I missed this Arkansas’ band 2005 debut, The Head and the Heart, so I had no real expectations for what this band sounded like other than I knew that had former and current members of Rwake in their ranks and that guitarist Chuck Schaaf did a great job producing the last Serious Grind album. But […]

I’ve been getting a lot of shimmery, melodic post rock influenced metalcore/screamo type stuff of late such as Tides/Giant, November 5, 1955, Empires, Day Without Dawn, At The Soundawn and such, but when I got this 3 track CDEP/10″ release that features members of Philadelphia rockers Balboa and Towers, (including former digitalmetal.com writer and site […]

I have to admit I’m suffering a bit of an internal dilemma. Being an casual UFC/MMA fan I’ve seen the sudden abundance of Affliction/Extreme Couture shirts that’s flooded the scene as well as the malls of late, and I’m slightly torn if I like them on not.On one side-they are pretty metal. I mean what’s […]

We were late getting into the venue, as we decided to eat before going in and as a result, missed Soilent Green unfortunately. I’ve never been a big fan of the band, but yet I wanted to see them, as seeing a live band can sometimes sway my opinion of them – oh well. While […]

Completely unfamiliar with the band coming in, I was advised before doing this review to do a little research regarding France’s Destinity, as it seems they’ve gone through some sort of direction change since their inception in the mid 90’s. After digging around at their website and Myspace, as well as their page at metal-archives.com, […]

Well for those of you hoping for a return to Engineering the Dead, there’s always next album. To be honest I liked the direction they were going in from Goremageddon on as I tend to prefer melodic death more to the bloodsoaked gore of their early albums. I’ve just never been that into gore for […]

Sensory Records is proud to announce the signing of New Jersey’s up-and-coming prog metal all-stars Suspyre. Formed in 2001, these talented, young musicians have discovered an energetic and gifted way of combining progressive rock and symphonic metal with classical and jazz fusion. The bands’ new album When Time Fades… will be released September 30, 2008. […]

Influential metal quintet UNEARTH has begun work on its new album. The follow up to the band’s acclaimed 2006 release III: In the Eyes of Fire is scheduled to drop this October via Metal Blade Records. UNEARTH is currently recording at MA’s System Recording Studios with producer Adam Dutkiewicz, while the album’s drum tracks are […]

Taking cues from legendary acts such as Neurosis and Electric Wizard, Italian Sludge-merchants Ufomammut release Idolum, their fifth full-length album, upon an unsuspecting world. With the raw aggression of a rabid wooly mammoth coupled with the psychedelic shadings of early Pink Floyd, Ufomammut’s sound churns and swells like an ocean of Post Metal muck, lapping […]

And so the omnipotent metalcore behemoth keeps rolling and seemingly unable to even slowdown a morsel, in fact, as more and more predict the sub-sub-sub genre’s extinction, more and more bands mushroom forth, prolonging its life. Given, the quality is becoming lower and lower but it is still amazing that a) there are plenty of […]

Believe it or not, in fact, you probably won’t, but once upon a time, Century Media put out some of the damn hardest hardcore albums in existence. Such classics as Merauder’s Master Killer, the superlative Kickback’s Forever War, and Turmoil’s The Process of, not to mention a slew of others that have gone on to […]

Seems like the whole retro punk/post-punk thing’s been around for so many years now that it’s become modern again. Band after band continues to crossbreed genres, reference points and each other to create output that maintains a core of familiarity, but still manages to sound fresh as well. New Hampshire’s Transistor Transistor sit somewhere in […]

The easiest way to explain Kataklysm of the past decade is a box of Cheerios. Listening to Kataklysm is like eating Cheerios, you know they are not the most exciting death metal band out there but it is a safe bet they are palatable. The most daring they have gotten in recent years is Honey […]

Last time I enjoyed a Kataklysm album through and through was Serenity in Fire, perhaps due to Martin Maurais’ ball-bustingly fast drum performance, so much so that it made me question whether the drumming was performed by a person or if the double kick pedals were cleverly disguised as a game of Whack-A-Mole, packaged with […]

Accrding to an update at the band’s official website, veteran UK death metal act Bolt Thrower are throwing in the towel, at least in regards to writing for their now cancelled eighth studio album: “We’ve spent the last year trying to write songs for a new album, planning to go into the studio this summer. Unfortunately, […]

Recently, I attended a Japanese Taiko drums show at my local performing arts center and during all the thunderous percussion, chanting, and Kai yelling I thought to myself how cool it would be it this stuff was mixed with metal… Enter Japan’s Birushanah. Leave it to the Japanese to take a tired metal genre, in […]

With all the complexity and technicality being thrown around in death metal this year, the third full length album from Japan’s Coffins is a welcome relief of earthy, primal mid paced doom/death metal that will appeal to fans of Cianide, Runemagick and Autopsy. With a phlegmy, hacking, feedback drenched, down-tuned guitar tone plying simple oozing […]

Although the name ASRA sounds like an obscure piece of Buddhist meditation jargon, it’s simply an acronym for Alleged Satanic Ritual Abuse. (Which, for some reason, brings to mind Lou Diamond Phillips in The First Power.) And even if they’re Black Box’s newest grind signing, ASRA is looking firmly backwards towards a more classic sound. […]

Progressive metal sometimes isn’t very progressive – it’s become easy to predict that an album in that genre is going to offer dense, snaky rhythms, soaring vocals and perhaps a smattering of synthy sci-fi grandeur. What you might not expect, then, are delicate female vocals laid over contorted compositions, with random bursts of smooth jazz, […]

I hate it when bands try too hard. In the case of Drain The Sky’s album Haunted By Rivers, the band is trying too hard to sound creepy and intense, but all they manage to muster is boring. It’s a noisy mish-mash of blast beats, slow (trying to be) creepy passages and dissonance. They’re trying […]

In Thrash We Trust Tour – St. Louis, MO June 4th 2008 The two hour drive from my home to Pop’s in St. Louis (Sauget, Ill to be exact – right across the river from Downtown) is always a long one, but I’m more than willing to make it to see a good show. Death […]

So here is Umesh’s second release of droning, one man black metal for Moribund, and while still retaining the undulating, icky undercurrent of the claustrophobic Dagonite, Angel Eyes sees more of a focus on sickly doomy riffs rather than ambience or mood, and the result while certainly oozing with tentacled horror and dread, is at […]

 WARSHIP, the new band featuring Francis Mark (vocals, drums) and Rob Lauritsen (guitar, bass) of From Autumn To Ashes, is currently in a New York studio recording their debut release with producer Andrew Schneider (Made Out Of Babies, Cave In, Pelican, Unsane). The as-yet-untitled disc is due out on Vagrant later this fall. Fans can […]

Like many a listener I discovered Cult of Luna in 2002 when I heard their masterpiece, The Beyond. However I lost track of them after that as I was bored by Salvation and don’t even recall Somewhere Along the Highway.  I decided to give them another chance though as I loved The Beyond so much. […]

The kings of Austrian BDSMetal are back for yet another go. Having seen them live and enjoyed their last few albums I can say this without fear. They are getting progressively more insane by the moment, and we the listener benefit more than we can ever know. They are somehow getting more melodic and more […]