Chilean Gothic Doom Metal. This is the simplest, most concise description of Mar De Grises’ (Sea Of Gray) music. All the requisite elements are present to warrant this description as well. Within the 64 minute release, we find plenty of slow tempos, sad, depressing melodies, Death Metal vocals & an overall darkly romantic vibe. Now, […]

Hailing from Sweden, Dead Man also sounds like it hails from about 3 decades ago. Taking its cues from Psychedelic bands like Jefferson Airplane and, to a certain extent, Pink Floyd while also flirting with a darker ambience (think Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan”), Dead Man have crafted an album that is as much of a […]

Today, MORIBUND RECORDS officially announces the signing of Greek black metal band NADIWRATH. Formed last year and featuring DODSFERD mainman Wrath on vocals, NADIWRATH released a three-song demo last summer, which caught the attention of MORIBUND with its catchy-yet-caustic anthems of traditionalist pestilence. Promises Wrath of the imminent debut album, “The NADIWRATH full-length will be […]

With most recent deathcore simply obsessed with showing me how heavy and broodle they are (Annotations of An Autopsy, Emmure, Embrace The End, I Declare War, etc) a few bands such as Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, Fate and Atlanta’s A Thousand Times Repent are trying to engage in a little more than a […]

This album has had all the anticipatory promo one would expect from a classic band. Yes, Dokken is a classic band. The band’s first 4 albums are legend amongst fans of ‘80s Metal. Call them a “Hair Band” all you want, but Dokken had something few of its peers at the time did…musicality. To lump […]

JUDAS PRIEST ROAR BACK WITH AN INSTANT EPIC, ‘NOSTRADAMUS’ ON MULTIPLE CLASSIC FORMATS & A WORLD TOUR! Think ‘Double vinyl, gatefold sleeve concept album,’ and some of rock’s all-time classic recordings come to mind. But in the realm of heavy metal, there has never been a double vinyl (now disc!) concept album that has managed […]

Über fucking metal album title. Über fucking metal album cover art. Über fucking metal song titles and lyrics. Über fucking metal inlay art. Über fucking metal video. Lair of the Minotaur are just Über fucking metal. Period. Now on their third full length album, Chicago’s Lair of the Minotaur have been steadily improving and honing […]

So Colosseum is from Finland, reside on Firebox/Firedoom, and play funeral doom metal — do you really need to know more? Painfully slow, lethargic melancholy delivered with crushing guitars, deep bellows, layered despondent harmonies and flocked with synths, Colosseum are the archetype of Finnish doom as played by likes of country/label mates Depressed Mode, My […]

Once upon a time in America there was a glam rock band named Slaughter… and many people thought that this wasn’t the most appropriate name for such music. Three guys from Toronto, Canada had exactly the same opinion and in August of 1984 decided to form their own band and also call it Slaughter – […]

Is there a point in introducing Hypocrisy? This modern metal phenomenon lead by musical mastermind and “Godfather of Gothenburg” – Peter Tägtgren is well-known to all death metal maniacs worldwide, gaining huge acclaim and respect with each of its releases. “Penetralia“, Hypocrisy’s stunning debut album, takes us back to the band’s beginnings, when Tägtgren was […]

According to Willowtip Records, French death metal act Gorod is currently working on its follow-up album to 2006’s Leading Vision, which should be ready for release in early 2009 on Willowtip. Six songs have been written so far, and the band claims that the new album, “will be an evolution of the process that began […]

Prosthetic Records is proud to announce the addition of Seattle’s death/black metallers Book of Black Earth to the label’s roster. Catching the label’s eye while on a West Coast tour with future labelmates The Funeral Pyre in late 2007, Book of Black Earth consists of members of venerable metal underground band Teen Cthulhu, and are […]

Seventh Rule Recordings announces the newest member of its family: Wetnurse. From the heart of New York City, Wetnurse emerges with a signature style that carries forth the spirit of some of the Big Apple’s most crucial heavy bands — Bad Brains, Swans, Unsane, Quicksand, Brutal Truth… Seventh Rule Recordings owner Scott Flaster describes Wetnurse: […]

I have a great affinity for bands who possess exceptional technical skill, and also for bands with great hook writing ability without being to cheesy or poppy. Bands that can combine both of those elements though are a real rarity, especially when you figure in the nature of extreme metal.  Arsis is one such band, […]

Canadian progressive-metal newcomers, What’s He Building In There? (WHBIT?), have announced their new members in the wake of the departure of both guitarists, Christopher Cookson and David Halk. “Since the departure of the super-talented quasi-jedi Cookson and the mad scientist Halk, we have recruited our good friend, the unyielding Mason Tikl, who will be taking […]

This slipcased cd comes carefully crafted in an artful package courtesy of Paragon Records and France’s own melancholic misanthrope, Noktu, of Celestia. Celestia released their first official release a decade ago, and have flooded their corner of the market with demos and splits and compilations ever since. This is in fact only their/his second full-length […]

With Corpus Christii I am along for the ride because of the commitment of Horrendus and cohorts, and that their townsfolk probably shun them is an added bonus. Five full-length recordings and four eps precede this disc in a decade of steady output. This Portuguese band is really Nocturnus Horrendus and a stream of session […]

With Savatage seemingly on indefinite hiatus between the monster that Trans-Siberian Orchestra has become and the various solo projects of its members, fans are getting a lot of music in a similar style, but not what they really want. Until now. The first two efforts of Jon Oliva’s Pain have been quite enjoyable, if a bit uneven. […]

Albums such as this where a band takes some of their classic songs and re-records them with updated production are kinda tricky business, because your always gonna have fans that say “what was wrong with the way it sounded before? I liked it that way” and turn away from it. In the case of Testament […]

When people think of US black metal the bands that get brought up first are usually the one-man misanthropic bands, but to me US black metal is the full lineup bands like Abazagorath, Grand Belial’s Key, Kult ov Azazel, and the Texas triumvirate of Absu, Thornspawn and Averse Sefira. Anyone that thinks American black metal […]

With their sixth album, Children of Bodom have brought back some of the speed and classical influences that were missing from their last, Are You Dead Yet? The lack of those traits made it the most boring and uninspired sounding album thus far into their career, so to see them back to some degree is […]

Perhaps best known thus far as being Toma Araya’s little brother Johnny’s band, Thine Eyes Bleed are billed as being technical thrash, and for the most part it’s an accurate descriptor. Not overly technical nor as Slayer influenced as one might expect, they do what they do well enough I suppose, but all in all, […]

And so the thrash “revival” continues. Hailing from SoCal, War Without End is Warbringers debut full-length, after an independently released EP last year titled One by One the Wicked Fall, which initially sparked my interest in the young band. That EP showed a great deal of promise in terms of pure, foot to the throat, […]

Over the years, I’ve had a few thank you emails from bands for a review or interview, but when I reviewed the debut album from Pennsylvania’s Serious Grind here, and subsequently interviewed them for another publication, main man Josh Ebel thanked me gratuitously and we stayed in fairly regular contact. He seemed one of the […]

I’m sure this release is more in the realms of fellow scribe Grimulfr, however, in an attempt to broaden my black metal horizons, I made myself listen to and review the debut from this German spike and corpse paint clad trio. There’s nothing remotely original going on here, but it is spitefully done and typically […]