I’ll forgive a lot for great music, including stage names like Sticky Krull and Lord Hobgoblin Hambone McPentatonic. Luckily for those guys this record from their band is loaded down with Sabbathy goodness. When the huge opening riff of “Anti-Demon Multiplier” kicked in, I almost thought I had stumbled on a lost classic Sabbath track. […]

After the stunning debut from these Finnish melodeath upstarts, Spirits And August Light, the ceiling was supposed to be limitless for this young act who breathed life into a then dying genre. However, the follow up, Years In Waste was a letdown and many though maybe Omnium Gatherum were a one hit wonder. Well, finally […]

I’m not a huge fan of live material, with maybe Iron Maiden’s Live After Death and a few Manowar CDs and DVD’s in my collection that are live stuff, that being said, I’m very impressed with this live CD and separate DVD from Canada’s symphonic, melodic black metal act Blinded By Faith. With only and […]

While most see Canada as the epoch of complex, technical metal, Quebec’s Sordid make no qualms about being a more simplistic yet well done homage to the likes of Dying Fetus, Internal Bleeding, Misery Index , Dying Fetus, Despondency, Dehumanized, oh and did I mention Dying Fetus? The NYDM sound is rife within Sordid’s groove […]

Way back in my metal reviewing youth, I reviewed an album on Cold Blood Industries by a Dutch band called I.N.R.I ( aka Insane Non-Commercialized Rock Institute), called Hyper Bastard Breed -and boy was it ever a scorcher; a simply killer blend of high octane thrash and death metal done absolutely perfectly. Well, that album […]

Though not a six year hiatus like the wait between their debut and follow up the excellent Condemned to Suffer, the three year wait for the All Out War’s third album is over, and the line-up issues that seem to cause the band’s less than prolific offering, seems to have been settled with much of […]

Here’s a decent debut of experimental, industrial, post black metal from a young Dutch band that should appeal to the likes of Dodheimsgard, VEGA and Aboryrm . While the mix of mechanical, Fear Factory styled atmospherics, dark ambient soundscapes, sampling and blistering yet adventurous black metal is a hard balance to find, CHD manage to […]

In my recent quest to expand my ambient, bleak, depressive black metal horizons, I’ve been pretty much lapping up everything I can find in the sordid underbelly of the genre and it’s turned up a lot of great music like Leviathan, Draugar, Blood of The Black Owl, The Ruins of Beverast, Bergraven, Shining and such. […]

So France’s Overcome Records has released two blistering grindcore records, one of which being the Tolkein named (Mumakil is taken from the Lord Of The Rings and is the Black Speech plural word for the giant oliphaunts) side project of several members of Swiss experimental metalcore act Knut (the other being Blockheads); and it’s a […]

Here’s another addition to the depressive, doomy black metal genre from France’s Mourning Dawn, formed by Inborn Suffering’s (a pretty solid funeral doom band in their own right) Laurent, and while not quite as elite or disturbing as come of their county mates (Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Vehementer Nos, Obscurus Advocam, etc), and with […]

With some foreign releases under their belt, Israel’s Total Rust Music now turn towards their own country by way of the debut album from The Knell, and the fact this record was mastered by Greg Chandler of the UK’s Esoteric, should give you some idea as to Harm’s style. Rumbling, plodding classic doom/death metal with […]

Whereas The Showdown (in my opinion) whiffed mightily on their recent attempt at Southern tinged hardcore, the second effort from former Underoath singer Dallas Taylor and his cronies is, much like their self titled debut, an perfectly executed example of incest, trailer park and whiskey fueled hardcore. Quite a few bands are injecting Southern elements […]

So after their recent Xasthur release, drone label Hyrda Head takes another leap into the black metal elite with the second album from Sweden’s one man, avant-garde black metal act Bergraven. I still think, to this day that Fleurety’s Mid Tid Skall Komme is one of the more under-rated black metal albums that surfaced during […]

I thought World of Lies was a big step forward from these Aussie industrial/techno grinders, as they introduced some actual death metal based song writing and restraint to their programmed fury. However, Animosity sees a bit of a return to the pure relentlessness of Dissimulate. Free from frequent samples (and masks), Animosity gets right to […]

Here’s a pleasant surprise. Yeah, I know a lot of people called Megadeth’s last record The System Has Failed a return to form, but personally I didn’t hear it. I thought that record had about three really good songs and a bunch of mediocre stuff that sounds like what Dave Mustaine’s been pushing for the […]

Marduk is a kid in the candy shop band, a drop everything and pop it in the cd player with excitement band. When a new disk arrives, the world screeches to a halt until I’ve listened to the disk a few times, then I slowly start to recognize those worried glances from passing motorists… Rom […]

 doubt few would argue than Neurosis and Isis are the cream of the crop or even the genre’s inventors when in comes to the post –rock/hardcore, ambient sludge drone stuff, heck the genre is pretty much called “NeurIsis-core” by most media outlets including myself. However, there’s a teeming second tier of acts vying for your […]

Wow. A devastatingly heavy Christian hardcore with some serious attitude to go with their beliefs and it makes for a pretty fucking crushing debut, and one of Facedown’s better releases. Even Facedown’s other Christian acts such as Alove For Enemies, Inked In Blood and War of Ages, can’t compete with Sleeping Giant’s blatant Christian rage […]

There’s hardcore then there’s HARD-FUCKIN-CORE. Bands like Built Upon Frustration, Sleeping Giant, Black My Heart, Redline and such make the Hot Topic core likes of Hatebreed, Terror, First Blood and their ilk look like choir boys, and Poland’s No Heaven Awaits Us is a nice addition to that group. As expected from Lifeline Records, this […]

Where as most ambient post rock, Neurosis/Isis Styled metal seems to be intent on mixing dreamy moments of lucid ambience and beautiful introspection amid their cascading riffs, however Arkansas’ Rwake, have for their four album career focused on a more disturbing and fractured delivery of the now saturated genre, making them stand out from the […]

Jon Schaffer offers fans a nice little teaser for Iced Earth’s upcoming album Framing Armageddon coming in the fall. Since 1998’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and Schaffer’s promise to expand on the “Something Wicked Trilogy” fans have been waiting for him to follow through as he delivered a horror-themed record and a very personal […]

Returning after their impressive EP The Thrill And The Agony, Blood Stands Still serve up their second full length of tough, relentless hardcore on the very dependable (as stated in another review) Spook City. Their sound is far more rounded and durable in comparison to The Thrill And The Agony which was over in a […]

Right. I’ve almost had it with this whole kids playing deathcore/grind spazz tech bullshit. While I generally embrace the heavier, more death metal aspect of this genre (Despised Icon, Ion Dissonance, Whitechapel, Diskreet, Knights of the Abyss, At The Throne of Judgment, Woe of Tyrants, etc) this overly spazzy, emo plagued, screechy, quirky, pseudo grind […]

Afer self releasing this stunning EP late last year, here come Montana’s Martriden (named after a Norse nightmare inducing wraith) now armed with an appropriate and deserved record deal, re-releasing thier 4 song (though each song ranges for 5-7 minutes), debut that deserved the attention of SOA/Candlelight and now deserves the attention of fans of […]

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, […]