While there’s no shortage of quality bands in the overcrowded modern metal scene, it is increasingly difficult for bands to create something truly unique and original to stand out from the pack. Not to suggest there’s a lack of innovation in modern metal, but it remains refreshing when a band comes along and smacks you […]

Sweden’s Turbocharged have been around for a while now, with 4 albums and various other releases to their name. However, this is my first time hearing them, which is odd as I typically seek out anything with a HM 2 Swedish death metal guitar tone, but I missed these guys somehow. But this isn’t your […]

In my review of Falls of Rauros‘ last record, Vigilance Perennial, I stated: 1) I was listening to something special, and 2) how can that top that album (which was my number 3 album of 2017)?. Well, despite switching from perfectly suited label in Bindrune to lesser known but also solid Gilead Media, they have […]

With a name like Necromutilator, an album title like Black Blood Aggression, and songs titled “Blessed in Hellvomit”, “Putrefaction Rites”and “Black Mayhemic Torment” , you kinda know what you are getting when you hit play on the second effort from these Satan lovin’, leather clad Italians; No frills, raspy, sneering, semi bestial, blackened thrash metal, […]

Hot damn! The floor is lava, my ass. The floor is pure fucking Death Angel fire! Rest assured, the band’s newest thrash platter, Humanicide, will burn you up, consuming your pitiful little being, leaving nary a trace that your ever existed, much less mattered.  A bit much? Maybe, but Humanicide really is that good, we’re […]

Hailing from North Vancouver, Canada Angelmaker return with their third official release and this is their second full-length album-follow-up to their powerful 2015 Dissentient album. Once again independently released by the band this self-titled album sees the 6-piece deathcore act steamroll their deathcore competition.  14 songs in 49 minutes the band brings the quality and […]

2019 is turning out to be a banner year for Power Metal- all the heavy hitters like Sabaton, Gloryhammer, Battle Beast, Beast in Black and two Rhapsody related projects have all dropped excellent albums, and next week, genre grand fathers Hammerfall release a new album, and  then later this year Dwarven warriors Wind Rose drop […]

I don’t listen to much traditional or classic doom metal, but two pure-ish doom records have crossed my desk lately, Church of Bones From Poland’s Monasterium, and this the second effort from Miami’s Nixa, and this by far is the better release and a solid mix of sludge and doom to boot. Horn of the […]

Sorry for the tardy review of a 2018 release, but I just recently got a pack of CDs from new Swedish label SouthCoast Productions, and amid the second effort from Spain’s atmospheric black metal act Neptunian Sun and debut from Finland’s Motorhead lovin’ Poison Whiskey, one of the label’s other  first releases was is the […]

I’m a sucker for tech death, yet I’m also a picky bastard, all too aware of the downsides that finds bands regularly being swallowed by the pitfalls of the often maligned subgenre. The curiously named Flub arrive with their full-length debut platter of technical wizardry, compiled by current and ex members of established acts, Alterbeast, […]

The sophomore effort from Australia’s Disentomb, Misery was a very late discovery and addition to my 2014 year end list, but that won’t be an issue with the band’s stellar third effort, as I’ve had this beast for a while now, and it’s easily one of the year’s best death metal records, even as we […]

Believe it or not, deathcore is having a pretty good year in 2019: Enterprise Earth, When Plagues Collide, Ingested, Angelmaker, Organectomy (though arguably more slam) have dropped solid releases and once genre kings Whitechapel, delivered a return to form with powerfully introspective The Valley, with Carnifex, Shadow of Intent and Thy Art is Murder still to […]

I’m not familiar with Germany’s long running, female fronted black metal act Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult, so despite being apparently respected in the German scene and having been around for about 20 years, Mardom , their sixth release, is the first album or release I have heard from them. But it won’t be the last. What […]

Sxuperion is the side (main?) project of Valdur’s Lord Sxuperion , (aka Matthew Schott), and has a pretty large back catalog of releases under this moniker, including 4 albums, with this one being the fourth, but my first exposure to the project. Whereas some side projects (again, I’m not sure which is main vs side […]

Chug…chug… chug….blast…blast…blast…limbs are crushed…sinkholes erupt…lava explodes….ripped off heads…atomic blast…sky is torn…chest collapsing…atmosphere no more…planet dies……………….Yes, Devourment are back with their 5th album-Obscene Majesty, and their longest album yet at 47 minutes. They figured let us just bludgeon the listener more and more and if we do it longer than the beginning above part of this […]

Down tempo (or lazy eyed deathcore as I lovingly call it), is one of my guilty pleasures. It takes the best part of deathcore, the breakdowns, and beats them to death repeatedly for an entire album with little or no deviation. If bands like Black Tongue, Calmed By the Tides of Rain, Traitors, Falsifier and […]

Hailing from Russia, Atrophied have been around for several years and finally have released their debut album: Pendulum of Extremes.  7 songs in under a half hour, the band wastes little time with intros and gets right into a Suffocation type of blasting with “Relentless Flow”.  The blasting actually reminds me of Suffo’s second album-Breeding […]

When word of the this supergroup/side project surfaced earlier this year I immediately pre ordered the album after just hearing one song. And I’m by no means a fanboy Job For A Cowboy or The Black Dahlia Murder, but when vocalist Jon Davy and fellow JFAC guitar cohorts Alan Glassman and Tony Sannicandro team up […]

I’m new to the UKs Sathamel, but based on this, the band’s impressive debut full length album, after a few demos and a live release, they look to be a killer new black death metal act rising from the UK metal scene, despite some scandal. Apparently, the band was caught stealing material from US act […]

Ohio’s Embalmer are one of the longest running active death metal bands out there today.  Like all death metal bands that have been around for 20+ years there have been line-up changes along the way.  I’ve been an Embalmer fan since 1993 and have not looked back.  Throughout the years they have put out 2 […]

Progressive, symphonic Israeli metal band for fans of Delain, Between the Buried and Me, Dream Theater and Orphaned Land? Mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Devin Townsend, Amon Amarth, Amorphis) ? Ok, I’m interested. Scardust’s debut album, Sands of Time was originally self released in 2017, but has been picked up by M Theory Audio (Into […]

Chicagoan four-piece,  Nucleus, have returned with their sophomore LP, Entity, and while I haven’t necessarily been on pins and needles awaiting new material these past three years since their debut full-length, Sentient, I have been looking forward to seeing where these cosmic laced death dealers would take their brand of brutality with future releases. Sentient […]

Much like my recent discovery of Blind Guardian, I was a late bloomer when it came to Sweden’s divisive war/history themed power metal vanguards Sabaton. It wasn’t until I randomly heard “Winged Hussars” (arguably still my favorite Sabaton track) from 2016s The Last Stand on a random spotify playlist that I became hooked. I grabbed […]

The ups and downs of melodic death metal have been well documented in these pages, as well as elsewhere, so I won’t bore you with the current state (clue-its down), but with In Flames‘ latest release, I The Mask, not sucking, there could be life left in the genre yet. And here comes Luxembourg’s Feradur […]

There are things that should not go together but some how, despite all odds, work: Peanut Butter and Jelly, French Fries and Milkshake, Chicken and Waffles, Deep fried things that should not be deep fried (God bless America!) , the list goes on. But one element added to metal can that should not work but […]