German doom overlords Black Wasteland blew me away with a pair audio gallows’ hangings; the Where Light Can Not Intrude LP and the Dehydration EP.  Capable of twin axin’ their way through forests of Lizzy, Valkyrie and Priest, filthing a path to the toughest biker bar dirt doom show (think St. Vitus, Turambar, Earthride and […]

Talk about one of the most anticipated metal releases for 2016. The hype for Hardwired… To Self-Destruct has been through the roof.  I preordered this special 3cd edition some time ago and it never reached me.  My post office could not find it and it was never delivered, yet I paid for it.  Score: Rini […]

Italy’s Lectern are a sort of a unique bunch, but not for the reasons you may be expecting but we will get to that a bit later in our review. Musically they are a fairly standard death metal band, they have all the bases covered, giving you a good cross section of early Decide, touches of […]

Hammerhands takes the atmosphere and vocal stylings of later Tom Waits records but replaces the music with widescreen desert rock and colliding waves of sandstorm sludge/hardcore.  Largo Forte is an engrossing album and delivers with frequent surprises in song composition.  Truly, I didn’t see what was coming at many points on Largo Forte and that’s […]

Due to an unfortunate and excruciating ear infection that has had me uniaural for about three months I failed to write this review in a timely fashion, for which I must apologize to the band and the band’s guests. This EP deserved a timelier addressing. Because, frankly, it smokes. It does not smoke because it […]

Holy fuck, this is some good, goddamn heavy ass shit.  Warcrab is an English sextet that plays self-proclaimed death/sludge metal and they ain’t fuckin’ joking with that labelling.  Rampaging grooves, a nice mesh of guttural growls and sickly screams, dirty speed-ups, mid-tempo double-bass blasts and three guitarists with two digging into the riffs while Geoff […]

When I received this promo, I questioned the need for another Dave Ingram (Benediction, Bolt Thrower, Hail of Bullets), Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Revolting, Ribspreader, Johansson & Speckmann et al) collaboration, despite my enjoyment of both guys’ previous and current projects, even more so considering they both recently collaborated on two Down Among the Dead Men albums […]

Intelligence without pretentiousness, focus, and sledgehammer sincerity. Those three qualities defined Saint Vitus when they first adopted the name in 1980 and still does through three different singers, over ten releases, and a thirty years plus long journey along the margins of mainstream music. Their influence, however, is far from marginal and extensively documented. Their […]

London’s soul cooking, noise-ridden psychedelic doom titans Sonic Mass were a complete and total happy accident for me on Bandcamp.  I couldn’t even recall to you at this point in time what exactly I was trying to find instead but one start to finish listening of You People Never Learn made a believer out of […]

BRIDE OF INSECT In 1990 Richard C, owner of Wild Rags Records, in California took a chance on Nuclear Death.  A primitive grindcore outfit, out of Arizona, fronted by a female vocalist, who played guitar and bass.  Extreme female vocalists doing grindcore, was not something that was going on during the 80’s/90’s.  Not released on […]

You know how they say your taste buds change every few years? Well I think the same is happening to my musical tastes. The debut from these Fins, Unending Degradation, made my 2013 year end list, but this year, this hulking, cavernous form of Dark Descent death metal just isn’t doing it for me. And by […]

Two months ago the Zurich, Switzerland duo Bölzer achieved somewhat of a Herculean task when they premiered the first advance track from their debut full-length “Hero”’. For a few weeks prior the storied halls of heavy metal social media had been in a tizzy over the first material to surface from Metallica’s imminent new album and […]

  It’s all too easy to be sceptical about a one man progressive metal band with the audacity to release a fully fledged concept album, stretching across an exhausting 70 plus minute duration. However, being the open-minded individual that I generally am, the challenge of absorbing this monster opus thankfully oozes rewards for the painstaking […]

First review back after a three week long hand injury, so excuse me while I pull my tricycle from underneath a wreckage of doctor bills, a limper than a wet noodle wrist and a fuckin’ sling.  Hand and foot injuries are a bitch but that’s nothin’ a good riff can’t cure and New Hampshire’s druggy, […]

Well hell, this one came out of nowhere.  From the ever-popular djent style, to melodic death metal, to nu-metal, this one is all over the damn board.  And you know what, it’s also one of the most unique, and fun, albums I have listened to in a while. The first three tracks feature a djenty, […]

I did not discover Poland’s Furia until 2015 when i got around to hearing Nocel after seeing it littered on a a few 2014 year end lists. So I really can’t talk about the bands past releases and development etc, past that album and this new one, an album that appears to be even more […]

It’s rare I get to have the pleasure of reviewing all the releases from an active band.  Cognitive are one such band.  I reviewed their ep, The Horrid Swarm and interviewed guitarist Rob Wharton several years ago.  The band dropped their self-titled debut 2 years ago and I was pleasantly surprised to hear more technical […]

I have to hand it to Germany’s Finsterforst, purveyors of epic, rangy Bathory/Monnsorrow sounding viking/pagan metal. They have taken quite a gamble here with this EP and while it is hopefully a one off effort, it is certainly going to upset a lot of fans. What we have here is a release of 4 new, […]

The word super group gets thrown around a lot, but in the case of Crator, it’s pretty fitting as  Crator features Colin Marston (Gorguts, Withered, Krallice Etc) on bass, Jason Keyser (Skinless, Origin) on vocals and Jon Longstreth (Origin and everyone else) on drums. The only member who I didn’t instantly recognize is guitarist Jeff Liefer, who […]

  I can remember cruising through my local record store some 20 years ago as a young teenager and blindly purchasing Testaments Souls of Black solely on the cover art.  It was a rewarding purchase to say the least, and so began my admiration for one of heavy metals finest acts. What I now have […]

Amid all the black and death metal I get sent to review, occasionally I get some more off the wall stuff that gets my attention (i.e Duobetic Homunkulus). Here is one such release from France’s Stangala, and its not just off the wall, it’s out of the house and running naked in the yard. I really […]

Eidolon is the third overall release from New Brunswick doom bruisers Zaum and it’s certainly something different.  I must sadly declare ignorance of the debut full-length Oracles and the split with Shooting Guns, so I come into this review with negative brain cells in terms of their past work.  Opting for the increasingly popular duo […]

Khemmis made a hell of an impression when they dropped their impressive debut LP Absolution in 2015. The album was worthy of hype and praise, boasting a formidable modern doom sound comparable to the mighty Pallbearer and embellished by some sweet stoner and trad metal elements. It certainly put the Colorado lads on the map, […]

After a long hiatus, NYDM act Dehumanized finally took up shop again and in 2012 unleashed Controlled Elite, an exceptional brutal slammin’ death metal album.  4 years later, not content to rest on their laurels Dehumanized packed their crap went to Joe Cincotta’s NY studio and have recorded Beyond the Mind. This is 10 songs […]

More often than not, supergroups are a collective of guys or gals trying to get out side the box and deliver something more outside the realm of their full time endeavors as the folks try and spread their creative wings or whatever. But sometimes, one only need look at the members involved and get a […]