I like to think I’m fairly familiar with bands playing Swedish styled Stockholm buzzed death metal from all corners of the world. I’ve heard bands from France, Denmark, UK, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic etc, but other than Mexico’s Zombiefication, Central/South America seems a bit lacking in that style. Well here is a new addition, Venezuela’s Nocturnal […]

The reborn Cacophonous records continues to find solid new UK bands amid its quality reissues and deliver solid releases early into its reactivation. Not only did we have the impressive The Infernal Sea, Eastern Front, Old Corpse Road and The King is Blind with Necronautical , like label mates Old Corpse Road, we get something to remind […]

Boy, I’m a shameful idiot for missing out on Italian death metal decapitators Dominhate and their debut full-length Towards the Light.  What I’m hearing on the band’s EP follow-up Emissaries of Morning is a band in complete control of the craft with every switch, flinch and twitch that made me a fan of the style […]

I’m not familiar with Ontario’s Falsifier, not being hugely connected to the down tempo/beatdown scene, but seeing these guys compared to Black Tongue and The Acacia Strain piqued my interest and the fact this EP is a free download from Artery Recordings  (to celebrate singing with the label) only made it more appealing. And I’m always […]

One way to get my attention is to open an album with a glorious epic, galloping melodic black metal riff, even if only 47 seconds log. And that is how Beansidhe ( Celtic/Gaelic for ‘banshee’) debut full length Mont opens, and from that point I’m hooked as the rest of these Swiss metallers’ take on various forms […]

You’re walking alone on a desert highway.  The last of your water ran out around 3 hours ago and the sign you saw 5 minutes ago said “Rest Stop 50 Miles.”  You think you get a break when you see a dustcloud of human life, but end up getting rundown by a ruthless gang of […]

Defeated Sanity return to us with an unorthodox dual e.p. release.  As they should.  With a discography of stellar releases they have an earned reputation for reaching beyond the death metal abyss and fans expect more from them than even the nearest band to their rank.  Last we heard from these dastardly villains was 2013’s […]

So here is yet more symphonic, keyboard drenched metal adding to this year’s plethora of quality orchestra and keyboard filled releases, they cover all genres. This time it’s in the form of the third album from Israel’s 7 piece act, Winterhorde, and it resides in a sort of melodic, symphonic black metal, but with expansive, progressive […]

I have been ruminating as to how best to tackle Oniric Delusions. If you want the easy and probably most useful aspects, they are this: This death metal record is fantastic, though not groundbreaking, and deserves attention. My issue lies with the phenomena I have been experiencing lately when it comes to death metal records. […]

Though not normally recognized for its black metal scene outside of Cradle of Filth and maybe Wodensthrone and  Winterfylleth, there’s is something foul afoot in the English  black metal underground. Cacophonous has exposed gems like Necronautical, Old Corpse Road and The Infernal Sea. And now Halo of Flies has chipped in with the vinyl release of the stunning […]

Kansas natives Unmerciful released their first full length album, the awesomely titled Unmercifully Beaten, way back in 2006.  After picking it up and listening to it many times over, I knew this would be a band to keep an eye out for.  Well that eye (or both) ended up going to sleep, as these guys […]

Despite featuring Steve Tucker from Morbid Angel (whose return to Morbid Angel is fantastic news), the debut of then, post Morbid Angel project Warfather Orchestrating the Apocalypse was surprisingly bland. It was just OK USDM with a few orchestral flourishes that didn’t have anything really memorable to hangs its hat on other than Tucker’s involvement. […]

As I have said ad nausea, modern metal is almost entirely good. I am old enough to remember when bands would put a metal song – one song – on an otherwise hard rock album, or they would release a killer track and you would buy the album and it would be a shit-ton of […]

Those in the know are aware that Lay Down Rotten were one of Germany’s most consistent but underrated death metal bands, releasing 7 fine albums from 2003 to 2015, when they split up. Well, 4 Lay Down Rotten members have regrouped and formed Demonbreed and continued the former bands chunky take on death metal, but […]

Well this one was well worth the wait as Comatose presents a really good one with Neurogenic, an international technical slam death super group (If there is such a group. These guys are it and there are a ton of guest musicians on this).Featuring Marco Pitruzzella of Six Feet Under/Sleep Terror/Anomalous handling the drum work […]

The last time I heard this long standing but overlooked Swedish melodic death metal act was 2008s The Gallery of Bleeding Art, a promising album that scattered some orchestral/symphonic and choral flourishes around a sold Swedish death metal/melodic death metal backbone. I missed 2013s Neogenesis, so I can’t comment on the bands development between those two […]

If only other bands’ cutting room floors looked like Soilwork’s. When they released The Living Infinite in 2013, I marveled at how many superb songs they had turned out during those writing sessions – enough for an absurdly generous double album that was also my #1 pick for the year. And then some, it turns out, when they […]

For me, Sweden’s Vanhelgd , are a lot like label mates Undergang; a bit of an anomaly to me. They seem to be critical darlings, I enjoy and own all the albums, but never seem smitten with them. When I’m listening to them, I’m truly digging the big Finnish crumble meet old school Swedish must, but never crave […]

Positioned at the forefront of the modern metal scene, Revocation’s endless creative streak and strong work ethic shows no signs of faltering on the band’s sixth LP, Great Is Our Sin. I must admit to a touch of bias bordering on fanboyism, as from my perspective the band has never disappointed across a decade long […]

I recently discovered Texas’s Vex on a Bindrune/Eihwaz Recordings compilation as the track “To Anacreon (Strangling the Muse)”  completely enthralled me, and reminded me of Cales, (a killer, folky Root side project from a few years ago). So I picked up the band’s 2013 album Memorious, and immediately loved it and waited with baited breath for the […]

Imagine if you will, a dimension of time locked metal. Where mixtures and combinations of influence from some of the genre’s most elite come together in a controlled cacophony of extreme, old school, aural majesticness. Have you just crossed over into a heavy metal Twilight Zone? Hell no friends! You’ve just stumbled upon another terrific […]

Little did I know that arguably my favorite Cradle of Filth album, 1996s Dusk and Her Embrace was actually the second iteration of that album. Unbeknownst to me, before the 1996 Music for Nations version, another version of the album was fully recorded in 1995 with essentially the same line up as the band’s debut […]

While a fine label, Napalm Records isn’t exactly a death metal powerhouse, but with the recent release of Be’lakor‘s Vessels and now this, the third album from Germany’s Dawn of Disease, they appear to be getting into the flow. And while not into brutal, guttural death metal just yet, they have an ear for the […]

Insane Vesper has been on my auditory radar for a bit now. Mainly brought to my attention was the album Abomination of Death, that cover artwork and logo just intrigued me from the get go, I decided to delve further and see what the music had to offer, checked a few audio clips and was further enticed. […]

 Technically, this review is about the Putrisect/Scorched split, Final State of Existence, though personally, I like to refer to it as “the review that almost wasn’t, part 1”. To make a long story short, my laptop decided to shit out on me, barring me from any access to its treasures, i.e. four reviews that were awaiting […]