Posts Tagged ‘Review’

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 […]

You could regard me in many ways. I assume the standard way is that I am a boring ugly fat idiot. But you could also regard me as lucky. I tend to take “time off” from peering into the corners of the metalverse while I try to get my ugly fat idiotic life in order. […]

It was a forgone conclusion that Forteresse’s impending Thèmes pour la rébellion, was going to be an easy shoo in for my favorite black metal album of 2016. Then along comes upstart Black Lion Productions, who already impressed with Hyperion’s Seraphical Euphony, and deliver a physical release ( it was an independent digital release last year) one […]

The early to mid ’90s produced a seemingly endless supply of excellent death/doom demos and EPs from bands that quickly disappeared or mellowed out. Anyone who was turned off by Sweet X-Rated Nothings, ever ended up on a not-so-user-friendly website looking for a clip of “Frozen Feeling,” or longs for a Garden of Silence reunion […]

The Three headed Finnish Death Doom Monster have returned with their second full-length record Verenvalaja. Verenvalaja translates into Blood Caster – the twisted one derailing the flow of life to stream towards his own creation. For those not familiar with Vainaja’s 2014 debut Kadotetut,  Vainaja play a style of concept death doom that is rooted […]

With last year’s Savage Land, Exhumed main main Matt Harvey and basically his Chuck Schuldiner cover band Gruesome, delivered arguably the apex early Death worship album. But at the end of my review, I wondered how the band would follow Savage Land up. Would they still basically cover Death’s first 3 albums or would they […]

Sometimes you hear a band and you just want to call all your friends and start gushing. Which, in my case, would be pointless because all the friends I could call could care less about extreme metal. Regardless, Necrosic is just such a band. Putrid Decimation is an EP that NO serious death metal fan […]

Despite playing Swedish death metal, my favorite genre ever, the 2015 debut EP, The Insurrection, from these veteran Swedes really didn’t grab my attention and seemed a little like Prosthetic Records desperately dipping their toe belatedly into the genre to grab some of its resurgent popularity. So here is the full length follow up, and it appears […]

Damnit, damnit, damnit Abnormality… why did you have to go this route?!?  After 2012’s PHENOMENAL Contaminating the Hive Mind (which made my year end top albums list), which one of you decided that mailing in a snooze-worthy, by the numbers brutal death metal album was a good idea?  And after being signed to Metal Blade […]

Tombstalker may be a band some of you are already familiar with, being that their debut album, Black Crusades, was released at the tail end of 2015. Personally, the album was one that flew under the radar and I missed it in the myriad of releases of last year. Luckily, Black Crusades is rearing its […]

West Virginian power trio Rhin laid my constitution to rubble with their debut album Bastard.  I was an instant convert when it came to their anger overload; splicing together the best parts of pissed off punk rock, a touch of Seattle’s dark side (Willard, early Tad, Skin Yard) rhythmically focused and feedback blasted noise-rock ala […]

Following up a classic is always difficult. Especially when that classic was 12 years in the making. Thus was the task at hand for Luc Lemay and trying to follow up 2013s Colored Sands, arguably one of the most successful death metal comebacks of all time. But Lemay has played it smart; he waited a while, and […]

Any and all bands have their influences, their reasons for he or she to pick up a guitar or to stand in front of the mic and let their voice be heard. Then it comes to another thought, as to when and how much you take these influences and take that next step and make […]

Imperial Triumphant are from the New York City area and Inceste is inspired by the works of Parisian grand kink-philosopher Marquis de Sade. Inceste is blackened metal intersecting the physical and psychological pain realms of Deathspell Omega and Naked City (John Zorn’s genre-frappe jazz group).  I suppose you could generally label it “black metal” for […]

Swiss quintet Colossus Fall have been kicking around since 2011, releasing an EP, single and 7” to date.  Hidden Into Details is the band’s first exploration into the long-player format and the band’s frantic, constantly changing sound makes for an engaging ear rape workout with numerous fluxes in style, sonics and subversive audio violence throughout.  […]

I’m a big fan of symphonic black metal, but the genre has been in a bit of a dry spell. The only decent recent release I can recall is Diabolus Arcanium or Raphuemet’s Well, but those are a little ‘different’.  I am craving something more Scandinavian, melodic and grandiose like the scene on the ’90s (Lothlorien, Embracing  […]

I enjoyed Bostonian’s Zealotry’s 2013 debut, The Charnal Expanse.  I really enjoyed Defeated Sanity’s Lille Gruber’s drum work on the album.  It was some of the best of his career, regarding the progressive moments.  The new Zealotry brings in Alex Zalatan, as the drummer, and couples some more session musicans, but leaves Pat Tougas intact, […]

From the fertile, fly-infested breeding grounds of Florida that have delivered unto the Earth the sludge majesty of Cavity, Railsplitter, Dove, Floor, House of Lightning, Consular, Shroud Eater and so many more iron-forgers of the riff hails Hollow Leg. I’m fuckin’ red with embarrassment on one cheek and am deservedly wearing egg on the other, […]

Recently I have been getting a lot of synth/keyboard heavy metal of various styles across my desk: Hope for the Dying, Rapheumets Well, Enthean, Winterhorde, Elvaron, The Devils of Loudun, Pathways, Hyperion, and this, the solid second effort from France’s Blood Ages. Blood Ages’ take on metal is death metal with a Middle Eastern flair similar to Nile. […]

Multi-instrumentalist hero Tim Schmidt from godly old school doom/classic metallurgists Seamount returns with his latest project Naked Star; a gritty, riff-spitting monstrosity with dirty demonic grooves, the Marlboro burnt vocals of Jim Grant and a generally roughhewn yet melodic pummel that would have been right at home on the supreme doom label Hellhound back in […]