metal and prog influences on their […]

Baltimore Maryland’s death/grind band Noisem return after a 4 year album hiatus to bring us Cease to Exist, their third and most devastating album to date. Several things have happened since their monstrous Blossoming Decay album from 2014. Sometimes fame too fast can have effects on a band. When Noisem’s debut Agony Defined came out […]

For a while, Whitechapel were the true darlings of deathcore’s peak, with 2008s This Is Exile being the genre’s arguable apex along  with All Shall Perish‘s The Price of Existence. However, since then, the band hasn’t quite been on the same level; a ‘dumbing down’ of the lyrics, a simplification of the music into a […]

Remember in Rocky IV when Ivan Drago beat the beloved Apollo Creed to literal death? Do you remember the brutality of the beatdown and the shock and awe of witnessing what had just occurred? Well friends, I do. I remember it well, and the feeling I get from listening to Moscow, Russia’s Critical Extravasation is […]

I’m fairly new to Sweden’s Meadow’s End despite my love of all things that melds symphonics and metal, having only recently discovered the band’s 2016 release, Sojourn (in part to a brilliant piece of evocative cover art), and thusly grabbing the bands other 2 previous releases and pre ordering this, the band’s fourth effort. What […]

Warning: I am going to say the words Bal-Sagoth, a record breaking number of times in this review… Man, I haven’t had this much anticipation for an album in a looooooong time. Why? Well friends, Let me tell you of an Age undreamed of…. Back in the 1990s a band called Bal-Sagoth arose from the […]

Well this is most definitely a front runner for EP of the year.  Wow!  Chicago’s Wounds have got my tech death appetite drooling with their debut EP Light Eater.  I had heard from word of mouth from other bands in my area here in Minnesota regarding this incredible band.   I had been hearing the name […]

Willowtip Records have to be one of the most diverse underground metal labels out there.  With over a half dozen new releases on deck for 2019 Jason Tipton has built quite the label lineup of diverse talent (Ceremony of Silence, Vale of Pnath,).  New Jersey’s Hath are no exception.  Debuting way back in 2015 these […]

If you are reading this review, I’m going to assume you know this history behind this veteran Louisiana brother act. If you don’t, here is the cliff notes version: Two brothers from Louisiana form a band called Incubus and band release two pretty influential releases in Serpent Temptation (1988) and Beyond the Unknown ( 1990) […]

I was pretty impressed with my first exposure to Stephane Thirion  and his third album,  A fleur de peau, from his one man project, In Shadows And Dust. It delivered black metal rendered with a Stockholm death metal guitar tone with good effect, and apparently the guys over at Redefining Darkness were also impressed, enough to […]

Greek Metal Masters Rotting Christ have returned with another fantastic release with their 13th album The Heretics. The Tolis brothers Themis and Sakis, fresh off their recent arrest for Terrorism (not that kind-the fearful religious kind) in Georgia (the country, not the state) have given a spirited middle finger to organized religion once again. Although, […]

Every once and a while a band manages to make a few lineup changes and all of the sudden their sound has been elevated.  Thus is the case with Nordjevel’s latest effort Necrogenesis coming out latest this year on Osmose Productions.  Holy hell!  Does this album pair well with -50 degree weather! I must say […]

Remember in the mid/late 1990s when metal took a hard lean to Gothic overtures and bands like Sentenced, Anathema, Tiamat, Katatonia, Samael, Cemetery, Paradise Lost, Rotting Christ softened up and bands like Godgory, Sculpture, Crematory, Agathodaimon were a dime a dozen on Nuclear Blast Records? Well, Finland’s Asphodelus are here to remind you of that […]

Canada’s Gomorrah impressed greatly with their industrial-tinged death metal debut, 2016’s The Haruspex. The album packed Anaal Nathrakh-styled intensity with killer grooves and dynamic song-writing. Three years later the duo returns with a self-titled platter that looks set to raise the stakes for top notch death metal in 2019. Gomorrah expands and improves on nearly […]

I’ve said in prior reviews from this new-ish Ohio based label, I really like the direction the label is headed with a real focus of real death and black metal and some very cool forays into HM 2 boss styled death metal such as Inoculated Life, In Shadows and Dust, upcoming Nocturnal Hollow album and […]

Well I’ll be damned, color me impressed. Brescia, Italy’s, The Scars in Pneuma, and their debut album, The Path of Seven Sorrows, really caught me by surprise with its mature sound and songwriting. While the band cites influences from the likes of Rotting Christ, Mgla, Dissection, Be’lakor and others, in the end it’s just a […]

I rather enjoyed Fallujah’s semi meteoric rise from fairly typical Unique Leader modern tech death through 2014s The Flesh Prevails, (which made my 2014 year end list) and 2016s ambitious Dreamless, as the band expanded into far more atmospheric and progressive pastures. However, some lineup churn (notably original vocalist/guitarist Alex Hoffman and longtime guitarist Brian […]

I had no idea Germany’s Destruction have been around since 1982-Christ Almighty.  I’ve been a fan since their 1984 Sentence of Death ep.  Guess I’ve lost track of time and I have not followed the band since the 1990 Cracked Brain album.  So this is Part I of my Destruction reissue review series.  Germany’s High […]