While I’m sure it’s been by their own choice and almost certainly in their best financial interest, Behemoth have had a bit of a nasty habit of jumping into bed with a different record company every other release they’ve notched on their belt over the years. To usher in their new business relationship with the [...]

Posted by vocalist Travis Ryan at the bands’s official website: “We’re FINALLY done with all the finishing touches of our new album and we feel we’ve finally done it! Sonically, the band has managed to finally capture and accentuate its live intensity that we’ve become known for and has created one hell of an album [...]

Released with relatively little fanfare, Unearth’s fourth studio album shows that this Boston band, while certainly never able to attain the level of magnificence of The Stings of Conscience, is one of the most consistent and predictably satisfying American metal acts around.
The formula, as with like minded act Killswitch Engage, is simple; deft Swedish dual [...]

A little Doom, a dash of Sludge, a hint of Stoner and a whole lot of Metal comprise the music of Canada’s Bison B.C. Mixing these influences into a cohesive concoction could have been no easy task, but Bison B.C makes it sound natural…jumping from grooves to melodies to fast to slow tempos has never sounded [...]

For those that don’t know, in the mid/late 90’s Overcast were a respected crossover/hardcore/metalcore band who had a couple of somewhat revered albums and EPs that some considered the start of the early metalcore movement (not the trite fashion show of today). However, when the band split up in 1996, vocalist Brian Fair joined Shadows [...]

Here’s one of Ironclads better and more mellow releases of late, the Back to the Future named metalcore/post rock act from Boston, Mass who deliver a fine debut of emotional, melodic metalcore with threads of delicate passion and elegance.
With busy, melodic guitar work and vocal cadence of Shai Hulud, shimmery emotional layers of Misery Signals [...]

On first listen I thought Twilight of the Thunder God sounds good but not as good as the last one, by the tenth listen I am anticipating the music, nice catchy riffs, cool melodies, tremendous power, you know the formula, by the twentieth listen it felt like an old friend, a classic and I’ve only [...]

Swedish metal powerhouse AMON AMARTH has uploaded the brand new song “Guardians of Asgaard” to its MySpace page. The track will appear on the band’s impending new album, Twilight of the Thunder God, which will see a September 30, 2008 North American release via Metal Blade Records. Check it out now at this location.
Twilight of [...]

For me, the allure of Falconer, one of the handful of power metal acts I can tolerate, was they were essentially a power metal continuation of Mithotyn, one of the best Viking metal acts of their time. However, after three well received albums, internal strife resulted in a new vocalist and the stylistically different Grime [...]

Adding to Metal Blade’s fine 2008 death metal releases like Hail of Bullets, Hate Eternal, Brain Drill and The Rotted comes this low key artwork and logo clad, out of nowhere, debut release from the UK’s Trigger the Bloodshed.
While the likes of Mithras, Spearhead, Man Must Die, Detrimentium and Sarpanitum have slowly exhumed the corpse [...]

Metal Blade is having a good year, even in the crowded metalcore/deathcore genre. They already have the likes of The Black Dahlia Murder, Job For a Cowboy and The Red Chord on their roster then, 2008 has also seen solid releases by Whitechapel and Fate as well as future releases by the likes of Rose [...]

When a band changes their name, it’s usually for the worse-usually a shift in style to be more acceptable, commercial or just downright not metal (see Covenant, Cemetery, … And Oceans, etc). However, the UK’s Gorerotted, after 3 fairly mediocre, stylistically undecided albums, decided to start anew and change their name to The Rotted. The [...]

It’s ironic that I recently rewatched both Terminator movies this weekend (which hold up very well many years later) as I geared up to review this Arnold Schwarzenegger side project from As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis. With Destroy The Runner’s Chad Ackerman providing the surprisingly good Arnie impersonations between songs and Tim Lambesis (along [...]

I actually reviewed this album at another website a couple of years ago after it came out on Hope Prevails Productions, but now with a re-mastered sound, new artwork and a cover of Cynic’s “How Could I?”, I’m recalling how good this actually was and how well it stands up 3 years later.
If the fact [...]

Viva la thrash revival! Here’s the Bay Area’s own Hatchet with their debut full length, Awaiting Evil, a real barn stormer filled front to back with face melting riffs, leads, solos and quite possibly my favorite vocalist I’ve heard yet from the movement in Marcus Kirchen. His delivery isn’t entirely unique or distinctive, but he’s [...]

One could argue that sitting a very top of the deathcore heap are All Shall Perish and Tennessee’s three guitar wielding Whitechapel, who made quite an impressive racket and impressed even some grizzled death metal fans with their debut The Somatic Defilement.
Now on Metal Blade Records, youngsters Whitechapel have delivered their anticipated sophomore album, and as you’d [...]

So last spring, Metal Blade cock teased me to no end by including a post card with “Coming in 2007-new Shai Hulud album!” on it, and I’ve pretty much had a boner for it ever since, as Shai Hulud is one of my favorite bands ever since their arguable involvement in developing the current modern [...]

The metal underground is a pretty huge place, and although I’ve been aware of German black/thrash warriors Desaster for some time now, I’ve never gone out of my way to check them out. With so many bands straining against the ragged boundaries of the genre, mutating and splintering and recombining elements to create something fresh [...]

Much like Animosity when they released Shut it Down in 2003, or Decapitated’s Winds of Creation debut in 2000, California’s Fate is a group of very talented young teens plying thier chosen genre, in this case crumbly, growling death core laced with Between the Buried and Me-like arpeggios.
Despite members barely out of high school upon [...]

Much like Bloodbath’s Resurrection Through Carnage in 2002, the debut from Hail of Bullets is an album forged by a group of death metal veterans plying a pure homage to classic death metal. Headed by vocalist Martin Van Drunen (Pestilence, Asphyx) and joined by guitarists Paul Baayans and Stephan Gebedi (Thanatos), bassist Theo van Eekelen [...]

Swiss Straight edge hardcore act Cataract return with their fifth album of burly, chugging metallic hardcore that won’t really make much of an impact on the genre, but is a sturdy release none the less.
However, as when the band changed things up from Martyr’s Melodies to With Triumph Comes Loss from melodic metalcore to burly [...]

Yet again more turmoil precedes a Soilent Green release, this time an album that’s surrounded by post Hurricane Katrina tragedy (last album, Confrontation was released mere weeks before Katrina hit), deaths of former band members, and a label change from Relapse to Metal Blade. And that’s before the John Van Fleet artwork was revealed…
Artwork aside, the [...]

Originally released in 2006 on JCM records (RIP), Metal Blade apparently saw enough in this Minnesota band’s second effort to send the band back to studio to re-mix and re-master (and add two tracks and new cover art) to the follow-up to 2003’s promising but flawed effort, V.II R.VI.
With considerable line-up changes, Epicurean appear to [...]

 Arguably one of the more popular of the new wave of American Metal Acts, Unearth have released this 2 disc DVD to their adoring fans (or a Metal Blade contract filler?), as a stop gap between III: Into the Eyes of Fire and the next no doubt huge album.The main part of the 2 disc [...]

So often, in the review business, it all comes down to timing. I try to keep an open mind and give fair reviews for every CD that comes across my desk. But in all honesty, if I get an OK record in a style that I’m just really burned out on at the time, it [...]