Germany’s Dark Suns created a minor classic to my ears with Swanlike in 2002. That album boasted gothic doom/death with ethereal acoustics so powerful for a debut, even Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth commented on how impressed he was with the bands ability. Eagerly, I awaited more from the band, and what came over the next […]

Ive been a big fan of Atlanta’s Withered since 2005s Stockholm meets Mastodon lurch of Memento Mori. Even the bands foray into blacker realms with 2008s Folie Circulaire and 2010s Dualitas were impressive. Even more so since I got to hang out with and drink a beer with frontman and founder Mike Thompson back in […]

Ireland’s Underground Movement label, previously unknown to me, has jumped on the Swedish death metal wagon with two pretty damn solid releases; Deathless and Fleshless from Venezuela’s Nocturnal Hollow , and this, a compilation of 2 self released demos from this Dutch band. Both deliver pretty damn solid examples of the classic HM2 Stockholm death metal sound. This […]

The retro thrash genre seems to be really in full swing as of late, with many a bands taking a swing at the plate and seeing who strikes that home run. I use the baseball or team analogy because with most teams, you got your star players, your second stringers and your bench warmers. While […]

I’ve been a huge fan of Swedish sludge butchers Pyramido since their debut full-length Sand came out on Totalrust Music in 2009.  The follow-up Salt was even heavier and saw the band stretching their songs, riffs and viciousness into a technologically advanced weapons platform that was far deeper and more desiccated than any number of […]

Swedes In Mourning have made a solid impression over the past five or six years. Their brand of melodic death has matured greatly in the past three albums that they’ve released, and with The Weight of Oceans (2012) the band were being lauded as possible heirs to Opeths death metal throne. Rightfully so, because Afterglow […]

After more grindcore beginnings, one could argue that the modern deathcore movement peaked with either 2005s The Healing Process or The Ills of Modern Man, this Canadian act’s third full length album, in 2007. My vote is for the latter. But after 2009s Day of Mourning, the band split up as deathcore began to fade and wane under […]

I’m not a big ‘thrash guy’. Not since the classics of the 80s/90s has a thrash band captured my attention unless injected with a little more grit or death metal like Dew Scented. So here is the third album from long running, nu metal named, thrash band from Portugal, hardly the thrash or metal mecca or […]

With this, the latest album from Finnish black metal band Behexen,  they bring us their next offering of 2nd wave orthodox tinged blackness. Those that know, they have been around for quite a while and are a staple in the black Finnish metal scene. They began in a much more raw and chaotic vein with […]

Finland’s Gloria Morti, despite having been around since 2001 and have 4 previous albums are new to me. But being on Willowtip and having members in its ranks with ties to Wolfheart/Black Sun Aeon/Before the Dawn, Swallow the Sun, Morbid Vomit and Gorephillia, was enough to make me check them out. And I  glad I did. […]

Norway’s Blood Red Throne return with their eighth studio album. For those of you that are not familiar with this group was started by Dod (Satyricon) and Tchort (Emperor) and have been around since 1998 and they play a murderously American style of brutal old school death metal. Union of Flesh and Machine opens with “Revolution […]

Here’s an interesting one. A self financed and released effort from a Swiss band playing Egyptian/ Middle East themed deathcore. No there is no punchline I’m afraid, and this is actually pretty decent stuff, even though deathcore haters will still fume. Actually despite sticking rigidly to modern deathcore paradigms (pick whomever), the band’s little Egyptian […]

From the label that brought us techno and flamenco inspired nu metal/deathcore in Bolu2death, comes a more easy to pigeonhole release in Eel from this long running Spanish black metal/crust group Absenta (Absinthe). It’s my first exposure to the band but I immediately thought of bands like Deluge, Celeste and Regarde les  Hommes Tomber. Not necessarily […]

What’s this you say? a female fronted tech death metal/ djenty/modern death metal supergroup featuring former members of Animosity ( a must have from the early 00s deathcore scene), Animals as Leaders (Navene Koperweis) and The Faceless (Evan Brewer)? Well, color me interested…. While certainly The Faceless and Animosity influences ( as well as many modern bands like Textures, Veil of […]

Around twenty or so years ago I was fortunate enough to purchase a black metal compilation called Blackened Vol 1.  Of all the bands on this compilation that made a distinct impression on me was a group from Norway called Ved Buens Ende. Ved Buens Ende at that time played a unique style of avant […]

I’m not familiar with the back catalog from Canada’a Forteresse other than they seem pretty well respected in the scene and I had seen them mentioned in the same breath as Neige et Noirceur, (early) Alcest. They have delivered a few albums varying between raw, minimalist black metal and more folky black metal and the songs are in […]

Here’s a very cool little 3 song, 30 minute EP out of Southampton England from a female fronted blackgaze/atmospheric black metal act that really hits on all notes for the genre and adds a little of its own angelic character to the mix. The clear, ignorant comparison is Myrkur, as this is female fronted black metal with […]

Here is something that is a little out of my wheelhouse, but considering my interest in keyboard drenched metal and the plethora of releases I’ve covered recently with said keyboards, this is an intriguing release that captures my interest here and there. Elvaron hail from France and have 4 prior albums under their belts dating […]

Hatebreed’s last album, The Divinity of Purpose, was a very hit or miss output for me (with more misses than hits), that made it the only one of their albums that I did not purchase.  Still wary from that last full length I came into their new one a bit apprehensive to say the least, […]

India’s Transcending Obscurity is becoming a pretty reliable source for simple, no frills death metal of late, (Primitiv, Third Sovereign, Affliction Gate, etc), and the duo comprising Indian newcomers Strangulate is no exception. Using old school American Death metal as a template, the Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation influence is immediate and obvious, but these guys do […]

Over the course of three excellent albums, Australia’s Be’lakor rose to the forefront of the melodic death metal scene. Now some four years since their Of Breath and Bone album dropped, the lads return with their anticipated fourth offering, entitled Vessels. On something of a continuous hot streak and particularly in the context of the […]

While Killswitch Engage desperately tried to revive the ol’ metalcore corpse earlier this year, I have stumbled across a late 2015 release that just showed up in my mail box that deserves as much attention as Incarnate. And truthfully, I’m enjoying Justice is… a hell of a lot more than I did Incarnate. Confidently straddling the line between […]

I am at the time of this review a junior studying zoology at a smallish university. It was a toss-up between that, physics and chemistry, but I suck at math…so not really a toss-up. Point being I like the scientific method. A lot. So I decided, upon receiving this album for review, to do an […]

The second effort from the UKs The Infernal Sea got my attention for the exact same reasons as The King is Blind and their impressive debut, Our Father. It’s one of the first releases from the newly reactivated Cacophonous Records ( though this was independently released last year on a limited  cassette run)- one of the […]

After the band’s impressive 2008/9 EP, and a pretty well received full length debut, The Prodigal Empire in 2011, a lot of folks were hailing this Denver act as the new Arsis meets The Black Dahlia Murder of the scene, mixing shredding black/death metal with melodic death metal . But the band went a bit dark […]