Forgive me if you will, for as much as I like to use band comparisons for the ease and convenience of conveyance, I don’t want to be that guy who constantly mentions one band while reviewing another…but I’m gonna be that guy who constantly mentions one band while reviewing another. Though in the case of […]

2017 year was a pretty good year for lesser know folk/viking metal. While Ensiferum continued to stale with Two Paths, and Wintersun, delivered yet another bloated over hyped release, bands liked Wolfchant, Tersivel , Atlas Pain and Nordheim, Incursed released some really good albums that actually deserved more attention. Well, early in 2018, Dalriada ( my new […]

California’s Skeletal Remains have composed and performed one of the year’s best death metal albums with their 3rd studio full length record Devouring Mortality.  The attention to detail exhibited is outstanding.  Starting off with Dan Seagrave’s brilliant cover artwork (Morbid Angel, Entombed, Malevolent Creation), these guys clearly wanted to present the look of an early […]

In the grand tradition of underrated, fellow Chicagoans, Forest of Impaled, Blood of the Wolf erupt from the Midwest with a stellar sophomore release of pummeling, blood pumping blackened, death/war metal  and it’s  a god damn scorcher. I have not heard the band’s debut  I: The Law of Retaliation, but you can bet I’ll be rectifying […]

If you need a bit of an energy jolt for that one writing project you can’t quite finish and you don’t want another can of RedBull, may I suggest listening to the latest from Infected Dead? I will say this upfront, Just by looking at the cover, I was expecting a standard run of the […]

When you’re trying to keep up with all of the heavy stuff, rock n’ roll and dirty music you can handle, you’re going to be bound to miss something.  In my case I miss a lot, but I’ll be goddamned by the Pope himself if I don’t try.  Slovenian sludge crew Leechfeast totally missed my […]

So two major label, modern tech death metal bands are going to be vying for your attention this spring. On Metal Blade we have Rivers of Nihil and their  ambitiously evolved Where Owls Know My Name, on Prosthetic Records,  we have Orlando’s ‘philosophical’ (not all of the band members are Christian),  progressive death metal new comers, […]

  It seems like every year there is a handful of massive funeral doom albums that are so meticulous that they take numerous listens to analyze.  Funeral doom in and of itself can vary depending on artist and approach to instrumentation.  This writer was caught a bit off guard in discovering Mournful Congregation’s fifth full […]

Stockholm’s The Ugly are back with album number three and follow up to 2015s decent Decreation. Not much has changed as the band still has ties to Marduk (whose Fredrik Widigs plays drums and the mastering/mixing was handled by guitarist Devo), and thusly the sound shows it with a frosty, razor sharp, slightly melodic take on blistering black […]

Milwaukee Wisconsin’s Morta Skuld released their fourth album, Surface, in 1997 on the now defunct record label System Shock.  The band had been pounding away at their grooving and punishing style of death metal for several years and guitarist/vocalist, Dave Gregor, Jason O’Connell-guitar, Jason Hellman-bass and Kent Truckenbrod showed no signs of letting up on […]

As LBGQT rights remain in the forefront of today’s political climate, so it creeps furthermore into extreme music. Mina Caputo of Life of Agony and Kat Shevil (Winds of Genocide) have been out front of the movement in metal for a while now, but it appears to be picking up. Just this month I received […]

Spain’s Ataraxy has had some real nice prior releases. Their 2010 ep, Curse of the Requiem Mass and their debut album Revelations of the Ethereal are pretty crushing death doom albums. After a 6 year break, the band return with their second full-length album-Where All Hope Fades. There are only 6 true songs, as the […]

Back in 2015 I discovered this Indonesian atmospheric black metal act and their second album, Homeward Path was my favorite album of that year….by a long shot. So I’ve been eagerly awaiting the follow up since they announced it last year, and like Homeward Path, the sound has developed just a tad since the Black […]

Sentient Horror‘s debut 2016 album, Ungodly Forms was a killer release of Stockholm styled death metal that gave the likes of Entrails a run for their money, despite hailing from New Jersey. And now the band is back with a 5 track, 20 minute, stop gap EP between albums, and it shows a slightly different […]

I must say I enjoy listening to albums of groups like Necrophobic.  I started becoming a fan of underground music as a teenager and Dark Funeral Secrets of The Black Arts was one of the first Swedish black metal albums that really resonated with me. Blackmoon’s influence on Dark Funeral added to the strength of […]

I’ve been on a Bongzilla kick of late, and If you are unfortunate enough to be my friend on Facebook, you will know I recently asked for some recommendations similar to Bongzilla. I was craving more fuzzed out , nasty sludge with harsh vocals.  The recommendations were solid with Dopethrone, Eyehategod and Demonic Death Judge being the […]

Whew… talk about a tongue twister of a band and album name!! Vocalist Eston Brown, has a killer voice and his vocals on his former band Gigan’s Multi-Dimensional Fractal-Sorcery and Super Science are outstanding. Rounding out Abolishing the Ignominious is Joseph Lusciano on all the instruments. Russia’s brutal slam gore death metal label Coyote Records […]

Despite being one of the least productive bands around (at least when it comes to albums), England’s Solstice is still one of the more revered bands in the traditional/Epic/Classic Doom/ heavy metal genre, largely on the strength of their last full length sophomore album 1998′ New Dark Age. Since that release, the band has released […]

Cut from the same cloth as such old school classic death metal bands bands like Entombed, Dismember, and Grave, Netherlands quartet Deathmarch have put together a pretty tasty little debut EP.  It consists of 5 tracks that total right at 21 minutes and is a perfect fix when you want to get back to basics. […]

So about 8 years ago and for another webzine,  I reviewed the second album from Australia’s Arkheth, IX & I: The Quintessence of Algaresh, a sprawling, brilliant, epic 2 CD , 10 song, 150 minute album of Symphonic black metal in the vein of Emperor, Keep of Kalessin, Dimmu Borgir et al.  Well, apparently  my review […]

Finland’s Galvanizer waste no time in cranking up the Boss HM-2 Pedals and blast-beating your souls away with their debut full length Sanguine Vigil.  Having released some demo material and been around since 2013 these guys could give Rotten Sound or Nasum a run for their money.  I love the cover artwork done by TG […]

Based on the cover, name and album title, I was fully bracing for some thrash metal here, but it turns out Massachusetts’ Scalpel are a death metal band with a fondness of older 90s death metal and East Coast Death metal. There’s not much that needs to much explanation here. Scalpel’s second effort of no […]

Finland’s Hooded Menace have been slogging their brand of doom death metal for over a decade now and continue to hone their craft and get stronger with each release. Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed, their 5th full length is such a monstrous release, I do not know where to begin.  Adding more band members seems to add […]

Hailing from the tiny country of Luxemborg, Mindpatrol’s third album is an ambitious, solid, concept based album of extreme/progressive melodic death metal that might appeal to fans of Opeth, Loch Vostok, Ne Obliviscaris and other ‘kitchen sink’ bands. As with most progressive bands, Mindpatrol’s Vulture City has a deep concept with this effort being about the […]

“Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Faceless Burial are a power trio of unimaginable death metal might. Theirs is an unremittingly dark and dexterous sound which draws in a variety of death metal traditions: the gooey grind of early ’90s Finland, the spiraling surge of classic Tampa, the bazooka-blown fury of old Brazil, the atonal angularity ushered […]