This is my first experience with East of the Wall, an all-instrumental prog/rock/sludge outfit formed from the rubble of The Postman Syndrome and Day Without Dawn, and featuring current members of Biclops. Comparisons to Pelican are close enough, but there’s an even more unusual, jazzier prog influence here, like Mastodon covering Steely Dan. And big [...]

Mysteria hails from Poland and promises an expansive, avant-garde mix of death, black and folk. Sounds intriguing….
Opener “Mulla Xul” kicks off the proceedings on a promising, if not familiar note. Churning thunder, monstrous growls and ancient, Sumerian-styled bombast. It’s heavily reminiscent of countrymates Behemoth, but less epic. Nothing terribly progressive or forward-thinking either, but still, [...]

Doubtless you’ve heard the name Abigail Williams by now - some of it hype, some of it curiosity given the band’s former incarnation as brutal-yet-melodic death-metal act Vehemence. A constantly rotating line-up, several moves around the country and a brief break-up have likely put the band through a number of trials (those of you familiar [...]

Fall is here for many of you (except those of us unlucky enough to live in the damn desert), which makes it a perfect time to throw on a pair of headphones and take a long, solitary walk in the woods. Those of you looking to recapture the dark pastoral glory of Bergtatt-era Ulver and [...]

The US may be enjoying a mini thrash revival this year with the likes of Warbringer, Toxic Holocaust and Municipal Waste, but the genre never really went away overseas. Case in point, France’s Sografalth, who mash together the raw, manic energy of classic 80s material with a heavier, death-influenced delivery and a healthy DIY attitude [...]

Just from the name alone, you’d think that this has gotta be death/grind of some sort, with sickening vocals and a blistering, violent approach to songwriting. But you’d only be half right, since this new (unsigned) act smashes together death metal and classical music in a way that no one has really done before. Surprising [...]

Compared to the dense, melancholy psychedelia of Origo, Lazarus Bird surprises from note one by taking a confident step back to Burst’s hardcore roots. Opener “I Hold Vertigo” attacks with a lurching hammerblow riff, and vocalist Linus Jägerskog tears into his work as if he’s rediscovering it. He sounds fresher and meaner than anything I [...]

Finland has long been a hotbed for intensely melodic metal. Take the addictive, neoclassical thrash of (earlier) Children of Bodom, the overripe pomp of Nightwish or the thrilling Viking blare of Moonsorrow - all lush, atmospheric and stylish as hell. And that’s not even touching wackadoo black metal like …And Oceans or the classic, always-evolving [...]

Admittedly, I’ve never been much into punk. Got into metal, stayed put. By the time I finally got around to checking out some of the much-vaunted bands I’d always heard about - The Misfits and Samhain being the two that most piqued my interest, being a horror buff and all - I was kinda disappointed. [...]

Indricothere, living during the late Oligocene epoch (part of the Tertiary Period in the Cenozoic Era), is thought to be the largest land mammal that ever walked the earth. A distant relative of the rhinoceros, they were not as fearsome as their descendents would have you believe - they looked more like gigantic, tree-munching giraffes. [...]

It’s been said that anyone who generalizes is an idiot, but it’s gotten to the point where if I see a CD that has a pretty face on the cover and the Napalm logo on the back, I can predict exactly what I’m going to get. Beast Within is no different: inoffensive, poppy midtempo gothic [...]

This is the third full-length from this Greek epic/heavy metal band. Apparently epic metal is its own sub-genre of heavy or power metal, but if this is any indication, I don’t think I will be researching more of its bands.

It all starts promising enough on the intro. Mediterranean-flavored strumming and a subdued male operatic vocal [...]

As I’ve voiced in a number of reviews recently, the whole Middle Eastern thing has become so overused, in everything from symphonic black metal to progressive metal to death metal, that it no longer feels daring or surprising. Melodies that are supposed to come off as mysterious and exotic frequently read as romantic caricature, or [...]

Return to the days of old… when enemies were crushed and driven before you, and the air was filled with the lamentation of the women. When manly, battle-scarred barbarians swung their six-strings and pummeled their wardrums. When bands like St. Vitus, Pentagram, Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road mixed classic heavy metal, doom and a fascination [...]

I first noticed this band several years ago, during a marathon research trip into the black metal underworld - a frustrating venture that touched on over a hundred bands, but produced little in the way of actual gems. Spite Extreme Wing was one of the exceptions - a sharp, angular black metal outfit from Italy that, [...]

Hard to believe it’s been seven years since the release of Hollenthon’s previous opus, With Vilest of Worms to Dwell. Besides featuring one of the more memorable covers that year (a coiled snake with a protruding, knuckled spine), it boasted epic, symphonic swells over vaguely Viking riffage and coarse vocals. It should have been right [...]

What is the Beast in the Field? Is it a cow? A ravenous wolf, drawing the torches and pitchforks of an angry mob? Or is it the field itself - a craggy, lumbering juggernaut formed from the earth and rock, wrenching itself up from its slumber to rumble across the countryside? That’s the image that [...]

Canvas Solaris hail from Georgia and play an instrumental brand of prog-metal that combines the spacey atmosphere of classic 70s progressive acts with the kind of jazz-inflected technicality found in Atheist, Cynic and late-era Death.
Opener “The Binaural Beat” leans more towards the mellow space-rock half of the equation, with a soft, bouncy acoustic riff that [...]

Sometimes you see an album cover and just hope that the music inside matches the imagery. In this case, the graphic of five masked phantoms, convened like some interdimensional alien tribunal, could have just been another slapped-on gimmick - but thankfully, it’s the perfect visual for one of the more harrowing and hypnotic tech-death albums [...]

Arcturus, Solefald, Manes, Morgul, Frantic Bleep - all part of an avant-garde, oddly theatrical sub-genre of black metal, and all of them from Norway. Now you can add Vulture Industries to that list, and if you’re an Arcturus fan, you’ve got good reason to rejoice, because debut LP The Dystopian Journals sounds like it could [...]

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 [...]

I hadn’t heard of Venomous Concept before I threw this in, but the atrocious album art gave me the impression it was either going to be very silly, very bad, or both. So you can imagine my surprise when the ragged, chaotic grindcore/punk of opening track “Drop Dead” raped my face with its awesomeness.
It was [...]

I haven’t heard this Belgian black metal band’s previous release, Ultimate Crescendo of Hell, but I understand that they’ve since changed their sound to avoid the Satyricon comparisons they were getting. Odd, considering that a) that’s a good thing, b) they still sound like Satyricon and c) Deathcult Salvation is impressive in its own right.
Panchrysia’s [...]

Although used sparingly, a distinct, striking psychedelic influence began creeping into USBM act Nachtmystium with their past two albums, Eulogy IV and Instinct:Decay. A rippling soundscape here, a feedback-soaked, emotional solo there - they were just the first tentative tabs under the tongue. On Assassins, we get a handful of the good stuff. (So if [...]

It’s ironic that a band called Dead Congregation, with gleefully offensive song titles like “Feasting Angelcunts” and “Vomitchrist,” can be so pleasurable. The metal-uninitiated may not understand what’s going on in this relentless battery, but they also don’t have the same well-furrowed neural pathways that only comes from years of learning and appreciating all the [...]