After a relatively uninspiring start with 2005s War Metal, Colorado’s Cobalt upped their game and became one of the darlings in the USBM genre with 2007s Eater of Birds and 2009s Gin, as good of a duo of releases that any USBM band had or has released. Both blurred lines of what black metal could and […]

Kicking it since 1999, Spain’s best and most brutal band Wormed, have had their fair share of ups and downs.  After several high profile demos, the band released Planisphærium in 2003.  To say this album was phenomenal is an understatement.  I did not find out about this gem of a band until after this album […]

You add symphonic keyboards to any kind of metal, and for the most part I’ll dig it. Add them to a blistering tech death/black metal sound and me love you long time. Such is the case with South Carolina’s Enthean, a new -ish trio and their impressive self released debut album. With a tech death backbone […]

Lets face it, the times, they are a changing. Nothing gold can stay, right? While this is true of most things here on this floating ball of water and rock we call home, metal is once again a stand out, an anomaly, a mystery of sorts, continually proving that the genre is alive and well, […]

When it comes to death dealin’ doom metal and steroid pumped 70s riffs, never turn your back on the Steel City of Pittsburgh, man.  Spawning some of my favorite riff welders of all-time including Dream Death, Penance, Argus, Molasses Barge, Satanic Bat, Iron Crown, Vulture and many, many more past and present; there’s a tight […]

Every time a new Aborted album comes around, I can liken it to another output from Napalm Death, in which the question inevitably gets asked:  these dudes have been around forever, can they still bring the pain with the same piss ‘n vinegar of previous outputs?  I can say that for Retrogore the answer is […]

Unique Leader looks to be having the same sort of outlandishly good year as it had in 2014 with the likes of  Ohmnihilty,  Inherit Disease, Ahtme,  Omaphagia, and The Zenith Passage so far, and then you have the upcoming monster from Katalepsy still yet to come. But I’m pretty confident in stating that this will […]

The post-apocalyptic din made by the French sado-machinists in Autokrator on their self-titled debut turned quite a few heads last year, including mine. It was one of the most jarring, oppressive recordings ever to assault my eardrums. I feel like my hearing was forever altered along with my standard for metal extremity. With an industrial […]

Here’s a fine example of how symphonic elements added to metal can truly work regardless of genre. Hailing from Seattle, and named after a 17th century Demonic possession event in France, The Devils of Loudon mix over the top symphonics and European melodic death/black metal melodies with modern, shreddy death metal, dare I say even deathcore- […]

Having not been familiar with Sweden’s This Ending I was quite surprised when I listened to there third full length release Garden of Death.  This Ending features members of the group A Canorous Quintet and also former drummer of Amon Amarth Fredrik Andersson.  I had to go back and listen to their 2009 effort Dead […]

The year was 2004. In Flames had released Soundtrack to Your Escape, arguably putting the final nail in the coffin of melodic death metal. A genre that had eaten itself and become synonymous with the peaking US metalcore, and the genre was now almost a parody of itself. However, there was a hero to emerge. After one EP, The Porter, 2 years earlier, Germany’s Disillusion were about to reinvigorate an entire scene with their full length debut, the aptly named Back to Times of Splendor

With 2014s excellent The Flesh Prevails, Fallujah really came into their own amid a saturated deathcore/djent core scene, forgoing the tech death forays of the debut, The Harvest Wombs in favor of a more dreamy, elegant and progressive pastures.  Well, the critical success of The Flesh Prevails was parlayed into a deal with Nuclear Blast, so […]

I had zero expectations for this release: French melodic death metal from a year ago with odd moniker. But seeing as Finisterian Dead End, who released War Inside‘s solid SUTURE recently, picked this up, I thought I would give it a fair shake, and I’m glad I did, as it delivered an energizing, reinvigorating take on […]

Holy shit! I’m not sure what I was really expecting from Hemotoxin, being I had never heard them before, and I was going into their sophomore album, Biological Enslavement, completely blind (deaf?) to what they were about; but I’ll be damned if Hemotoxin have not only crafted a righteously, kick-ass album in Biological Enslavement, but […]

Los Angeles’ The Zenith Passage debut Solipsist on presents a forty minute clinic of technical death metal.  Featuring former and current members of Fallujah, Oblivion, All Shall Perish and The Faceless these guys definitely have a great deal of time in on their instruments and that is demonstrated right away on the opening track  “Holographic […]

Oh boy. Here’s one that’s going to get the metal heads’ hackles up and get my credibility absolutely shot. In theory I have no business liking this, it’s a Spanish band calling themselves ‘Flamencore’ and it mixes a ton of styles that I would usually despise; it’s got the bass heavy nu metal chug of […]

If Vertikal and its companion piece Vertikal II were Cult of Luna’s final, triumphant shout, then it’s poetic that silence followed afterwards. The band has created a career from the interplay between thunderous, violent peaks, and soft, hypnotic lulls. All the same, I was disappointed to learn that there’d be no more brilliant and mesmerizing […]

Transcending Obscurity continues to develop, distribute, promote and release home grown talent  giving us fine bands like Strangulate, Biopsy, Rectified Spirit Diabolus Arcanium,  and now the debut from Mumbai’s Primitiv. The aptly named Primitiv is not doing anything new. They play a very simple form of Jungle Rot/Six Feet under mid paced chugging, death metal. Its’ got deep burly vocals,  a […]

Want old school death metal? Here you go. A Compilation of all the demo and split tracks Greece’s Abyssus released prior to their fine 2015 full length debut Into the Abyss. 16 tracks, a bunch of covers and a whole lot of analog, musty, thrashy death metal goodness. India’s Transcending Obscurity is turning into a solid […]

Well this was quite a pleasant surprise a few months ago when Century Media announced they had secured the rights to the cult death/thrashers material and working in conjunction with Morbid Saint would release a deluxe discography, compiling all of the band’s released material onto 2 cds. The last reissue, the band released themselves, on […]

I have reviewed and covered metal from all from all four corners of the earth, especially from South America, but I think this is the first album I have covered from Peru. And everything about the release screams generic; from the band name, album name and ‘shocking’ artwork. But this second effort from the band is actually […]

Since 1997, Stockholm d-beat masters Victims have carved themselves an immovable position in the crust punk underground and for me to sit here and tell you the history of the band I’d be wasting my time.  They do a better job of it on their very own websites, so why should some schmuck like me […]

The lone traveler on the cover of Arktis, Ihsahn’s sixth solo release, may as well be the man himself. Ever since departing Emperor, Ihsahn has charted his own paths across rough and largely unknown terrain. Previous album Das Seelenbrechen veered off into particularly strange and challenging territory – even for me, a die-hard fan of his work […]

I know many readers will roll their eyes at a release such as this, but this is for the few folks that enjoy the styling of After the Burial, Painted In Exile (new album hurry up and get here already!), Fallujah, Viljharta,  Born of Osiris, Aegaeon, 7 Horns 7 Eyes,  Within the Ruins and other synth heavy, modern ‘core’ or ‘djent’ […]

Here is a group that I am excited to see are still around and making cool music. Minnesota’s Gracepoint have been on my radar since I first heard their first album Science of Discontent that came out back in 2000. These guys play a unique style of Progressive metal that is not in any way […]