Soulflesh Collector’s ongoing quest to rule in the death metal underworld continues, and again, they’ve enlisted more talent from outside their homeland (Russia) to aid in their endeavor. Hailing not too far from label mates Human Parasite, this five man Belgian killing machine specializes in an altogether more sinister strain of brutal death metal than […]

You’d be forgiven for thinking that The Famine were a Christian metal band (not that there’s anything wrong with that) due to their CD artwork, label affiliation, song titles like “The New Hell” and “The Cross and the Holy See” and for the fact that former and current members came from early Christian death metal […]

One of the most fascinating aspects of human beings is how they progress as they grow. Some would believe that growth equals regression rather than progression and that is certainly a fact in some instances. When it comes to the development of a group of musicians, particularly one within the confines of a genre such […]

Ladies and gentleman the almighty Neuraxis has returned from the depths of hell to enslave humanity once again. Their new album entitled Asylon, out on Prosthetic Records, is their first album in three years since The Thin Line Between. On this album, the band has managed to create more of the same, finely tuned technical […]

Burn from Denver’s Havok left a very positive impression on me and I considered it one of the better vintage-sounding 2009 albums of the thrash resurgence. Then a couple of years later Time is Up arrives and I’m thoroughly impressed with the band’s songwriting improvement and compositional twists, not to mention a thrash attack that is even more blistering and memorable. But the game-changer for me was watching Havok perform live at The Riot Room in Kansas City, MO as the second band on a bill that included Full Blown Chaos, The Absence, Malevolent Creation, and openers Beyond Terror Beyond Grace. On stage Havok kills with a conviction that I’ve rarely seen from such a young band. They play with the skill and chemistry of veterans and perform with the fiery passion of youth. I was absolutely stunned and would hate to be in any band that has to follow a Havok performance. So on to the Havok van we went to conduct the interview with vocalist/guitarist David Sanchez. Finishing off the evening with cheap tequila and 24 oz. cans of PBR didn’t leave me in the best of places, but at least I left with a vivid memory of the Havok assault.

Newsflash! Amon Amarth is releasing a DVD containing all four Bochum shows in which the band played their first four albums in their entirety called Bloodshed Over Bochum. Since these shows were bonus audio on the reissues this time is video. This release comes as a CD+DVD digibook edition with 28-page booklet, a special boxset […]

More than a quarter century after releasing their debut record, the current lineup of Helstar has released the band’s heaviest record to date in Glory of Chaos. Like its predecessor, 2008’s The King of Hell, this record leans more on thrash influences than the band’s earlier power/speed metal tendencies, but it’s a more potent recipe […]

Here I sit eating a bowl of Chef Boyardee Cheesy Burger Macaroni and wondering how to begin. I then realize that I’ve already begun and am now teetering on the edge of an abyss called depression, as I lament the fact that I didn’t keep the bowl in the microwave long enough. But here is the funny part about all of this journalistic bullshittery. I’m eating it anyway. Now eat this!

That Maruta is a quintessential Willowtip band may be more of a tribute to label than artist. Always leaning slightly more to the grind side of the death-grind divide while releasing material that is often technical, but rarely polished; the now decade old label has certainly established a trademark sound at this point. That there […]

Formed in 1993 under the name of Ravner, then resurfacing after a brief hiatus in 2006 as Hat (Norwegian for ‘hate’), Hat are a duo of corpse-painted, spike clad Norwegians playing brittle, frosty, hateful orthodox black metal culled straight from the early ’90s. While that little description is probably more than apt for me to […]

I had no idea Protest the Hero was dropping a new album, so when this showed up in my mailbox, I was like a small child on Christmas. Now, I know that Protest the Hero are a like Between the Buried and Me, in that they are a pretty divisive act with one side thinking […]

As disappointed as I was to learn of the demise of what certainly has been my favorite underground metal band for the past decade plus, I hate to say I was a bit relieved in a way too. Satisfied that there would never be a shit Japanische Kampfhörspiele album, I raised a glass to them, […]

What’s the single sickest, most perverted thought your mind has ever spewed out? Go ahead…reminisce. Now imagine that 100 times worse, covered in blood, oozing with sores, and accompanied by an accursed shrieking — and you’ve got the core of BELPHEGOR’s madness at hand. Austria’s supreme black/death masters unleashed Blood Magick Necromance unto the world recently, and head hellmouth Helmuth corresponded with Teeth of the Divine about its gooey inner workings

To me, The End Record’s roster has gone downhill quicker and more noticeably than any label in recent memory. Back in the ’90s and early ’00s, they were releasing game changing albums by bands like Arcturus, Epoch of Unlight, Agalloch, Love History, Antimatter, Scholomance, Sculptured and such. Now with a few exceptions (These Are They, […]

I wasn’t overly impressed with Abacinate’s 2008 debut  albummRuination, as it was a simple mix of hardcore and death metal. It wasn’t quite brutal enough to be considered deathcore or death metal, and came across as a hardcore sheep simply trying to unconvincingly wear death metal clothing. But on their follow-up, Genesis (are these guys […]

The human brain excels at patterns. It does this all day long, interpreting and rendering an endless flood of sensory signals into a cohesive and constant presentation of reality. A large part of this process involves prediction, based on past experience and feedback, so that we have a natural sense of the next step in […]

Fans of Protest the Hero, With Passion (RIP), The Human Abstract and Between the Buried and Me, take note. Detractors of all four, go click elsewhere. Plying a borderline pretentious, yet brilliant amalgamation of chaotic, spazzy tech metal, death metal, power metal and thrash, Californian six piece Journal have delivered an epic self-released masterpiece that […]

I really wanted to like Margin of Error’s second self-released effort a little more, as it mixes deathcore with a sort of electronica/industrial sort of The Berzerker sheen, but in the end, the fusing of the two elements isn’t quite as impressive as it could have been. With a thick heavy production that has a […]

It’s back and it is hopefully no longer infrequent. Isn’t this fun? “I’m having a great time…a great time.” Oh come on now! Old School? Get with it! Onward and sideways. Death to false metal and all that shit.

This was a bit of a rocky road initially for me. By that I mean “getting into” the music of this split release from Wooden Stake and Blizaro. Given my often mood-driven response to CDs, it is not surprising that the first time or two this one wasn’t clicking. And that’s exactly why one or […]

Consistency is the name of the game with Decrepitaph. Wayne “Elektrokutioner” Sarantopolous (drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, backing vocals) and Sinworm (vocals, guitar, bass) will never be anything but an authentically doomy death metal band that plays with a passion for the old school and takes care to write the best songs possible within those parameters, […]

Fourteen Twentysix are not metal. Nor do they claim to be. Nor do I. Yet, for some reason, they fit Teeth of the Divine’s bill just fine. Last year I reviewed the band’s latest effort, Lighttown Closure, and while I thought it showed a lot of promise, it just didn’t quite reach the premise. This was one of the reasons why I got into a discussion with the band’s primus motor, Chris van der Linden. The other reason was, that on their upcoming new album, Antimatter’s Mick Moss will be making an appearance. Bang! Newsflash! Chris wasn’t the only one to take part in the party though, as Jelle Goossens and Tom van Nuenen from the band popped in and answered a few questions as well. Some even, related to metal.

It seems lately I’ve been getting into this newer version of post-hardcore that’s been hitting the market. I never been much a fan of the genre, as most bands tend to sound the exact same, but I finally decided to give a few bands in the genre some spins. Low and behold, I’m slowly gaining […]

What is it these days with so many bands who will come out with a debut that will knock you on your ass but then turn around and release a sophomore effort that flat out sucks and/or totally jumps the shark? Add the young and once extremely promising thrashers Lazarus A.D. to that group. As […]

I have a vague recollection of enjoying the shoe-gaze influenced black metal debut, Renihilation, of this New York act,  but I have to admit that after it was reviewed by my TOTD-colleague Jordan Itkowitz, I sort of forgot about about it. It simply melded into the many of so called hipster black metal releases that […]