From Germany’s creatively named new-ish label, Go Fuck Yourself Productions, comes the debut from Stockholm’s Obscyria a band trying not to completely wear  their geographical locale’s sound on their sleeve, being old school death metal, but with a bit of a blackened thrash sneer. This the kind of release that Unspeakable Axe or FDA Rekotz should have released, […]

I’ve been waiting on new material from the Czech Republic’s Morbider since 2009s When Darkness Returns, one of the better, if unheralded examples of Swedish death metal of that year (I actually didn’t hear it until a couple of years later) . And while 5 years is a long time to wait just for 4 songs on […]

There is definitely a time and place for no-frills death metal.  It can probably be argued that that style might be the last true take on the genre now that death metal has been splintered into the factions of overly complex posturing or equally heartless Incantation worship.  It’s hard to not judge a record nowadays […]

If you were to collect a bunch of well versed fans of death metal into a cage fight and force them come up with a solution to the following question: Which label is embracing us with some of the best death metal today? What could the answer be? Since it’s only a theoretical situation rather than a study funded by the UN, our best guess for numero uno, after duking it out ourselves, would be DARK DESCENT RECORDS. We shot a few questions at the primus motor Matt Calvert to find out what’s up.

In 2011 Finland’s Desolate Shrine released their debut album, Tenebrous Towers.  To this day I still feel this is their best work.  It could be partly due to the song “The Brightest Night”, which for me, is not only their finest song ever, but one of the best death metal songs, that has come out […]

Today, Nuclear War Now! Productions announces March 13th as the international release date for Nocturnus‘ The Science of Horror collection. Although he played a pivotal role in the emergence of the early U.S. death metal movement as both a co-founder of Morbid Angel and a member of Incubus in the mid-to-late 1980s, Mike Browning’s legacy is most inextricably tied to […]

Blackened quartet Wayfarer hail from Colorado, and put on a melodic, mental institution clinic on their debut Children of the Iron Age.  Formerly an independent release, Children of the Iron Age has been picked up for CD/LP distribution by Prosthetic Records, which should help the band’s mixture of midtempo, tuneful chaos, despondent doom and rural, […]

So, this old-school/retro/classic death metal movement has been going on for over a decade now. It’s so ubiquitous that I’m not sure if we can really call it a thing anymore; It’s just what death metal is now. The principle of it makes me happy, but the practice has left me feeling a little unfulfilled […]

Back in the late ’90s through the mid ’00s, The End Records were one of the more innovative and progressive metal labels around. They were releasing ground breaking metal albums from acts like Arcturus, Age of Silence, Scholomance, Green Carnation and Agalloch… the list goes on. In 2004 the label released a 3-song teaser EP from one of its own, Tomer Pink (who worked for The End Records) and his project Subterranean Masquerade. It also featured Jake Depolittle, Paul Kuhr of label mates Novembers Doom, Tino Losicco of label mates Epoch of Unlight and Jason William Walton of Agalloch, also label mates.

Remember in the late ’90s and early ’00s when The End records was changing metal by releasing fresh, genre challenging invigorating and exiting bands like Nokturnal Mortum, Love History, Epoch of Unlight, Scholomance, Frantic Bleep, Novembers Doom, Agalloch, Giant Squid, Enslaved, Virgin Black, The Gathering, Sculptured, Green Carnation, Winds and even Arcturus‘s masterpiece The Sham Mirrors? My god […]

In 1998 the Dutch death/doom outfit known as Asphyx disbanded for a short period of time and put out an album under the new name of Soulburn, with a crushing album – Feeding on Angels. Wannes Gubbles on bass/vocals, Eric Daniels providing the ultra heavy guitar crunch and Bob Bagchus rounding out the punishing drums. […]

Let’s face facts, chances are if you’re a death metal nut at least one major band that dragged you kicking and screaming into the style’s dungeon of torture is from Florida.  I know this site is full of haunted souls with more knowledge than myself, so I’m going to spare you the history lesson.  The […]

Unendlich is the project of Baltimore-based musician Michael Connors, whose debut Monarch of the Damned might come off as a tad ambitious, but also surprisingly professional. Its variety is in line with, say, the recent Abazagorath offering, though Connors does limit himself a bit more within the black metal framework. Haunting acoustics, driving percussion and […]

Time To Die is Electric Wizard’s eighth proper full length in a little over two decades. Reading some of the press releases, interviews, and reviews for this album leading up to its release (and afterwards), I was anticipating an album that would be wholly abrasive and pissed off. I misunderstood because this album isn’t so […]

Me And John Wilkes Booth go back a long time.  It was back in the spring of 1865 that I used to hide him up in my attic after that little assassination affair.  Seriously though, I’ve been a fan of Long Island’s hard rockin’, hard drinkin’ noisemakers for quite some time now.  The band’s debut […]

I have a dream. A dream that it’s 1985. Vladimir Putin decapitates Mikhail Gorbechev with a halberd while riding a chariot pulled by two bears which proceed to fight each other to eat the former leaders corpse on state controlled television. He declares himself the new totalitarian leader over Russia. The Putinator formally dedicates the […]

Indianapolis doomsters Apostle of Solitude have been active for the past decade, establishing themselves as an underrated but respected force on the doom scene. 2010’s Last Sunrise, the band’s impressive sophomore album, was worthy of high praise due to its potent blend of emotion, melodicism, catchy songwriting and sonic heft. The band’s doom formula is […]

The Teeth of the Divine crew wishes you happy holidays (or whatever) and the best of mosh for the year 2015.

For obvious reasons there’s something about winter that makes me lean towards the more furious and frosty spectrum of my black metal listening habits. And this winter, Marduk, Taake, Thromesis, Inferion, Dodsverk and this, the fifth album from The Netherlands’ Sammath have all satiated my need for a more primal and  classic take on the style. However, […]