Swedish prog death metal band Scar Symmetry comes back with their fifth studio release, The Unseen Empire, a concept album put forth about the Illuminati — or as quoted from drummer Henrik Ohlsson, this album “seeks to expose the hidden hand of the elite that pull the strings of mankind in order to fulfill their […]

Lost in all the controversy and arguing over the new Morbid Angel album is the  fact that another legendary, godfather act of death metal also returned after a long hiatus in 2011. The difference is…these guys did it right. After two certifiably classic death metal albums in Severed Survival and Mental Funeral, Autopsy released two  […]

Napalm recording artist and premier “pirate metal” band ALESTORM will be touring North America this fall, in support of just-released new album Back Through Time. Beginning in late August and going through the end of September, SPV recording artists KAMELOT will be headlining the tour, with ALESTORM headlining select dates. Vocalist/keytarist Chris Bowes had the […]

Legendary progressive tech metallers, PESTILENCE, will release their sixth full-length to North American masses on July 19, 2011 via Mascot Records. Titled Doctrine, the 11-track long player was recorded and mixed at Woodshed Studio in southern Germany with vocalist/guitarist by Patrick Mameli, Yuma van Eekelen and Victor Bullok (Triptykon, Dark Fortress) and offers up a torrent […]

Ahhhh… Unearth… one of the pioneers of the modern metalcore scene. Every time these guys come out with a new album it’s like an old friend you haven’t seen in a few years coming to visit – you think they might have changed but you’re hoping not by much. How does this, their fifth full […]

A stalwart of the Chicago doom/death metal scene for over a decade, Novembers Doom raised some eyebrows with their last 2 albums; 2007s The Novella Reservoir and 2009s Into Nights Infernal Requiem. The band injected more pure and aggressive death metal into their melancholy laced sound, with surprisingly brutal results. However with their latest release, Aphotic, the band appears to have returned to their doomier, sadder and more tempered releases of their first 5 albums. So while casually Facebook chatting with Novembers Doom drummer and fellow metalreview.com writer Sasha Horn a full fledged interview sort of evolved. And here is the subsequent impromptu result….

Well folks, Dr.Acula are back for another round of nu-grind violence in the form of Slander. Well actually the whole grindcore scheme of things (beer pong massacre anyone? No well I loved that song) is replaced with a deathcore sound meaning longer songs yet still retaining the same snotty attitude of the old. Slander is kind […]

Here’s a nice little surprise in the form of the second album from Chicago’s symphonic black metal act Withering Soul. With ties to one of first US acts plying the style competently, the underrated Veneficum, in keyboardist/guitarist Krystopher, Withering Soul’s sound has a distinct European tone that obviously culls from the likes of early Dimmu […]

Halo of Flies is having a pretty awesome run of LP releases over the last few months. Going back to last year’s The Makai and Protestant LPs, this year they’ve released the sublime debut of Light Bearer (ex Fall of Efrafa) and Northless’ follow up to 2010’s No Quarter for the Damaged CD/EP. As with […]

I missed the 2005 debut from Speed\Kill/Hate, side project of Overkill guitarist Dave Linsk, but I just might have to go back and check it out after hearing their latest effort, Out for Blood. The 2011 lineup of the band is completely different from the 2005 version, which also featured a couple of other Overkill […]

Peter Tägtgren is a man who is defined by his work, a body of music and ideas that is always morphing and pulling to and from the abyss. He has given life (and death) to fathomless classic albums and hardly needs an introduction, so one won’t be given here. The at one time one-man project Pain, and new album You Only Live Twice, is the man’s current focus, the details of which he divulges here. But fear not — the Hypocrisy mastermind also discusses that which put him on the metal map.

This has to be a late April’s Fools right? Or some sick practical joke and somewhere Trey Azagthoth and David Vincent are laughing it up, and will let us in on the joke, then release a proper album, right? Because if not, I’m going to be pissed, as are lots of other death metal fans. […]

Did anyone happen to get the license plate of the truck that just hit me? Over and over. For about an hour. Growing up in a rural area long before the Internet showed up in every household giving people access to music from around the world, I was a latecomer to Destruction. I was already […]

Mithras would like to announce the return of long time frontman/bassist Rayner Coss, who left back in 2008. Rayner commented “Firstly, it’s good to be back! When I departed in 2008, Leon and I had been playing in bands together non-stop for over 12 years, and for various reasons I was finding it really difficult […]

Acephalix initially caught my attention in 2010 with their album Aporia, released on Prank Records. That record eventually got an honorary mention on my ‘Best of 2010’ list, in no short part because it had a unique combination of metal and hardcore, and while I realize that sounds like nothing new, they turn this seemingly […]

So a member of (our)  TOTD forum asked me if I could review this band–that has some friends of his in Japan–as they are excited for some possible international exposure. I agreed. Though, I admit to not expecting much, but I’ll do a favor for a longtime reader — even if the CD was released […]

Based on the cover art and album name, I was expecting some form of shitty deathcore, but I should have known better than that from Soulflesh Collector Records. Instead, what we have here is some very impressive Dying Fetus -styled (nay, worshiping — the moniker kind of gives it away I guess) slammy, downtuned death […]

Following up on 2010’s Ashes of Angels, former Antaeus vocalist MkM has returned to his Aosoth-project to deliver sermons of blackened fury. And while the last effort had slight tinges of Deathspell Omega/Blut Aus Nord styled discordance and atmospherics, with lengthier songs, more dissonant, harrowing and atonal hues, Aosoth appears to have morphed into a […]

“I See No God Up Here” claimed Yuri Gagarin during the first manned space flight, April 1961. The last really good, pure post-rock/shoegaze albums I heard were Rosetta’s last effort and the last EP by Mouth of the Architect. But in a matter of weeks I’ve heard three; Halo of Flies Records’ excellent LP duo […]

It is in fact failure, and not its rarer though far more popular cousin’s success, which is the most easily identifiable symptom of effort, and Norse explorers Ulver have been long overdue for a good old-fashioned Donner Party after years of casually strolling up and down Everest. Granted, I am not making an argument that […]

An interesting thing this nostalgia; it can make you blind. Take the case of Believer who in the late 80s/early 90s were recognized for their musically inventive, thought provoking style of thrash metal on albums like 1989’s Extraction from Mortality, 1990’s Sanity Obscure, and though apparently befuddling to some, 1993’s über-expansive Dimensions album. After 2009’s comeback album Gabriel and even more so on this year’s Transhuman (both on Metal Blade), many outside of the ironbound devotees were up in arms about the thrash part of the equation being pushed toward the background in the case of the former and all but eliminated on the latter in favor of a more melodic and song-based (though still progressive and full of great riffs) approach to metal. As it turns out, it was Transhuman that was my formal musical introduction to Believer, which allowed me to see things more clearly; that is, without the distorting effects of nostalgia. The fact of the matter is that Transhuman is a brilliantly composed, incredibly catchy and progressive album that still packs a punch with its meaty and inventive rhythms/riffs, as well as smart use of keyboards and beautiful atmospherics. Of course, the lyrical content about transhumanism and the ethical challenges arising from technological advances that are threatening to blur the lines between human and machine is absolutely fascinating. Of the hundreds of interviews I’ve conducted over the years, this one with vocalist/bassist/guitarist Kurt Bachman and keyboardist Jeff King is one of the most intellectually stimulating I’ve ever experienced. And by the way, you might want to reconsider the “Christian metal” tag that has been attached to Believer since the beginning, as it doesn’t really, nor has it ever, fit with the lyrical approach. Rather, that approach is one of intellectual discussion that touches on many areas, including the religious. Read, think, and form your own opinion. Don’t believe everything you read, except for the content of this interview of course.

Onward to Olympas are back yet again with another dose of Christian metalcore on their second album for Facedown Records, The War Within Us. Adding much more melody and an onslaught of solos, one can tell the band has stepped their game up…big time! “The Continuance” is a short filler intro before the first tune […]

I’ve seen a fair bit of buzz on the old Internet about this Finnish band’s debut EP, and after finally grappling with its criminally short 23-minutes of hellish death metal — the hype is in deed worth it. One could argue that the oddly named Corpsessed are cut from the current cloth of better Incantation […]

There’s just something about black metal guys getting together to jam on some old-fashioned hard rock that works. By all rights it shouldn’t, since the accessible melodies and memorable hooks that go along with the style of music are pretty much the exact opposite of what black metal bands normally do. But every time I […]

I covered Gigan’s debut, The Order of the False Eye, back in 2008, and I remember it being a difficult write-up. Describing music is hard enough, but when it’s complex, undulating tech-death, it really does become a you-have-to-hear-this-to-understand-it kind of deal. The Obscura review I wrote up a few weeks ago was a challenge as […]