At one point or another all three fellas in Oregon’s upstart, space-out sludge trio Flood Peak were members of the heathen, experimental dirt-doom band Sól (they’re still going strong) whose LPs Black Mountain and Upheaval are still way worth your listening time. Currently, drummer Dylan Stuntebeck is the only man in FP that moonlights in […]
Oklahoma City’s Dischordia are back! Back with a brand new two song, 25-minute mind fucking that is Binge/Purge. Just a year and a half after the release of their last full-length, Thanatopsis, which I threw heaps of praise at, the power trio serves up a punishing cocktail that leaves all who indulge, assed out on the […]
Oakland California’s Barren Altar have built quite a buzz with their unique style of funeral doom tinged black metal. Entrenched in the Faults of the Earth is their first full length effort and is quite a memorable one at that. Opening up with “Nexus of Grief” which starts off with a solo guitar line that […]
From the wilded realms in between, Vile Ent returns with a second EP of institutionalized industrial, mind melted metal, swingin’ hard rock and digitally molested soundscapes that follow-up 2017’s freaky, fun and fucked up Road Rash EP with a sonic glitch-out of equally mangled organic and computerized split personalities. Ent who has cut a swath […]
Here is a solid 17 minute, 2 song independent release from Polish black metal act Mystic Rites. I’m not familiar with the band, but they hit me up on Facebook asking for a review, sent me a CD, so here we are. I have not heard any of the band’s prior out put since 2012, […]
Wowwee! Chicago’s own Beyond Deth may have just brilliantly answered a question none of us ever gave a shit to ask. Though after listening to the bands’s debut release, The Age of Darkness, maybe it’s a question that should have been posed long ago. That question? “What would a thrashing death metal band sound like […]
” If I don’t listen to my imaginary friend, why the fuck should I listen to yours? People think their worship is some key to happiness. That’s just how he owns you. Even I’m not crazy enough to believe that distortion of reality. So fuck God. He’s not a good enough scapegoat for me” -“Glorification ov […]
The state of Ohio has given us everything from legendary hardcore bands to the filthiest sludge bands to sickening grindcore and a little bit of anything and everything in between. Latest to the lineage is pummeling doom-toned, 70s proto-metal hard rockers Fuzz Lord. After a killer LP release in 2014 (The Key in Silence) the […]
The debut EP Attendre La Mort from devastating, French death/doom crew Black Box Warning (BBW, he he!) is an utter desolation trip that’s well-worth taking for fans of the genre. Reminding me of Winter, Coffins, Warcrab, early Morgion and Famishgod, this shit is fuckin’ sick and heavier than a cement mixer full of pre-made tombstones. […]
India’s crust/sludge/grind punk maniacs False Flag impressed me with their rotten demo debut about 2 years back. I’m not sure what rock I was under but since that came out they’ve release a three song shorty officially titled EP. There’s a lot of good stuff coming out of India the past couple of years and […]
Living Altar, (cool name by the way) hail from Lithuania, and are here to stake a claim in the metal pantheon, and with this EP they have a pretty good first effort to make their case. ( by the way, I’m not counting their demo & split ) First off, I’m really taken with the […]
Raleigh, North Carolina sludgy blues/doom overlords Horseskull immediately jumped on my radar for containing ¾ of the classic Soulpreacher line-up (Anthony Staton on guitar/vocals, Mike Avery on guitar/FX and Robb Hewlett on bass). The Preacher’s mean, swingin’ riff gospel, tightly locked rhythm grooves and Anthony Staton’s scalding scream was a depraved pleasure on their Man’s […]
The Human Race is Filth is a misery-inducing proposition from York, PA that put out a whole helluva racket on their second release, Liberate. Barely even sticking around for 20 minutes this guitar/drums/vocals duo take the murderous grind of Phobia, Catheter and Disrupt, fatten it up with the oppressive punk thickness of Doom and His […]
Insane, experimental sludge is the preferred poison of infernal Irish lunatics Zhora on their second full-length album, Ethos, Pathos, Logos. This record is very much in the key of Rwake’s landmark work from Hell is a Door to the Sun through Rest, Deadbird’s The Head and the Heart, Spaceboy’s underrated discography and Neurosis’ classics Enemy […]
After a demo and a 7”, Kentucky’s psycho-sludge duo Nest return with a pulverizing, drugged-out LP, Metempsychosis, an album that breaks all of the rules and sends dirge lovers on a harrowing trip through the nastiest recesses of the human mind. As thick as many of the dirtiest 4 to 5 member sludge bands with […]
If you like your death metal cavernous, oppressive, miasmal and distinctly Australian, then the excellent self released debut from Sydney’s Golgothan Remains is right up yer ally. With a clear Incantation backbone with murky, discordant hints of Ulcerate and country mates Portal, the aptly named Perverse Offerings to the Void delivers something that fans of Dark […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I would imagine that the members of River of Souls have been called many things within their life and career, though I highly doubt that the term “slackers” has ever been one of them. Having just released their debut full-length, The Well of Urd, upon listeners just a mere few months ago, the band have […]
Well, this certainly was an awesome recommendation. New Haven Connecticut’s Xenosis have literally blown me away with their third full length album, Devour and Birth. The opening track “Night Hag’ mixes progressive elements from bands like later era Death, with the melody and harmonies of a band like Spawn of Possession or Beyond Creation. I […]
If you have ever asked yourself “what happened if black one man black metal was rendered with a classic Swedish death metal guitar tone?”, Frenchman Stephane Thirion is here to answer your question with his self released third album, A fleur de peau (‘Sensitive’? ‘On edge’?). First off , I was thankful this wasn’t a Kataklysm […]
Though still maligned as a genre, Deathcore had a a pretty solid year in 2017 with Aversion’s Crown, Thy Art is Murder, Oceano, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Fit For An Autopsy, Slaughter to Prevail, Conjonctive, Shadow of Intent, Boris the Blade and Reaping Asmodiea releasing solid efforts, and as the year closed out, […]
I’ve got to hand it to New Jersey’s Mortum, from the little snippet of material that I had heard from them before I signed up to review their new album, Eheieh Chaos, I wasn’t too impressed. The music wasn’t bad per se but it wasn’t anything new or more than just a little intriguing; yet […]
Technical death metal. There’s generally two type of people when regarding the sub-genre. Those that don’t like it, considering it nothing more than a noodly-broodly fretboard wankfest that’s more show than substance, and well, those that do. I happen to fall in the latter category and think that tech-death is some stellar shit. Honestly, I’d […]