These days, talk about Nachtmystium is inseparable from talk about the group’s main man, Blake Judd. I have never been much of a follower of the people behind the music I listen to, for the reason that I am almost always disappointed to hear about what fucked up things they’re doing in their lives. I’ve […]

If you’re a self respecting death metal fan than you already have this classic album in your collection, in some form.  To show you how old this album is, it was released in 1988, the same year Slayer released South of Heaven.  To go over such a classic album could be mind numbing for some, […]

Once again, I find myself being very tardy on my review of a Shroud of Despondency release, as with Pine back in 2012. Part of the reason this time is that Tied to a Dying Animal is an ambitious,  monstrous release, being 2 CDs covering an hour and a half and two competently different styles.  The other […]

When weighing up my options of which album to cover for my first contribution to The New Classics feature I was pleasantly surprised by just how downright overwhelming the task of narrowing down a pivotal album to highlight. Not through any shortage of quality options, but rather the sheer magnitude of landmark and game changing albums that have dropped during a very fruitful post-millennium decade. Personally, when the year 2000 rolled around I was still in my late teens and on an upswing of discovery since breaking my extreme metal cherry a couple of years prior. Of course I had plenty of catching up to do as my appreciation for heavy metal took on an entirely new dimension, with one ear scouring the landmark early wave of extreme metal, and especially death metal’s storied past, while the other was planted in the (then) here and now.

I’ve hit a rash of Asian music of late having only recently discovered envy along with the likes of Vampillia, Tengger Calvary, Maximum the Hormone and even non metal like Radwimps.  However, Japan’s Funeral Sutra, like COHOL a couple of years ago, was recommended and sent to me by a long time teethofthedivine forum reader, and even […]

Hailing from the  depths of Edinburgh, Scotland, the excellently named Of Spire & Throne play a crusty form of doom metal, not the classic, wailing kind, but a brutish, base level, burly, sludgy kind of doom- befitting Scotland’s craggy, rough landscapes. This 3 song EP is the band’s third EP in as many years and clocks […]

Phew. This is ambitious. 2 Cds, almost 2 hours of ambient black metal contained in a very well packaged (Hypnotic Dirge’s best packaging to date) double gatefold digipack. Nicely done indeed, now if only the music was as striking. Despite being around for 5 years and having three other full-length albums under their belt, this […]

Amidst the always evolving and mutating landscape of modern metal there will always be room for retro minded bands that eschew the notion of breaking new ground and instead cast their blackened eyes back to the roots of any given genre to unleash their own fresh interpretation. Of course any band aping a particular sound […]

Does this review even need to exist? Unless you’re someone who’s saving your next illegal download for the new Slipknot album, you probably already have this thing pre-ordered. Never before have I seen a band gain so much popularity in such a short amount of time on so few songs. Quality over quantity is Bölzer’s […]

After reviewing 2008s Slania, I never really went back to Switzerland’s folk metal act Eluveitie, I have not even heard 2012s Helvetios or 2010s Everything Remains or the band’s acoustic album, Evocation from 2009. I always thought the band was a bit over hyped and were simply Darkest Hour with a Hurdy Gurdy and a violin […]

Even if the Finnish summer does its best impression of having a bipolar mental condition by throwing hail out every other day, there’s one thing you can count on in June and that’s Tuska Open Air Metal Festival held at the capital of Finland, Helsinki. The 17th Tuska was fighting an uphill battle with the visitor count being somewhat stagnant as the mainstream heavy metal boom is starting to wind down after Lordi’s Eurovision victory in 2006. World economy hasn’t improved much either and a lot of different things like Zirconium and Tony Little’s latest ab machine are fighting for people’s spending money. So how do Anthrax, Dimmu Borgir and Emperor fare in a tight spot?

The physical release of Starless Aeon entails a cassette edition limited to 50 copies, which comes in an onyx stardream (whatever the hell that means) 6×6 box with the Starless Aeon sigil stamped on top in metallic silver ink, a 12×12 poster of the album artwork on parchment, the black, metallic-silver imprinted cassette itself in […]

AVERSIONS CROWN signs with Nuclear Blast Entertainment! Six-headeddeathmachine, AVERSIONS CROWN, havesigned a worldwide deal with Nuclear Blast Entertainment for the release of their new slab of astral punishment, Tyrant. Formed in 2010 in Queensland’s Brisbane, the same sunny stretch of Australian coastline as PORTAL and THE AMITY AFFLICTION,AVERSIONS CROWNdeveloped their pummeling blend of mechanized brutality and haunting atmospherics by utilizing […]

Like Sectu’s Nefarious, the Third album from Greece’s Mass Infection is unfortunately liable to get a little bit lost in the early summer/spring deluge of killer death metal namely the stuff Unique Leader releases. Which is a shame as Comatose and Mass Infection have released pretty damn solid death metal record in For A am […]

Unique Leader, one of my favorite labels, has smashed yet another home run. The sophomore album by California tech-death metallers Inanimate Existence is an absolutely stunning effort on every level. After going through this album a few times, what struck me the most is the dense, ambient, dare I say beautiful (!) song structures and […]

The harsh winters and glorious landscapes, in Romania, are not only hiding the hardworking citizens of this particular country, but are also known to house vampires.  That’s right those long toothed bastards, feasting on the blood, of their human prey, in the wee hours of the morning, before the sun comes up.  However for the last decade or so, the vampire population has been slowly diminishing.  It seems that the brutality of Romania’s death metal act, Necrovile, has been the cause of this.  Calin Paraschiv, Necrovile’s guitarist/vocalist/bassist, had enough of the vampire’s feasting on his fellow friends and family members, that he said ‘enough is enough’.  In 2009 he unleashed The Pungency of Carnage, a brutal, yet primitive death metal debut, with his band Necrovile.  This album crushed a lot of the vampire population, the music too brutal for them to endure. 

Four albums into their career and Alestorm have outgrown and honed their ‘Scottish Pirate Metal’ sound and become arguably one of Scotland’s more famous metal acts. And the all important contract album, album number 4 certainly cements that with a larger than life collection of  drinking songs and Pirate-y raucous  rockers, but also a sense of impending […]

Gruff, groovy and packed with their endlessly inventive weed puns, death metal parodies and demented lyrical tales, Cannabis Corpse are well and truly in the zone on their fourth full-length album, entitled From Wisdom to Baked. After kicking around on Forcefield records and Tankcrimes the band’s hard work and genuine scene cred has culminated in […]

In nature, the hunter always at some point becomes the hunted or to use another analogy the student becomes the master. Pick your terrible analogy, but it applies to metal all the time. Some younger hungrier, more talented acts eventually surpasses their peers after looking up at the pedestal. it is the natural order, an […]

The oddly named Pet Slimmers of the Year have released one of the best post-rock/metal albums I’ve heard in a long time, and it’s thanks in part to incorporation of elements not commonly found in post-rock: clean vocals, a sincere sense of melancholy usually reserved for gothic rock, and a thorough understanding of what makes […]

Fans of the so called down tempo deathcore movement such as The Acacia Strain, Restrains, Portrayer,  Osiah, Extortionist,  Endings, Overthrower and of course, Calmed By The Tides of Rain take note of this band and release. Heck, it even features a guest vocal performance from CBTTOR vocalist Artyom, and they hail from Russia as well. Boy is this heavy and […]

Austria’s goat porn fetish-izing death metal kings have been around since 1992. 2014 will see the release of the band’s tenth studio album, after a bit of a delay. And while the longevity and consistency of arguably Austria’s most famed metal export after Pungent Stench, has never been questioned, Belphegor never seemed to get mentioned amid death metal’s upper echelon acts. Even with a 10 album legacy, the band just seems to get ignored.

France’s The Great Old Ones took the black metal world by storm back in 2012, with their critically acclaimed debut, Al-Azif back in 2012. A full two years later, the band has released the follow up, continuing the Lovecraftian/Chthulu mythos based form of shimmering post black metal, and appear to be ready to pick up […]

“You’d better turn it up.Or turn it off.Or get fucked”. That pretty much sums up The Hell, a fun loving, foul mouthed hard core band from Watford, England, who on their Prosthetic Records debut indeed drop the groovehammer with a raucous mix of brute force beefy, American core mixed with a piss n sneer of […]

I’m not afraid to admit that initially, I completely discounted this release based purely on the band name alone. But once again , as many times before, a track popped up on my ipod shuffle mode, that made me check out who I was listening to and lo and behold is was these long running, […]