I’ve enjoyed watching Light This City evolve from their rough and ready debut The Hero Cycle in 2003 to through their brilliant third album,  Facing the Thousand , to what is now their swansong, Stormchaser, a mere five years later. The band has evolved from a mere At The Gates worship to a powerful, polished an […]

The Dead are a death metal outfit that comes to us from Australia.  This is a very short album with 9 songs in 29 minutes. If you are looking for something new and exciting then skip this one.  To be honest I’m really not into this one at all as it slavishly obeys all of […]

Misery comes to me by way of Australia and it’s not half bad. They tread upon well-worn ground in the vein of Obituary and Morbid Angel especially with the guitar as there are plenty of leads borrowed from Trevor Peres and half the solos smack of Azagthoth. The tempo is mostly slow and bruising which […]

Fast-rising British death metallers IGNOMINIOUS INCARCERATION recently finished recording their highly anticipated debut album, OF WINTER BORN, and have made a brand new track from the album available to stream at their MySpace page, which has also been updated with brand new album artwork.Prepare yourself for the forthcoming brutality by listening to the new track, […]

Daylight Dies will join Soilwork and Darkane for the start of their upcoming US tour beginning January 30 in Rochester, New York. Continuing to support their latest record, Lost to the Living, Daylight Dies were selected to replace Warbringer who are unable to start the tour due to extended recording obligations. “We are all ecstatic […]

Rumored to be the brainchild of Robcore labelhead Rob Crow of indie wunderkinds Pinback, Goblin Cock is focused, primed, and ready to pull the pin on the follow-up to their mammoth debut Bagged And Boarded on Absoultely Kosher Records, which was nominated for three Plug Awards including Metal Album Of The Year.  With songs about […]

You know what? This album really has a lot of good things going on, though I recoiled in vehemence the minute I heard the first track, “Forever”. Last thing we need is another pop punk quazi-metalcore band like AFI, Atreyu or Avenged Sevenfold. Right? Well…don’t flame me for saying I like it. A lot. This […]

This is a band that would appeal to only a small percentage of extreme metal enthusiasts. So let me start with this: if you don’t like your doom/death mixed with serious amounts of experimentation, then you probably won’t dig this. But to the nuts like me out there, this is a whole new realm of […]

My preconceptions of this album were not at all positive. One look at the cover art, logo, album title, song titles, and the band members themselves (super trendy emo look) had me dreading this review. But they certainly proved you can’t quite judge a book by its cover. Opener “Hated Youth” took me by surprise. […]

I can’t say I was very happy to hear back in 2007 that Matt Barlow (then former Iced Earth front man) had stepped into Lance King’s shoes as the new vocalist for Power Metal outfit Pyramaze, one of my favorite bands from Denmark. The reason was that I was really keen on the idea of […]

Scotland’s Nazareth is certainly entrenched deeply into the Classic Rock fans’ collective psyche with their hits “Hair Of The Dog” and “Love Hurts”. Simply say the name and scores of grizzled, bearded, half-drunk minions will raise their glasses and scream “Now you’re messin’ with a…a son-of-a-bitch!!!” in less than a nanosecond. The album those songs […]

egura Bunget’s first four releases will soon be re-issued in Digipaks with improved artwork. “From Transylvanian Forest” is the only demo recording from Wiccan Rede, the legendary precursors to Negura Bunget. This re-release with two bonus tracks lays bare the roots of Negura Bunget in an unique way. On their debut album “Zîrnindu-Sã”, the Romanians […]

Eudaimony is the new band of Matthias Jell (ex-Dark Fortress), Marcus E. Norman (Naglfar, Bewitched), Jörg Heemann (Secrets Of The Moon), and Michael Håkansson (ex-Evergrey, ex-The Forsaken). Following their dictum ‘Negativity in its purest form’, this quartet combines doomy, disharmonic music with lyrics from the downbeat and hopeless side of life. You can listen to […]

Due to their ferocious female vocalist Grace Perry and a solid mix of thrash, hardcore and Bolt Thrower, Arizona’s Landmine Marathon have always been in my periphery, but never quite taken it to the next level. With their 2006 debut release Wounded and subsequent split EP , they only come across as a band with […]

After a handful of demos and a 7″ release, The Devil’s Blood has finally issued its first proper CD release in the form of the 5-track EP Come, Reap. Coupling Bible verses, occult imagery and tales of substance abuse, sex and death, The Devil’s Blood is something of a unique animal. Musically, without putting too […]

First off, before you read this review, go here  and check out Medeia’s killer video for the single “Cold Embrace”. Making fun of black metal? Making fun of themselves? Who cares-it’s awesome. Hailing from Finland, Cult is the second album from Medeia, a melodic death metal band that utilize keyboards and a very US sounding […]

Logging in well over 20 years, and innumerable miles, in Thrash Metal, California’s Hirax is no stranger to fans of the underground. Led by its tenacious and ferocious lead singer Katon W. DePena, Hirax continues to release great music and trek across the planet delivering its own intense, aggressive brand of cult Thrash Metal. I managed to corner guitarists Glenn Rogers and Lance Harrison for a little Q & A session.

I had heard this band’s name several times in the last couple of years, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to listen to them. I really had no idea what to expect, so I had no preconceived notions. Suffice it to say that after several spins, I am digging this one. What we […]

With as weak a name as Harmony, it might be easy to immediately dismiss these Christian Power Metallers but this could be a mistake as their music more than makes up for it the moment Chapter II: Aftermath (Chapter II, hereinafter) blasts out of your speakers. Although their lyrical subject matter is indeed also heavily […]

DEAD BY WEDNESDAY, featuring former Gargantua Soul drummer Christian “Opus” Lawrence, have debuted new tracks from their recently released new album “The Killing Project” online at www.DeadByWednesday.com . The group is now crisscrossing the US touring in support of the album, which was released through Eclipse Records and features a guest appearance by Candiria frontman […]

It’s stuff like this right here that I appreciate about reviewing. Even though 90% + of the stuff I get to review is either average or totally lame, there is occasionally something that shows up that catches me completely off guard – for example, this EP/demo from Belgium’s Forced Evolution. As the name might imply, […]

The UK’s My Silent Wake just released its third album of Folk-infused Doom Metal entitled A Garland Of Tears. Boasting a mature yet melancholic sound, the band has been making its presence known in the Metal underground over the last few years. I spoke with vocalist/guitarist/founder Ian Arkley (a fixture in the UK Metal scene since the late 1980’s) recently about the new album, here’s what he had to say.

In recognition of a music genre that has spawned some of the most original and talented bands hailing from every corner of the globe, Earache Records is proud to announce the release of WORLDWIDE METAL. Celebrating the diversity of metal in all of its forms, WORLDWIDE METAL is the ultimate collection of the fastest, heaviest […]

Mysteria hails from Poland and promises an expansive, avant-garde mix of death, black and folk. Sounds intriguing…. Opener “Mulla Xul” kicks off the proceedings on a promising, if not familiar note. Churning thunder, monstrous growls and ancient, Sumerian-styled bombast. It’s heavily reminiscent of countrymates Behemoth, but less epic. Nothing terribly progressive or forward-thinking either, but […]

From the cover art by the great Gustave Dore, guaranteed to make me notice, straight through to the very metal album closer piano solo that Beethoven would have loved, Artefact challenges you to listen, no multitasking. Like current Primordial with seven troll steps back toward early Enslaved with a nod toward Ihsahn on the way […]