After 2011s solid debut of symphonic black metal, No Closure, I just assumed after not hearing literally anything about them for 4 years, these Chicagoans were falling to the same fate of some many metal bands, just one and done. But out of the blue from those fine folks at Clawhammer PR, this album appears. And […]

I’ve only had a few tastes of Seattle quartet He Whose Ox is Gored and their rising tide, wall of noise musical inclinations, but every single one has been fuckin’ delicious.  After a few EP releases I find myself hung on the horns of the band’s debut long-player The Camel, The Lion, The Child.  From […]

After 2012s simpler, Stockholm death metal based The Chills, this US death metal act emerged from a creative cocoon that was last years Ecdysis, a better, more creative and more challenging band. And only a year later they have returned with Anareta, (a greek astrological term for a ‘destroyer’), and it continues the more progressive, experimental […]

Disfigured was a NY death metal band, back in the 90’s and I was friends with the fellas, especially Ryan Schimmenti, the founding member.  Russia’s Lord of the Sick Recordings have just issued, in limited pressing, Anthology of Dementia, which puts all of Disfigured’s recordings on a cd.  I was a huge fan of this band, […]

Let’s face it, whether or not Chris Broderick’s name rings a bell with you is probably irrelevant, as you as a metal fan are bound to have heard something of his output.  Be it his time with Jag Panzer, his stint with Megadeth, or even his time performing live with Nevermore, chances are that you […]

Stomping into view with a sound somewhere between Dying Fetus and Blood Duster, Finland’s creatively named Cumbeast is finally delivering album number three after a 7 year wait. I vaguely recall crossing paths with these guys  somewhere in my journalistic endeavors, but they didn’t really stick with me, but the aptly named Groovy Massacre certainly does. With […]

  Ruach Raah play scummy black metal with an punk evil spirit (as their name translates).  Probably best received live in a crumbling stone walled, graffiti splattered basement in their native Portugal.  All members in ski masks and faded black everything spazzing angrily.  There are no samples, no solo’s, no interludes, no god forsaken frills.  […]

Tsjuder is back with their brand of uncompromising black metal, their 2nd release since returning from a brief hiatus and they continue to keep the pace and to rise within the ranks of the black metal elite with this release. Tsjuder started out slowly for me, the 1st release I heard from them being Kill For Satan, […]

Seeking to take the classic sludge sound into busier, high traffic avenues, Arizonians Gale spare no expense and leave no boulder uncrushed in their mission to plow eardrums under six feet of sediment in the name of their mission.  They’re atmospherically heavy like before Neurosis went all soft on us, heavy and ugly like an […]

I first came across Poland’s Mord’A’Stigmata with the 2011 release AntiMatter and I was intrigued with their take on black metal which contained avant-garde elements and slight progressive influences to bring forth a different form of darkness and with current members also in Arkona and Preludium, I knew there is a history behind them. I […]

Considering the band name, logo,  album’s title and cool cover art, I braced for some ‘brootal’ death metal. However, what I actually got was some sharp if derivative Germanic  melodic death metal/metalcore in the vein of the label’s 00s stuff like Feast For the Crows, Six Reasons to Kill, Deadsoil the american sound of the time […]

  Speed… speed… and more SPEEEEEEEDDDDD!!!  That’s what you should expect out of the 3rd LP from this Italian brutal death metal quintet.  They want to play as fast as possible, and fast they most definitely can do. I remember this band from their last full length, Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria, which was a good album, […]

Holland’s Nailgun Massacre return with their second album and will be a top ten for me this year, easily.  2011’s Backyard Butchery was a killer debut with tons of Autopsy tinged, memorable brutality.  Boned, Boxed and Buried has it beat.  Opener “Where’s the Head?” is so ridiculously catchy-your head will fall off from the non-stop […]

When it came to pushing the envelope of extreme metal to, well, its outermost extremities, few did it better that the UK’s Akercocke. This was a band with not only a passion for extreme metal in all its twisted forms, but also a taste for the avant-garde that would meander anywhere from electronica, to opera, […]

Strap on your gas mask and be attentive for the air raid siren, citizens.  The enemy can strike at any time!  Kommandant‘s ranks are filled with Chicago metal veterans having between them played in area acts such as Forest of Impaled, Cianide, Enforsaken and, to no one’s surprise, each member had at some point lent […]

‘Oppressive’, that’s what comes to mind when listening to this. The Encarta dictionary defines this word as; “Exerting a worrying, troubling or burdensome pressure on somebody,” and with this, the latest release from Finland’s Tyranny, it does exactly that, the sense of foreboding in the mind, the weight on a individual, it brings them down […]

 del·uge ˈdelyo͞o(d)ZH/ noun 1.a severe flood. synonyms:  flood, torrent, spate. “homes were swept away by the deluge” verb 1. inundate with a great quantity of something. “he has been deluged with offers of work” synonyms:  inundate, overwhelm, overrun, flood, swamp, snow under, engulf, bombard. “we have been deluged with calls” Hailing from France, the debut from Deluge is cut from the […]

Like fellow North Carolina instrumental sages Husky (now known as Watch Husky Burn), three-piece Boar weave gracefully manic, deviously diverse jams across their debut Self-Titled EP.  Their tricky, psychedelic work casts a magician’s mind control spell on the listener as it traverses the briny depths of psychedelic rock, ascends the mountainous plateau of heavy metal […]

So back in 2004 I compared Vehemence’s God Was Created to Entombed’s Left Hand Path, granted, a brash comparison by a relatively younger , inexperienced me. However, I do stand by the fact the album is fantastic, and it remains one of my top 25 albums of all time. And the track “She Never Noticed Me” […]

I moved from the US to Scandinavia last year, and as we head into our second winter here, I understand why so much dark and depressing music comes out of the region: it gets dark and depressing. By mid-December, it’s dark until 9am, gray all day, and dark again at 3:30. And we’re in Southern […]

So this a the French death metal band with a very similar name to the long running Italian death metal, Antropofagus band huh? Well, Ok, but the results are the same; damn solid tech/brutal death metal, although these guys are not quite as brutal and have a little more quirk and experimentation to them. I […]

Despite some reviewers trying to liken Cavern to post-nappers Russian Circles, I’m just not hearing it.  In fact I think Russian Circles are overall pretty poor but that’s just one asshole’s opinion so don’t mind me.  These Baltimore bashers have far more in common with the ruthless riffing and angular stops n’ starts of NOLA’s […]

Last Poem/First Light, the 2013 debut from these NYC blackgazers, was a gorgeous affair, layering dramatic (and real) orchestration and choirs on top of a Deafheaven-y black metal backbone. Since signing on with Prosthetic Records, the band is reaping the rewards, and has increased the orchestra size from 10 to 30 for their second release – which is a full-on […]

Hailing from Boston, Mass, I had never heard of Composted before.  They’re an interesting band of fellows.  After looking at the insert pictures, cover, layout and reading the lyrics I made this assessment.  If you took Larry “The Cable Guy” and gave him some instruments with 3 other doppelgangers I believe Plump Up The Volume […]

Prior to happening across their entry in this sites secret and fathomless vault of promo offerings, I hadn’t yet heard of Mefitic.  By light of my candle I glimpsed a familiar name upon the shelving racks, just at the point before they spiral so high as to disappear into the fog like dusty blackness above:  […]