California’s Condemned are back after 6 long years with their 3rd brutal offering, His Divine Shadow.  Original member, guitarist, Steve Crow, had to replace a lot of members years ago.  I saw them live on their tour with Wormed, and Cognitive, a few years back and they ripped the place apart.  Guest vocalist, at the […]

As I stated in my review of 2015s Forensic Nightmares, it would be easy to simply look at Cut Up as Vomitory 2.0, seeing as the band is comprised of 3/4 ex Vomitory members (drummer Tobias “Tobben” Gustafsson, guitarist Anders Bertilsson, and vocalist/bassist Erik Rundqvist),  and you know what? When it’s this solid, that’s perfectly OK. Still delivering the […]

Whoa! Here is a stunning little 4 song EP from Spain’s Aversio Humanitas (Aversion to Humanity) a completely new band to me, but hopefully one I will be hearing more from in the future. The Madrid trio has one full length debut and some splits/EPs under their belt, but this should be the release that gets […]

Black Bow Records strike again with another coffin slab of night black madness, this time with London’s sludge-coated, blackened d-beaters Deadwound. Identity Shapes is the band’s debut; five cuts of internal organ rearranging madness with unorthodox structures, melodies and madness. The clearly picked lead licks have a weird Duane Denison tonality (Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, etc.) […]

I’m not sure what’s worse; that I know exactly what this is going to sound like before I it play or that I’m still going to enjoy it. I mean is there a label that has a more predictable output that Comatose Records? And I mean that in a good way. You know exactly what […]

Usually when perusing the promo portal I skip over reissues and re-releases to focus my attention on new stuff. However, upon discovering Willowtip records was repackaging the three full-length albums from UK’s highly innovative extreme metal duo Slugdge and dubbing it The Cosmic Cornucopia, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to delve in and spread the […]

Finland’s 2 piece monstrosity, Lantern, return with their second abum, II: Morphosis, after four years since their debut, Below.  If you’re lucky enough to have the Subterranean Effulgence ep, in your collection, consider yourself lucky, it’s a great release.  Opening with “Black Miasma”, I am noticing some Dark Throne type of sounds going on here.  […]

Those following this project know that Memoriam is a UK death metal super group of sorts born of sadness, loss and friendship. With the passing of Bolt Thrower drummer Martin “Kiddie” Kearns in 2015 and the death of Benediction’s Frank Healy’s father  just 3 weeks later, former members of both bands came together to form a cathartic […]

I’ve been keeping tabs on this Minnesota act since the demise of With Dead Hands Rising, one of the oos early and better deathcore/metalcore acts, as they feature some former WDHR members. And finally they have released a follow up to 2014s self released debut,  Poison of the Earth, and it’s quite the follow up. […]

Released in 2015, England’s pissed off metal crew Bloodyard and their second EP Darker Rage is just making the review rounds now since they’re fresh off a festival appearance. Word has it that they are prepping a brand new release and there’s always excitement to be had whenever you discover a band that you’ve never […]

So in a recent mail package from the always reliable FDA records, I got the promos for the new Rude and Wound albums, and you’d think that in itself would be enough reason to be excited. However, tucked away in the package was a CD from a band called FUBAR, a band I was not […]

Patrik Svendsen, vocalist and guitarist for Norway’s Tonic Breed recently contacted Erik from TOTD to request I review their Outsold Album.  Erik passed along the information and before long Patrik and I were in communication and he graciously sent me their debut album, On The Brink of Extinction and Outsold, their newest album.  No offense […]

Ever since Metallica’s infamous 1991 album, self titled albums have always made me a bit leery. They always seem to scream sell out, contract out out or flat out of ideas. Throw in the simple ‘just our logo’ cover, the 10th album, and a song from a prior stopgap EP, and my spidey sense is […]

The last couple of years have seemed like a long haul for Columbus, Ohio’s endlessly touring hard rockers Lo-Pan. My pal and the band’s longtime riff machine Brian Fristoe was a hard loss to swallow and his departure was the first time I doubted the boys’ decisions. Putting aside my own friendships with the group […]

I vaguely remember seeing these guys pop up on my Facebook feed a year or so ago for the video for “Possessed“.  I recall the fairly average metalcore, but loving the female vocals and keyboards of Aimy Miller. So when this promo showed up,  I have to admit along with Miller, it was morbid curiosity […]

If anything could be said about Epoch, it would have to be the fact that the band is a bit of a mystery. Being wholly unfamiliar with the group or its sole album Sacrosanct, (originally a digital only release in 2015; now seeing a physical release this year, via Lavadome Productions) I tried to do […]

Toxic, polluted scum sludge from the UK usually always meets or exceeds my expectations and this brain-rotted quintet from Portsmouth serve up just the kind of humanity hatin’ nihilism that I can always get behind. After a corrosive EP, Grim Ravine drops an LP with just as many tracks. The Light is from Below is […]

One of the better and most consistent band currently atop the Swedish death metal revival is Germany’s Revel In Flesh. As prolific as they are awesome, the band is now four albums in, in just 6 years, each as good as the last. The latest release, Emissary of All Plagues, was released late last year on Cyclone Empire and sees the band

Finland’s Gorephilia return with their second full-length album, after 5 years.  Their first official release was the outstanding  Ascend to Chaos ep in 2011, which they bested a year later with their debut album, Embodiment of Death.  Severed Monolith has a very Morbid Angelish sound to it.  I am reminded of Morbid’s Blessed are the […]

Thrash in Santa Cruz?!? Who would have thought, but I jest. Those that are aware of their geography know the proximity of Santa Cruz to the bay area in Calif. Hallowed ground for many a metal group, so there is plenty of likelihood of seepage and runoff of all that is Metallica, Exodus, Testament, Death […]

From the late 60s carrying through into modern times, Germany, has been a hotbed for hard-edge experimental music. Be it the throttling Hammond organs and aggressive soul vocals of Birth Control’s Sabbath meets Doors styled subsonics, the snarling post-punk of Neu!, Spancer’s twin bassed sludge sprawl or Black Wasteland’s roaring thrash doom…let’s put it this […]

For 27 years, MY DYING BRIDE from West Yorkshire have been the voice of the hopeless and broken, combining haunting sounds with crushing misery and melancholy. With their signature sound they’ve shaped the doom metal scene like barely any other act and integrated both soft violin melodies and violent death metal growls into their music, […]

As I still wade through 2016’s releases, I try to review stuff that I liked, was worth my time or an actual CD was sent. One such release that crossed all three boxes was the debut full length album from Finland’s Illusions Dead. With an odd moniker, generic art and the dreaded black/death metal tag, […]

Alright, we are just ending February and the tech death is going to just keep coming this year and I would like to alert you of a band that has a dynamite sound, Deivos. I had to go back and listen to their 2015 release Theodicy which at the time I thought was an outstanding […]

So Maurizio Iacono and his Kataklysm crew are back with album number 3 of his Roman themed, epic, symphonic death metal project, Ex Deo. And while album number 2, Caligula was better than the debut, Romulus, and album number 3 is similarly incremental in its improvement, I’m still not enamored with a project that I really […]