Here’s Prosthetic’s entry into the thrash ‘revival’, Japan’s Grief of War, and their debut offering, A Mounting Crisis…As Their Fury Got Released. Originally, the album was released through a small label in Tokyo in 2005. As expected, it’s a complete trip back to the mid 80’s, mainly paying homage to early Slayer. Now, I know […]

So after 5 years and four albums of balls out partying and after a major label change, it appears that Finland’s Forest Clan have hit that part of the party where you start to taste bile, slur your speech, get all sad and moody, tell all your friends you love them loudly and hug strangers. […]

So often, in the review business, it all comes down to timing. I try to keep an open mind and give fair reviews for every CD that comes across my desk. But in all honesty, if I get an OK record in a style that I’m just really burned out on at the time, it […]

I’ve never been a fan of the whole 1 song concept album. The only one that really set with me was Edge of Sanity’s “Crimson”, and I haven’t re-visited that in many years. Heck, even albums with just two lengthy songs like Moonsorrow’s last effort strains my patience. So here is a one song, 54 […]

I hate to beat a dead horse, as I’m sure most of you have read reviews of this rather high profile release already, but I’ll say it anyway-the side project featuring Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed and Kirk Windstein of Crowbar sounds like a mix of Hatebreed and Crowbar. There. End of review. Ok maybe not. […]

In the last few months we have seen some stunning brutal/technical death metal releases from the likes of Ulcerate, Sickening Horror, Decrepit Birth, Brain Drill and Hate Eternal, so you’ll have to excuse me if the debut from California’s Embryonic Devourment falls a bit short despite its effort and skill. Though my lack of glowing […]

You’d think that a lineup of Swedish death and black metal veterans like Jocke Widfeldt (Dominion Caligula, ex-Obscurity), Matti Mäkelä (ex-Dark Funeral, Dominion Caligula, ex-Obscurity) ,Tobbe Sillman (Guidance of Sin, The Dead ), Robert Lundin (ex-Dark Funeral, Dominion Caligula, ex-Obscurity) and especially Jörgen Sandström (ex-Grave, ex-Corpse, The Project Hate, Krux, ex-Entombed, Death Breath, Putrefaction, Torture […]

Death metal has its share of geographic sounds; the Stockholm sound, the Gothenburg sound, the Florida sound, the Birmingham sound, the Canadian sound etc. Well one of the more overlooked sounds is the Denmark sound. Generally highlighted by chunk and heft with a dash of thrash rather than speed (and more often than not produced […]

When I first heard Stuck Mojo in the mid-1990s, the sound was fresh and interesting – a solid, Southern-flavored metal band fronted by a rapper. With the rise of the rap-rock trend and the nu-metal trends in the late 90s and early part of this decade, the sound began to lose its edge. The band […]

Epic albums with big-name guest stars are an iffy proposition. The expectations those all-star lineups create can be a bit of a letdown. That was the case for me with the latest effort from Ayreon, which I found a bit boring. On this record, though, the guest stars get bits that better reflect their own […]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN. Ho- hum another tough guy hardcore band has discovered Bay Area thrash and solos. With a lineup shuffle and label change, New York’s Sworn Enemy , after a couple of typical tough guy hardcore releases (As Real As It Gets and The Beginning of the End), have dumped the power chords and breakdowns in […]

“There is no one righteous, not even one; no one seeks God. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear […]

It’s difficult to find security in bands these days. At least half of the bands I look forward to seeing releases from take a turn for the worst at some point. So far Sweden’s Draconian only stay steady if not get better with each album. For those familiar with Arcane Rain Fell and Where Lovers […]

Cover tunes are somewhat of an abnormality for me. Even when it’s just one on an album of all originals it strikes me as lame, wasteful, and utterly cheesy. Though over the years we have heard some great covers, in any genre, it still presents mixed opinions from this reviewer. So when a pretty well […]

At the risk of losing what little credibility I have within the metal community, I have a confession to make. I do not own a single Vader release. Not one. In fact the last Vader record I actually heard was 2002’s Revelations, and before that the only Vader record I physically even owned in the […]

Well here it is, German metalcore big dogs Heaven Shall Burn’s new full length, Iconoclast, their fifth overall. I remember digging quite a bit their last, Deaf to Our Prayers, where they dropped the majority of the core in favor of a more straight forward and vicious melodic death attack – I thought it was […]

While a fairly standard metalcore meets death metal affair, Atlantis is the first Blood & Ink release I have enjoyed since Foreknown’s Calm Seas Don’t Make Sailors and With Blood Comes Cleansing’s debut Golgotha, as the likes of Skylines, Blessed By A Broken Heart, Stars Are Falling, Nashemah, The Gentleman’s Pistols, Burden of a Day […]

Let’s establish something at the outset. Arjen Lucassen is an absolute musical genius & visionary. His Ayreon discography alone is enough to solidify this fact. Not to mention his side project forays; Ambeon & Star One among them. His penchant for combining what sounds like every Rock & Metal sub-genre under the sun into double […]

When Brian Danilowski isn’t plucking his bass in Baltimore math-metallists Trephine, he straddles the time/space continuum with his experimental/noise solo project Darsombra. 2006’s Ecdysis only hinted at what was to come from this creative soul, as the new Eternal Jewel wraps the listener around sheer volume, both layered and frayed. “Auguries” resembles a classical-styled (with […]

You can take a kid out of punk, but you can’t take punk out of a kid, and Jonah Jenkins is a prime example. As the vox of some truly great Boston-based underground bands (Milligram, Miltown, and Only Living Witness to name a few), Jenkins resurfaces at the helm of Raw Radar War. The oddly-titled […]

Though oddly touted as ‘Blue Collar metal”, Pittsburg’s Once Nothing are more in line with the Southern infused likes of Maylene And the Sons of Disaster, Cancer Bats, The Showdown and Remove The Veil, but add a heftier, sterner metalcore/hardcore tone rather than a more drawling rock backbone to their Southern core. Still though, the […]

Lost in the current retro thrash revival is the fact that Norway’s Audiopain have been chugging along and kicking out 10 plus releases since 1998, two EP/splits just last year, and their latest 6 track offering, is arguably the most pure throwback and raw of all the so called current thrash revivalists. Whole promoted as […]

Despite a lengthy discography dating back to 1998, Germany’s JaKa never seemed to make the impact you’d expect in the grindcore genre, and I think part of it is they are just a little too experimental for the grindcore crowd, not quite death metal or serious enough for the death metal fans, and simply too […]

While most of these thrash “revivalist” are culling their influences from the 80’s Bay Area scene, Las Vegas’ Avenger of Blood are content with borrowing from the darker, heavier and death metal tinged sounds of Slayer, Dark Angel and the German scene – but Kreator in particular. Actually, the similarities between early Kreator and Avenger […]

Not many could have been happier about the return of Bay Area legends Death Angel than me – since I first truly discovered metal and immediately fell in love with thrash, Death Angel has always been a band that really stuck out to me, not miles away from their peers, but truly keeping their own […]