After going through 2006 and 2004, we’ve arrived back in time to the year 2005. Chronology has no place in time travel… and we need to fix our De Lorean. Anyway, not only did 2005 saw Youtube come alive, certain bands achieved massive and well deserved breakthroughs as well. Primordial finally saw limelight with The Gathering Wilderness and Nevermore was up on everyone’s lips with This Godless Endeavor. Most importantly. what were YOUR favorites from 2005?

Helrunar hails from Munster Germany and formed in spring 2001. They play Heathen black metal and Frostnacht is their debut album for a record label, with Gratr being self released. If I was in the habit of offering quick and dirty comparisons to known bands I’d say Enslaved meets Immortal circa 1994 with Frostmoon Eclipse […]

Cutting his teeth in primordial heavy outfits Earth and Melvins, bassist Joe Preston is no stranger to avant-garde doom. Before he landed his current gig wielding the thunderstick for Matt Pike’s High on Fire, he was the brainchild behind the one-man-band (cum drum machine) Thrones, who has enjoyed two full-length albums and a slew of […]

Shame on you death metal labels. While busy churning out mindless hordes of gore grind and releasing mediocre efforts from bands like Torture Killer, Hate Eternal, Divine Empire, Bile, Krisiun or even rehashing the past with the likes of Obituary and Cryptopsy and a band like Vore remains criminally unsigned.While most of the underground is […]

Four guys up in Ontario Canada really , really like Dark Funeral, Immortal and Marduk and they do a pretty admirable job of paying homage to them on their blistering debut (label released) album Black Northern Storm. Now this is my first exposure to these lads, so I’m not sure how Black Northern Storm stands […]

With their long awaited second album, France’s Aes Dana (who once featured various members of Antaeus and Arkhon Infaustus), have delivered a perfect rendition of folk and Celtic/pagan artistry and frosty black metal nihilism and arguably one of the finest pieces of folk based metal I have ever heard. Graced by the flutes of Amorgen […]

Grindcore at its best is the art of balance between chaos and control, the tension between the discipline needed in order to elevate one’s musical skills to perform at such extremes and then the freedom to throw all learned concepts out the window in pursuit of a zen-like state of sadistic ecstasy. Poland’s Antigama harnesses […]

There’s something to be said for no frills, competently brutal, US death metal and Vile, along with Divine Empire’s Method of Execution have delivered it in droves.Compared to other Unique Leader bands like Decrepit Birth, Agiel, Gorgasm, Internal Suffering and such, Vile’s third album is actually rather tame; there’s some control, some blackened melody, solos […]

There’s an awful lot of quality hardcore to be had on this 2 disc retrospective from one of metallic hardcore’s recently reformed underappreciated pioneers. Before the current popular metal meets hardcore trend spearheaded by bands like Hatebreed et al there was Strife, Earth Crisis, Merauder and Turmoil, who toiled without the benefit of MTV or […]

Another scorching record from Willowtip, this time in the form of Dallas’s own Napalm Death worshiping grinders, Kill the Client who have delivered a blistering Stateside response to The Code is Red… While most copycat metal rests on the laurels of the subject material, Kill The Client’s homage to Napalm Death (as well as Nasum […]

I never heard this Finnish band’s debut Pride/Fall, but after hearing this excellent slab of melodic, melancholy Finnish death metal, I will certainly be digging it up. Culling from the usual Finnish suspects like Amorphis and Rapture, Noumena’s crunchy, deliberate pace laced with somber harmonies also will appeal to fans of Insomnium, Swallow the Sun […]

Well finally after years of making pulverizing war metal Bolt Thrower have expanded their horizons adding ambient parts, tons of keyboards, female opera vocals and if you are believing any of this there is a bridge in Brooklyn I would like you to consider purchasing from me. Like war itself, the musical legacy of Bolt […]

Brutal, terror inducing, apocalyptic grindcore – with a name like Total Fucking Destruction, what else can you really expect? Following the path carved out by genre masters Pig Destroyer, Discordance Axis, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, etc, Total Fucking Destruction take a simpler yet teeth-gnashingly hateful approach to the standard grindcore formula.Featuring a drum set stripped down to the […]

This self-released, very professional, well presented and produced effort from this Belgian five piece is a pleasant surprise amid reviewing my 678th metalcore EP. Plying a form of atmospheric, mid paced, vaguely pagan/folk black metal, Thurisaz sound very “Scandinavian” with their tinkling synths, melodic guitars and pagan hues. If you slowed Skyfire or Wintersun slowed […]

This is not a new recording, but a pressing onto cd of the split vinyl release of 2004 by Profound Lore Records. Battle Kommand is offering the material to a wider audience but also to the select few that own the vinyl because of the addition of three bonus tracks by Xasthur and one by […]

Despite the power metal cover, Sweden’s Azure deliver a pretty solid slab of melodic and accessible black/war metal, and thanks to Deathgasm, King of Stars-Bearer of Dark now has a US license from Pulverized Records. This is as ‘nice’ as black metal gets, with the catchy restraint of early Norther meets the epic dynamics of […]

Here’s some pretty entertaining and humorous grindcore that takes elements from Cephalic Carnage (bizarre tangents, love of weed) and early Pungent Stench (humor, guitar tone, vocals, song structures) and manages to squeeze everything into one highly packed bowl of resin infused fun.Though still grindcore, Serious Grind manage to deliver more than just 30 second spurts […]

Well, here it is folks. The moment of this album arriving had me giddier than when my first real girlfriend let me touch her jiggly and moist bits for the first time. This is comeback album that for me, far exceeds the hype of Suffocation, Obituary, Celtic Frost, and whoever else the fuck has decided […]

The Wacken Festival held annually in Germany is perhaps the best known and most loved of all of the outdoor, open air, Heavy Metal Music Festivals in all the world. Metal Fans come in droves from all corners of the globe to bask in the brain-bashing, ear-splitting, neck-snapping glow of loud, live Heavy Metal. So, […]

If you’ve got a longing to return to the hard rock scene of the 1970s, London band Tokyo Dragons gives you the opportunity on their latest effort Give Me the Fear. The 11 songs are heavily laced with the sounds of classic Kiss and Thin Lizzy. In fact, I think Gene and Paul are probably […]

The word melodic gets thrown around like food when Anna Nicole Smith eats a buffet; a word chucked into death metal to show something other than sheer brutality, but other than a few solos, what makes death metal truly melodic?.Arsis, that’s what. Let me tell you, the 13 minute center piece of this criminally teasing […]

Of all the hardcore EP’s chucked at me over the last few years, the self titled EP from this California band still gets regular airplay. Killing The Dream also get addition exposure when I play the excellent Embrace the End album as guitarists Joel Adams and Bart Mullis moonlight in that slighter heavier death core […]

I’ll admit that while Osculum Obscenum and The Fourth Dimension are two of my favorite death metal albums ever, everything past The Fourth Dimension never really impressed my despite the widespread acclaim of albums like Abducted and The Final Chapter. The final nail in the coffin for me was the god awful Catch 22 and […]

“ONCE AGAIN WE BRING ARMAGEDDON!” Apt opening to start the album as “At The Entrance to Hells Unholy Fire” kicks off album number four from this legitimate Swedish super group comprised of Lord K Philipson (House of Usher, Leukemia, Dark Funeral, God Among Insects), Jörgen Sandström (ex-Grave, ex-Entombed, ex- Krux, Vicious Art), Petter S. Freed […]

Seriously, who the hell calls their album I Taste Your Fucking Tears of Sorrow? I tell you who, zee Germans. I have to hand it out to Wytchcraft though, I’ve spent more time trying to decide whether or not I’m crying or laughing at the(ir) name(s) than I’ve spend on downloading sleazy, coprophilic chocolate-mousse movies […]