So back in April I took my annual trip to Lawrence, Kansas to witness a pre chosen metal show, drink some beers, watch hippies and eat at the Pita Pit. Differing from the last two trips, where Between the Buried and Me were the headliner, this year’s show was a varied bag featuring The Contortionist, Conducting From the Grave, Fleshgod Apocalpyse, Carnifex and headliners All Shall Perish. The two bands I was most interested in were All Shall Perish who released one of deathcore’s best albums in 2006’s The Price of Existence, my favorite album of that year, and Fleshgod Apocalypse, who released my favorite album of 2011, Agony. Interviews with both were set up, so after a growler of ale in a dingy back alley like a hobo, I finally got to visit with All Shall Perish guitarist Ben Orum and vocalist Eddie Hermida. [image courtesy of Jeffrey Krenzer].

Cthulhu mythos and Lovecraftian fiction have long been a part of metal, but in my experience it’s generally been in the realms of cavernous doom or gnarly, undulating death metal and typically a more nasty, disturbing musical representation of the subject matter. But here come France’s The Great Old Ones, and in typically elite French […]

Catheter?!?  What the hell?!?  It’s been seven years since these guys have dropped a full length, and having not heard much from them at all since then I had written them off for dead.  After doing a little research I found out that they have released two or three splits in that time (depending on […]

After a period of laborious research (read: browsing the web while the coffee kettle boiled), I was surprised to learn that very little has been written about the Ben Levin Group. Although their album ‘Pulse of a Nation’ is nearing its second birthday, I could only find a handful of reviews written for their album, […]

It’s not often you get to cover Buddhist-inspired metal, much less Buddhist metal from Portugal. I was very impressed by The Firstborn’s fourth release, The Noble Search, back in 2009. It blended prog and melodic death with thick, roiling sludge, not unlike Mastodon or Gojira, and then blessed it all with a breeze of East […]

So back in 2010, I reviewed The Moulting, the debut from this Canadian female Sludge duo at another site. I wasn’t particularly impressed and gave the release a pretty poor review , even throwing it some half-hearted sexist humor. Well,  the ensuing shit storm of comments on the review and on Facebook from the band […]

Fans of the slightly more brutal style of traditional death metal will surely gobble this one up and praise it for all its blood-soaked, gory glory. Excruciating Existence, the debut full-length album from Brazil’s Escarnium, is everything a fan of this genre of metal loves: it’s guttural, has crunching guitars, it’s straightforward, without frills, without […]

Dynahead is a band that has inspired some buzz in progressive metal over the past few years. Not unlike their fellow Brazilians in Mindflow, they play music that takes in influences from all across the prog metal spectrum, most notably Dream Theater, and Opeth. Although it’s safe to say that this more eclectic approach is […]

One of the best kept secrets coming out of the German black metal scene they have been overlooked for far too long. Secrets of the Moon are back with their fifth full length release. They have been kicking around in one form or another for quite a long time, with sG being around for all […]

If Satyricon weren’t boring they’d be Panchrysia. I hadn’t heard of these Belgian black metallers until recently so I had a peek through their back catalog. I was surprised to find how familiar the riffs were. After two releases with an oppressive, Zyklon-esque production, 2008’s Deathcult Salvation adopted more of the cold, clinical style of […]

Thy Serpent’s Cult, the debut EP from France’s Torture Throne has a lot working in the band’s favor. However, there’s also a cornucopia of issues working against it. This is a novice band just piecing together their visions of what great death metal should be so a ton of flack won’t be tossed their way. […]

Save for your factory-produced, target market-oriented teen pop sensations, all bands are ‘underground’ at some point or another. Doing some research into this band from Boston, it seems like quite a few people have high hopes for Protean Collective  breaking out to a wider audience, and after hearing their self-released album ‘Divided‘, I can see […]

The first impression that Lyriel’s Leverage makes on the listener is a little deceiving. After listening to the title track, which is the first real song on the record, I thought they were a pretty good Lacuna Coil knock-off with some traditional metal leanings. Heard it before, I thought, but I’m glad I pushed forward. […]

I have to admit I wasn’t at all familiar with Gianluca Divirgilio’s works in Arctic Plateau before digging into this release, but I’m quite pleasantly surprised and satisfied with what I’m hearing. The Enemy Inside isn’t a metal album by any means. Once that fact is straight out of the woodwork and looking you in […]

So here is last of fledgling Blast Head Records’ three initial releases. Hailing from Roanoke Virginia, Human Infection self released Infest to Ingest last year, but Blast Head picked it up for release earlier this year, and unfortunately of the labels  first three releases, this is my least favorite. Human Infection play death metal. Bog […]

As former drummer for the legendary Gorefest, Ed Warby went through his shares of ups and downs; breakups, reunions, classic album, reviled albums and more breakups. But nothing compares to the emotions that he conveys on his doom side project, The 11th Hour. While playing on Hail of Bullets keeps his death metal steel wet, it’s doom metal that remains Eds deepest love. With his second effort, Lacrimosa Mortis, his emotions and influences are not just worn on his sleeve, they are exposed by a gaping, tearstained hole in his chest showcasing the pulsing heart underneath. I visited with Ed to dig a little further into his more doom laden music and finally lay to rest any Gorefest rumors.

“Terrible way to die,” Óspakr said, expelling plumes of breath into the frigid night air. “Never seen no man swallow a snake before.” Geirr grunted his affirmation, lost in thought. The guard was still scanning the horizon, watching for moonlit glints on armor, a reflection on a blade, listening for a barely suppressed cough. It […]

Bands like to create albums that feel like a cohesive experience with a beginning, middle, and end, sort of like a good story, whether or not they’re telling one. And as such you’ll find a ridiculous number of albums with intro tracks that are sometimes really cool but are generally disposable. Warbeast MMVIII (since renamed […]

Phylum Morph-Apokalupsis is an 8 song split CD between two of New York finest,  gurgliest, messiest, grinding death metal/goregrind acts. You get 4 from each (though one of Animals Killing People‘s track is a cover) and the only real difference between the 2 sets of tracks is a few members here and there (both bands […]

Well thank the goat and Odin that I wasn’t asked to review the 80’s TV soap of the same name. Dynasty are a West Coast outfit playing the musical style often referred to as ‘hardcore’. Admittedly, I’m about as familiar with metal-infused hardcore as I am with 80’s TV soaps, although I know enough about […]

From the frigid nether region of Halifax comes the debut album from Select and Dismember, an excellent maiden voyage into the overcrowded and polluted waters of brutal death metal. Annihilation Foretold is a swirling, barbaric slab of extreme music in vein of Krisiun, Hate Eternal, Diabolic, and Sinister, though the band thankfully doesn’t just blast […]

The two bald and rather unkempt dudes at Clawhammer PR and Germany’s Apostasy Records have teamed up with teethofthedivine.com to give away 6 Apostasy Records CDs. Two lucky winners will each get 3 Apostasy releases and all you have to to is fill out the form below. It’s that easy.

After a few relatively quiet months,  Dark Descent Records has unleashed an unholy duo of crumbling doom/death metal in the form of Emptiness‘s experimentally depressive Loss and Anhedonist‘s crawling, lumbering debut, Netherwards. However, when truly unearthing Netherwards one word comes to mind more than any other; Cavernous. Playing a form of subterranean doom/death metal Seattle’ […]

Alcest’s ‘Les Voyages de l’Âme sure as hell is a niche album. Clearly, Neige’s intention with his approach to shoegaze is to convey a positive and mellow type of ambiance, and while he’s succeeding in said task in a few songs (while drifting into depressive musings in others; at least according to what I could […]

It’s been awhile since I’ve had anyone satisfy my yen for Dimmu Borgir-style symphonic black metal. For awhile, and mostly in the late ’90s, it seemed to be everywhere: Old Man’s Child of course, but also Mactatus, Mystic Circle, Stormlord, Morgul, Anorexia Nervosa, Thyrane, Carach Angren, Ninnuam, and so on. And although most of those […]