Ne Obliviscaris‘s 2014 sophomore album Citadel was one of my top 3 albums for that year, and now 3 years later, the Australian progressive extreme metal collective look to have another of my top albums for 2017 in Urn. The incredibly ambitious and hard to describe sound of these guys is in force again,  as […]

  My first Noise/BMG reissue review series will focus on the Voivod reissues. This will be followed up with Celtic Frost and Kreator reissues Each paragraph will focus on each individual reissued album from the band. For purposes of such reviews it will be more of a personal recollection, on my part, with some observations about […]

I really want to like these Massachusetts metallers  more. They feature Colin Conway (ex- Cannae), one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever interviewed, and my reviewing brethren Luke Sanders gushed over their last record, 2013s Blood and Black. Throw in a beefy, modern take on East Coast death/thrash metal and you’d think the recipe was […]

Hailing from Rochester, NY, duo Mavradoxa  play a form of atmospheric black metal that would be right at home on Bindrune Recordings. It’s a woodsy, Agalloch rooted form of black metal akin to the likes of  Falls of Rauros, Alda, Wodensthrone and such. However, it does not mean its as good as those bands. While Mavradoxa […]

I rather enjoyed this bands second effort, 2013s Atonement, but the band waited a little long for a follow up ( four years is an eternity for brutal death metal), so me waiting a few months to get a review out is excusable. But not much appears to have changed. The band are as brutal […]

In 2006 I became a fan of Goatwhore’s blended blackened death metal when A Haunting Curse was released and I saw this Louisiana act live and they crushed.  Their sound was incredible and they were cool dudes as well.  In total Vengeful Ascension is the band’s 7th full-length album.  Their last album, in 2014, Constricting […]

There are a few records that left an indelible mark on me as a young metal head. One such record was Fleurety’s 1995 debut, Mid Tid Skal Komme.  And most of it was due to the vocals of Marian Aas Hansen, who added a bluesy, sultry sway to the avante garde black metal. Another more recent effort […]

I was a huge fan of California’s brutal tech-death band Oblivion’s 2013 debut album Called to Rise.  4 years later and the band is still intact with Ted O’Neill and Victor Dods ( ex Hacksaw to the Throat) on guitars, Ben Orum (ex- All Shall Perish) on Bass, Luis Martinez (ex Antagony) blasting the crap […]

It’s been quite a year for the old guard of American Death metal. Obituary, Immolation, Suffocation, Broken Hope, Incantation, Dying Fetus and such all releasing albums in 2017. But none may be more important to any band right now than Morbid Angel‘s 10th (proper) album, Kingdoms Disdained.  After the controversial shit show that was Illud Divinum Insanus back […]

Hailing from Toronto, Decatur play a beefy from of groove/thrash metal inspired by the Northeastern US scene (Shadow’s Fall etc), but the selling point here is the debut effort was produced by Gojira’s Joe Duplantier. So you would expect this thing sounds great, and it does with Duplantier glossing the rhythm section with his heavy fingerprints, and […]

I got pretty into Sweden’s crusty, forward-minded sludge thrashers Galvano during their demo days, so much so that I gladly did a press release for them when the opportunity came about.  From those lo-fi (though sonically noteworthy) demos to their piledriving, farewell full-length, Trail of the Serpent, Galvano were a gem of a doom-y metal […]

What we have here as an impressive self released debut of Lovecraft themed melodic black/death metal from  Denver’s Crafteon. Eschwing the usual Lovecraftian throes (churning miasmal chaos or deep complex, atmospheric black metal), Crafteon go for a cleaner, sharper sound more akin to Dissection, Dimmu Borgir or Ancient’s better output. The guitars have a crisp clean […]

Canada’s death metal scene is much like many death metal scenes in other countries in that there are dozens of groups across the country putting their own spin on their own sound and approach.  Enter Canada’s Deity with their debut album Deity.  I could have very easily missed this release this year but after reading […]

Finland’s Desolate Shrine return with their fourth album, Deliverance from the Godless Void.  8 songs in 56 minutes.  Yes they still write long songs.  The guitar tone on this album, is maybe not as formidable as prior releases, but it’s still there.  It could be due to the mix, on the album.  A bit wonky […]

Though a Milwaukee super group of sorts, featuring current and ex members of  new black metal act Prezir (who I highly recommend) , gloomy hardcore act Protestant and crust mongers Enabler, Pig’s Blood would have you believe they come from South America, by way of Pete Helmkamp’s (Angelcorpse) fever dreams with a debut album of bestial, snarling, barbaric black/death […]

Greece’s Necrovorous have been around since 2005.  When the Dark Descent sampler came out and there was a preview for one of the tunes off this new album I was impressed.  I saw DDR had the band’s 2011 debut Funeral for the Sane in their distro section.  I ordered that and the new album, Plains […]

I’m not sure how much, you the readers may be following the issues recently happening in Spain, Barcelona about the Catalan Independence, in particular with some marches, protests and much of the tense situation that is happening.  I won’t go into details, this is a music site, not a political one, so suffice it to […]

If there was one band I feel like I could copy and paste a review from a prior release, change to song titles and call it good, it would be Cannibal Corpse. And sometimes that’s not necessarily  bad thing, and that’s the case with Cannibal Corpse‘s 14th studio album. Despite all the pre album talk […]

Well this is a most unrelentingly brutal release to get us moving into the fall season. Italy’s Daemusinem debut with their first release Thy Godly Defiance released by Willowtip Records. I was excited to hear about this project in being a fan of the group Putridity.  Daemusinem is in no way like Putridity other than […]

Damnation Defaced are a German quintet that touts groove as a major selling point to their death metal sound, and I gotta say they are right on with that description.  After going through the album a few times, the main comparison that jumped out was Kataklysm, only with a bit more of the aforementioned groove.  […]

What do H. G. Wells, Doctor Who, Emmett Lathrop Brown, Bill S. Preston, Esquire, Ted “Theodore” Logan, and Chile’s Demoniac, and their debut full-length album, Intemperance, all have in common? Time travel of course, you silly gooses. In fact, Intemperance may be the closet thing any of us actually get to achieving time travel here […]

I really couldn’t claim that I knew a lot of Norwegian doom until Purple Hill Witch’s debut long player crushed my heart in that early Hellhound Records’/Count Raven style that always alternated effortlessly between melodic and flesh ripping riffage (with vocals and rhythmic crunch to match).  Their mates of state Red Mountains won me over […]

Well you may not know but 75% of Spectral Voice are also in Blood Incantation. If you did not know that, well then you learned something new today, so be happy. Spectral Voice have been around for 5 years and their Necrotic Doom ep is what really started making the underground take notice. I saw […]

Nashville, Tennessee’s Laser Flames on the Great Big News may not have an easily digestible name but their motor revving, road ready blend of proto-metal guitar grandeur, infectious vocal trade-offs between Stevie Bailey (guitar/vocals) and John Judkins (guitar vocals), rough n’ tumble punk-inspired rhythms, psychotic murder metal touches and the auxiliary keyboard support of producer […]

During past Halloweens, I’ve set the mood for trick-or-treaters by playing horror movie music – The Exorcist, Halloween, Poltergeist – and baroque Cradle of Filth instrumentals out of the windows. If I really wanted to terrify our visitors this year though, I could switch it up for the new Blut Aus Nord. Then again, it might […]