In 2001 something happened. Something that changed the world altogether. Something big. Something that should never be forgotten. Something truly awesome: newborn Swedish power metal gods, Lost Horizon, released its debut Awakening the World via now defunct label Music for Nations. The reason I’m speaking about an 11 year old album is because The End […]

Bereft is a Los Angeles based melodic sludgy doom band featuring Sacha Dunable of Intronaut and Graviton, Derek Donley of National Sunday Law and Graviton, Charles Elliott of Abysmal Dawn and ex-The Faceless vocalist Derek Rydquist. Bereft released its first track “Withered Efflorescence” exclusively via their Facebook page in early September 2011 to rave reviews […]

I rather enjoyed Hull‘s full length debut, Sole Lord as it was a nice sludgy record bolstered by  a variety of smooth layered vocals, not unlike Baroness. However, once I hit play on their sophomore record, it was apparent Hull has changed up their game a bit. For the better. While the album still has […]

To me, The End Record’s roster has gone downhill quicker and more noticeably than any label in recent memory. Back in the ’90s and early ’00s, they were releasing game changing albums by bands like Arcturus, Epoch of Unlight, Agalloch, Love History, Antimatter, Scholomance, Sculptured and such. Now with a few exceptions (These Are They, […]

When it comes to Danzig, the first three records, in my book, are certified classics. After that, it’s a mixed bag. Yeah, I know most everybody loves IV, but I’m in the minority that thinks it’s just a mediocre record with a few great songs. Blackacidevil, well, let’s just not go there. Satan’s Child and […]

Celebrating 20 years in existence, Chicago’s Novembers Doom have always delivered. Starting their career in gothic/death/doom, this band has cultivated a sound and veered their career to new levels in recent years. The balance of straightforward death metal and the bands signature discouragement has been perfected in the past two releases and Into Nights Requiem […]

Post-punk fans will know Jarboe as one half of seminal 80s act Swans, but aside from a 2003 collaboration with Neurosis, she’s a fairly unknown voice in the metal world. With MahaKali, she crosses over again, with Phil Anselmo and Attila Csihar along for the journey. Yet this is still really not metal, despite a […]

I’d heard of this band years ago, when they started gaining recognition during the tail-end of the ill-fated nu-metal movement. Never bothered to check them out, but seeing as If, their fourth album, is being released by The End Records (that bastion of iconoclasts and experimental goodness), and that it also debuted at #27 on […]

Prolific is a word that’s often used to describe the Toronto-based experi-metal duo Nadja, as they’ve released over a dozen recordings in the past two years. How many of them are worth a listen is another story, but Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, woodwinds, drum machines) and Leah Buckareff (bass, vocals) dip into their past on […]

Perhaps best known thus far as being Toma Araya’s little brother Johnny’s band, Thine Eyes Bleed are billed as being technical thrash, and for the most part it’s an accurate descriptor. Not overly technical nor as Slayer influenced as one might expect, they do what they do well enough I suppose, but all in all, […]

Sculptured is the side project from Don Anderson of Agalloch fame. Back in 1998, The Spear of the Lily is Aureoled was a solid effort that showed promise in the Opeth, Katatonia, and Agalloch territory. This was enough to gain my interest and in 2000 the band came out with Apollo Ends, a more progressive/jazz […]

Enemy of the Sun is the latest musical endeavor from Grip Inc mastermind Waldemar Sorychta. The material on debut offering Shadows is undeniably metal, but there’s much more at play here than just that. The heavier thrashier parts are most comparable to Strapping Young Lad’s wall-of-sound cyber thrashing, but then there’s the not so intense, […]

Here is the winner for best release thus far in 2008. Virgin Black has created one hell of a masterpiece in Requiem-Fortissimo and probably the best album to come out of Australia in years. Fortissimo means loud or played very loudly. Considering this is the second chapter in a trilogy by the band (Pianissimo being […]

Dødheimsgard to DHG is kind of like Covenant to Kovenant. They are not fooling anyone, and the name change is meaningless anyway, absolutely everyone knows who they are, even with the loss of their logo and the loss of the band members that mattered. Are they a parody of themselves or something worse? Gone are […]

I wish I could take a record for what it is the first spin through. I literally wrote off this disc before I captured the brilliance within it. That happens a lot though. I find myself returning to albums sometimes years after it initially didn’t take. With that said, once you feel you are in […]

I’m sure there’s someone reading this review that will absolutely love this record, but it’s really just not my thing. The new project of Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin, Kosmos is a throwback to the progressive jam bands of the 1970s. The 12 tracks on this record feature lots of spacey keyboards, organs and some […]

I’m pretty sure I’m one of the few metal journalists that think Angelcorpse were a tad over-rated. Sure, albums like Exterminate and The Inexorable were good black/death metal albums, but I think most folks were caught up in the fact that a US band were going toe to toe with their Scandinavian counterparts in the […]

There are albums, that no matter how many times you listen to them, you just can’t get your head around them. Ironically, a lot of them have come out on The End Records, and in the case of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s In Glorious Times, no amount of mind altering substances will ease the process of […]

For the past decade, if you wanted to form a mosh pit at a Sigh show you had to bring your own music. Hangman’s Hymn changes everything. Calling it a return to form would be unfair but a nod to both their early days and the early days of black and thrash metal is definitely […]

And it had started as such a good day … Yesterday I had a day off during mortuary college finals and it was raining like a pure bitch, so I spent the AM sipping gin & lemonade, blasting my old Weakling and Antiseen cassettes, and watching Webe Web videos. (By the by, to Allison, Sherri, […]

Being from Europe myself, I actually grew up watching the Eurovision Song contest, and I still remember England’s Bucks Fizz winning with the inanely catchy “Making Your Mind Up” and becoming huge pop stars-one of the few commercial successes to arise from the contest. Watching the annual submission from Turkey was always a wonderful sonic […]

After 6 albums, November’s Doom have been one of the most consistent acts in the US doom/death scene and along with Daylight Dies have made some international noise and comparisons. However, they have never really taken that true step forward (as Daylight Dies did with Dismantling Devotion), but now with album number 6, the rock […]

I’m not sure if there is a more perfect marriage of label and band than The End Records re-recording and releasing Giant Squid’s 4 year old debut record. Though certainly falling under the doom/sludge/ambient umbrella of the likes of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican and Mogwai, as you’d expect from a band on The End, Giant Squid […]

Q: If Necrophagist left Germany, travelling at 70 kph and Arcturus left Norway moving at half that speed at what time would they collide in front of the Cirque du Soileil and magically transform into the most aggressively weird Canadian metal band since Voivod?A: Just about now, I’d say. Standing at the forefront of the […]

The End is a perfect fit for these unclassifiable Canadian oddities, as unless you frequent the Cirque D’Soleil while tripping balls and listening to Emperor and Mr Bungle on your head phones, I’ll almost guarantee you’ve never heard anything like this.I will try my best to sum this 7 piece entourage up for you as […]