Note, I originally reviewed this album for Deadtide a few months ago but my opinion hasn’t changed on it in the least.Pedigree is industrial dirge from Estonia. This is some pretty good stuff mixing in bits of Isis, Therapy? and their most prominent influence, Godflesh. The bass is what reminds me a lot Isis, due […]

Over the course of their entire career as ‘the’ black metal supergroup and especially in the last few months prior to the release of this album, the Arcturus project (or Project: Arcturus for you Simpson’s fans) have taken a bizarre pride in throwing a wrench into the works of both the genre in general and […]

With all the all the underwhelming metalcore Metal Blade has churned out this year (As I Lay Dying, The Black Dahlia Murder, Unearth, Winter Solstice, The Red Death, Neaera), you’d forgive me for being cynical when broached with another Iron Clad Recordings (Unearth’s Trevor Phipps’ label) licensed effort. Then you’d have to also forgive me […]

Considering the vast wealth of deathcore and tech/math core that has assaulted my ears this year, New York’s Abeyance shouldn’t have even registered on the Richter scale, even more so considering their rather questionable choice of label. But as it stands Experience is the Words that are Written is actually pretty solid.  I’ve seen a […]

As hard as Lifeforce is plugging this as Entombed meets Dissection meets Mastodon meets High On Fire, I’m only buying a quarter of their hype; the Swedish death metal quarter. Withered, for all intents, purposes, regardless of origin (Georgia-hence the Mastodon plugs), name dropping and forced label based pigeon holing, stand toe to toe with […]

Adding to this year’s bumper crop of burly, breakdown inspired “death-core” come California’s Winds of Plague and their Recorse Records (based out of Independence, MO, not 2 hrs from my house) debut and for those of you that enjoy the likes of All Shall Perish, With Dead Hands Rising, Despised Icon, Embrace the End, Antagony, […]

Metal Blade has a knack for finding highly touted, unknown (mostly metalcore) bands that garnered considerable buzz with debut records and signing them for their subsequent efforts; The Black Dahlia Murder, Unearth, As I Lay Dying, The Red Chord, Into The Moat, Premonitions of War, Born From Pain, etc. And now they have done it […]

Filthy, bristling, dirty, crusty punk/hardcore/death ‘n’ roll from Canada with hooded members of In Dying Days, Ire, The Black Hand, Cobra Noir is a no brainer for fans of Cursed. I’ll get straight to it kids; After two venomous but rather predictable tracks “Lazarus” and “The Treatment”, Cobra Noir delivers the thunderously rocking “Eucharist”, a […]

Come with me, if you dare, into the uncharted sonic depths of the dense, murky musical ocean that is Yob. With every new release, Yob grows increasingly dynamic, layered and interesting to delve into. The Unreal Never Lived finds the band at it, dare I say it, most melodic to date. Not that they’re in […]

I hope Abacus Recordings, Lifeforce, Nuclear Blast and Metal Blade are reading this because considering the recent releases by Embrace the End, Animosity and All Shall Perish, California’s rumblemasters Antagony are every bit as good within the confines of the so called death-core genre. Most will groan at yet another mix of death metal lurch […]

Goddamn this is good; swelling, caustic yet melodic post hardcore that drips with rending, paranoid intensity at every chord shift. Imagine the biting, jangly discordance of Circle Takes the Square mixed with the ambient, simplistic note progressions and pulse of Amanda Woodward (so then by default also Neurosis). Throw in some painfully screamed female vocals […]

The liner notes on this record promise crossover appeal to prog, goth and metal fans. I hear the prog, I hear the goth, but I don’t hear the metal. In truth, I don’t really hear much interesting, either. The band formed as a folk rock band in the mid-1990s and evolved into a progressive rock […]

I’d seen lots of positive press about this New Jersey quintet featuring former members of Sworn Enemy, One 4 One and Train of Thought, but I never knew such a hardcore underground, respected lineup could be responsible for this slab of commercialized, mainstream drivel. If you took New York Hardcore and put it repeatedly through […]

Fans of atmospheric doom and sludge-core might call this metalcore or screamo, while fans of metalcore and screamo might call this sludge-core or atmospheric doom, but no matter who calls this album what; fans of all four sub-genres will find their most dark and depressive fantasies fulfilled on this third full-length from this under-the-radar Swiss […]

It’s difficult to discern the massive quantities of hardcore/metal hybrids clogging the arteries of the underground music, so it’s with great pleasure that I find Philadelphia’s A Life Once Lost neither a Dillinger Escape Plan or Hatebreed clone. Certainly, these are two of the bigger bands occupying the space, but A Life Once Lost do […]

First, big props to Necroharmonic to picking up the ball that Satanic Perversions dropped by getting this long sought after re-issue out. Secondly, shame on all you other labels for not jumping the gun and getting this out before now. For those that don’t know, Gorement was one of the bands that spawned from the […]

Canada has done it again. After the initial invasion of Cryptopsy Kataklysm and Gorguts laid the ground work of musical insanity, bands like Neuraxis, Quo Vadis, Ion Dissonance and Despised Icon to continue to pummel these shores with ridicoulously complex metal. Add Beneath the Massacre to the list of impressive Canadian bands that can rip […]

My only other exposure to Eastern European metalcore is Poland’s rather excellent Faust Again, but Croatia’s Amok have also proved to be ample bearers of the metalcore flag with a short but solid and crisp debut album that’s firmly rooted in The Black Dahlia Murder, Darkest Hour and Unearth.With the usual flaws of a young […]

Unshine flashes through the same elven infested, misty forests as their fellow Finns, Battlelore. Pulitzer-worthily titled Earth Magick is yet another stab at female fronted, romantic, mid-paced metal musick (that’s an intentional typo, mind you). Where Finntroll actually sound like trolls on the roll and Korpiklaani like a pack of drunks on a fringe, I’m […]

When I read that Moredhel, long time Horna guitarist, with the help of Horna drummer Gorthaur, was forming a Tolkien inspired band there was no way I wasn’t going to check it out so I bought the debut album expecting possibly early Summoning, and it was immediately obvious this was not going to be a […]

“Give me some baby blood.” This disc is called Tetragrammatical Astygmata and as I listened for the first time I kept hearing King Diamond’s voice in my head, “Elohim… Adonai… Tetragrammaton.” Averse Sefira returns with new material, the long awaited sequel to 2001’s Battle’s Clarion. The most important issue to me is can this possibly […]

I like Obituary, really I do. And I wanted to like their reunion album after an 8-year layoff, really I did. I happen to think that Cause of Death is arguably one of the top five death metal albums ever, but this album (as well as the subsequent albums) only serves to cement one fact; […]

I don’t go to many shows being that I live in rural Central Missouri. So when the mighty Origin somehow got booked to play 30 minutes from my hometown in Columbia, Missouri I had to go. Not only for this interview but to witness arguably the most intense band around in a live setting. I was curious to see how the technical maelstrom of Origin translated live. Needless to say, even with a pain faced, triggerless James King, limited space and a relatively small (surprisingly female heavy) crowd, watching the eclectic racial mix of Origin perform live is a sight to behold. Particularly noteworthy are diminutive but always grinning bassist Mike Flores and guitarist Paul Ryan who literally mesmerized me with their fingers. After metalcore openers River Runs Red and local death metal act Omichron, I caught up with Paul Ryan to dig deeper into Origin…..

Talk about being kicked into a bleeding pulp. I didn’t see this one coming, even though I had some kind of an idea of what to expect. This Godless Endeavor‘s sheer brutality and power of the contact left me gasping for air, down on my fours, begging for forgiveness in front of a much higher […]

The re-release of The Window Purpose takes us back to a more active, aggressive Wolvernine. Despite being loaded with influences and various stylistic sounds, the album is nonetheless cohesive, held together especially by Stefan Zell’s vocals.While Wolverine fits into the prog metal label, there are moments of all sorts of musical styles including blues, funk, […]