Polish death metallers VADER have inked a deal with Nuclear Blast Records. Commented the band: “We are very glad that after so many years VADER finally joined one of the biggest metal labels in the world. We really believe in their potential, experience and famous German reliability. We are pretty confident that the cooperation will […]

Celebrated progressive metal unit CYNIC has announced U.S. tour dates in support of its critically acclaimed new album, Traced in Air. Fresh off of a North American tour with Meshuggah, the forward thinking band will team up with fellow guitar heroes Dragonforce for a twenty city U.S. trek that is set to kick off on […]

This solo project by Polish artist Stanislaw Wolonciej mixes metal, prog, avant-garde and ambient, with some tonal parallels to the work of off-kilter acts like Frantic Bleep, Manes or Blake-era Ulver. Don’t get excited yet though – this is not as richly textured or as immersive as those bands, mostly due to the largely arrhythmic, […]

SOS has all the signs that they’re a band that entered the metal scene too late. I want to like Adult Situations, but most of the songs on here sound a little too generic and old hat, like they could’ve been taken from could’ve been taken from Queens of the Stone Age b-sides. Further ostracizing […]

Normally, for me to attend a decent metal show I have to either drive 2 ½ hours East to St Louis or 2 ½ hours West to Kansas City. However, once in a while Columbia, Missouri, a mere 30 minutes from my house, will have a decent show at one of their smaller venues (Origin, All That Remain, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me). So once I saw that North Dakota/Minnesota noise merchants Battlefields were going to hit up one of the venues along with former label mates Sleeping In Gethsemane (who by the way are a very cool instrumental metal act) , I had to attend. I also thought I would squeeze in an interview with a band which has released two very impressive albums (2007s Stained by the Blood of an Empire and 2009s Thresholds of Imbalance) that take the typical post rock genre, add some doom, some progressive elements and a sprinkle of hardcore. So on a chilly evening outside the venue I shared some beers and visited with the very amicable trio of vocalist Rusty Steele, drummer Rob Schmidt and guitarist Matt Ricigliano….

French extreme prog act HACRIDE disclose the new song “My Enemy” from their upcoming album Lazarus to be released on Listenable Records by the end of the month. The track is available now on the myspace of the band : http://www.myspace.com/hacridev2 HACRIDE singer Samuel Bourreau talks about this new track : “My Enemy is the […]

Listenable Records have scored big with Germany’s Centaurus-A, as their debut LP Side Effects Expected is a tour de force of modern tech death. Much like the recent Obscura release, Centaurus-A are well versed in how to wrap all their impressive tech wizardry into actual songs that are simultaneously heavy, thrashy, melodic, memorable and mind […]

Amongst metal fans, there are a lot of people listening to different kinds of music. Some worship immortal classical masterpieces, like Swan Lake or Peer Gynt, whereas others go wild over all types of rock music. A young Welsh outfit called Lethargy is going to make an appeal to those in the latter category and […]

After the teasing 2 track vinyl EP, Malevolent Grain, which unveiled a new logo and a second guitarist, (Will Lindsay), the darlings of the American black metal scene return for their highly anticipated third full length album (their second for Southern Lord), and its well worth the wait. WITTR have been called a lot of […]

When among some other promo discs to be reviewed I caught sight of To The Grave, the new album by Danish Power Metal five-piece Iron Fire, I didn’t feel deliriously happy at the thought I had to look into this doing. Honestly, I had never had a high regard for this band’s previous attempts and […]

The reason I decided to review the debut from this North Carolina act and Italy’s The Modern Age Slavery so close together was so readers could get two examples of how to beat a dead horse – on one hand The Modern Age Slavery making deathcore sound even more redundant and tired, and on the […]

There’s no real way to lead into it, so I’ll just jump right in. In Grief sounds like a blend of Daylight Dies and Evergrey. It combines some of the darker Prog Metal of Evergrey (the soundscape/sci-fi keys, the fluid-like guitar shredding) with some of the slower, more dramatic dirges of Daylight Dies (complete with […]

I remember seeing a couple of full page ads for this release in Metal Maniacs, and thinking there’s no way this can be any good- Viking metal from Ohio? But boy was I wrong. Sharing a lot of elements with Oakhelm, Hammer Horde are not only a Viking metal band from the least Viking place […]

This is what I call a bullshit-free release, an attribute that always scores points in my big book ‘o reviewing. One might even call it an unmitigated mofo. The “it” to which I refer is Evil Army’s self-titled album, an offering that is pedal-to-the-floor vintage thrash metal without an ounce of pretension, studio gloss, or […]

Under the Gun is not you average hardcore album, at least by today’s standards. You will find no pictures of anorexic males with hair combed to the side, girly pants, or eyeliner, nor anything resembling a straightedge ideology. Hell, it’s not even traditional hardcore, although lunatic punk or hirsute hardcore might be fitting descriptions of […]

Les Discrets, the solo project founded by Fursy Teyssier (Alcest, Amesoeurs) in 2003, steps forth from its Myspace existence into the light of day. “‘Les Discrets’ (engl.: the discreet ones) are those creatures that live in nature and who bring nature to life, the ones who make the leaves move, who put dew on the […]

2007s Eater of Birds was a watershed release for this Colorado duo, firmly putting them in the very forefront of USBM along the likes of Nachtmystium, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Krallice and the long awaited follow up, Gin will further cement the duo as one of the very best forward thinking, envelope shredding […]

The much anticipated second album from Delain is finally here. It is fascinating to witness how the band has evolved! Originally conceived by Within Temptation keyboard player Martijn Westerholt as a studio project, the success of the debut album Lucidity tipped his hand and Delain has since evolved into a full blown active band. With […]

Heralded Indianapolis, IN doom metal masters THE GATES OF SLUMBER have signed to England’s Rise Above Records for the release of their highly anticipated new album and follow up to 2008’s celebrated Conqueror. The as-yet-untitled record is slated for a fall, 2009 release. The announcement is made on the heels of the brightest and busiest […]

Post rock is off to a busy start in 2009 with the likes of Nanda Devi, Tombs, Buried Inside, and the new Isis (which is killer BTW) – already before the start of spring. However the album I was most anticipating in the genre this year, the sophomore effort from North Dakota’s Battlefields as I […]

Let’s get this out of the way first, and put it out there. Inchoate is the instrumental metal brainchild of one man – Brandon Duncan. Brandon Duncan recently designed the new teeth of the divine.com logo and is doing the shirt designs that will be available shortly. First, Mr. Duncan sent me the CD some […]

Hot off the heels of a completely sold-out out tour alongside Drop Dead Gorgeous, Eyes Set to Kill have announced the dates for their upcoming tour with Gwen Stacy, Motionless In White and Belle Epoque. The tour is slated to kick off April 29th in Terre Haute, IN and run throughout the month of May, […]

Southern Lord is proud to announce that three of the label’s artists will be represented in acclaimed film director Jim Jarmusch’s latest tour de force, The Limits Of Control. The film’s soundtrack features music by Earth, sunn 0))) and Boris, all representatives of Southern Lord Recordings.   Responsible for such films as Down By Law, Dead […]

Word on the street is you’re the kind of person that has equal amounts of love for Hellhammer and Discharge. It is just something about the worlds of primitive hellish bludgeon and nihilistic d-beat aggression. So why not start a band called Dishammer that combines the finer points of both of those seminal bands? A nasty little act from Spain did just that and dubbed the ugly cuss Dishammer. An album called Vintage Addiction was then birthed in all its punk, metal, Satanic, and pornographic glory and released on CD and vinyl formats via lordly underground label Hells Headbangers. Vocalist/drummer Dopi took the time to educate us about all things Dishammer. It’s a philosophy and a way of life, kids! Get with the program now!

Queensryche has taken something of a beating over the last several years amongst Metal fans. The band once revered for unquestionable Metal classics like The Warning and Operation: Mindcrime has been branded something of a washout on the backs of albums like Tribe and Q2K. Some fans blame the band’s perceived decline on the departure […]