Official statement from OBSCURA: “After a six-year break, legendary German guitarist Christian Münzner (ETERNITY’S END, PARADOX, ALKALOID, ex- NECROPHAGIST, ex- SPAWN OF POSSESSION) has rejoined the German progressive death metallers OBSCURA as a permanent member. Münzner, known for his virtuoso guitar playing in extreme metal, joined OBSCURA in 2008 and recorded the band’s critically acclaimed […]

Ho Hum, another Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Revolting, Ribspreader,  The Grotesquery, Down Among the Dead Men) project. Let’s see who he has joined up with this time shall we?  Well, we have Wombbath’s Håkan Stuvemark on vocals and guitars, Jon Skäre of Defiatory on drums and Mathias Back from Fimbultyr on bass (what, no Jonny Pettersson?????). […]

With being involved in the music scene for so long both as a musician and a writer I still get stoked over the smallest things and am very thankful for some of the bands I have interviewed and reviewed over the years.  I have been fortunate to have reviewed all the Thanatos reissues as well […]

We all know who Alestorm are by now and what style of ‘love it or hate it’ pirate based thrash heavy metal they play, but I had an unnerving bad feeling about Alestorm’s sixth album before I even heard some of the songs. 2017s No Grave But the Sea was another solid effort of pirate […]

Here’s is more excellent Finnish black metal from Purity Through Fire to go along with Kryptamok’s superb Verisaarna . This time in the form of the fine debut EP from the 5 piece collective known as Nôidva (which has members of The Watcher, Herr De Qual, Sacrificium Carmen, and others). Not as vitriolic or frosty […]

With over 10 years (and counting) as an IT professional, I was definitely intrigued when combing the albums to review here at TOTD, and saw one called Master Boot Record.  I was like “wait a second (as my IT nerd-dom kicked in)… that’s an interesting name for a band.”  Without reading too much I previewed […]

Ever have frostbite? Ever touch dry ice? Ever touch something so cold, your skin blistered up? Well, if you handle the debut album from Finland’s Kryptamok, you very well might experience those things, as it’s a brilliantly frosty, nasty display of second wave black metal. The brain child of Hex Inferi, formerly of Finnish black […]

Talk about a surprise band for me. This 4-piece British band has been around for close to 20 years, flying under my radar as they have released 4 prior albums to this fifth one Oak, Ash & Thorn. Dark Forest play a brand of Heavy/Power Metal. Think early Iron Maiden mixed with early Fates Warning […]

To this day, I still absolutely love Naglfar’s first two albums and Vittra and Diabolical remain two of my very favorite 90s melodic black metal albums. And while 2003 Sheol was a worthy follow up, with the departure of vocalist Jens Ryden, the band fell into a bit of a rut with subsequent albums  Pariah, […]

Here’s a little atmospheric, shoe-gazy, post rock serenity to break up the death and black metal by way of UK collaboration Dawnwalker, a project featuring members of UK acts Sacred Son (who you may remember for making metal headlines for their album cover a few years ago), Pijn, Metasoma, Gold Baby and a host of […]

From the promotional email: “For fans of Gorefest, Entombed, Bolt Thrower, Grave“ Fucking sold. OK, so the promotional email might have been a bit of a stretch, but aren’t they all?  And it certainly got me to check out the debut fro Switzerland’s Mnemocide (‘death of memory’). Entombed and Bolt Thrower might be a bit […]

Necrowretch, from France, return with their fourth long-player, The Ones From Hell. I have been a huge fan of the band since their ripping 2013 debut Putrid Death Sorcery and have reviewed all their albums and interviewed singer/guitarist Vlad years ago. Their last album Satanic Slavery was a massively intense album-and saw the band break […]

Have you seen those “Gonna tell my kids this was…” memes? Here’s a pretty good one. Here’s another OK example. This one is just, well, perfect. Anyway, if SOMEHOW I make it through this shit show and haven’t been rendered impotent by nuclear fallout or Lysol injection or whatever other goddamn plague is waiting on […]

It would be easy and somewhat lazy to call Germany’s Asenblut (roughly meaning ‘Aesir’s blood’)  an Amon Amarth rip off, as they are a quality melodic death metal band with a little more black metal thrown in to their blood pumping, viking/pagan assault. But fuck it, I’m lazy , so…..they are an Amon Amarth rip […]

By the time you read this, the latest album from Katatonia will have already been on the streets for a couple weeks. I’m sure you’ve read some reviews by now and those are most likely from fan boys or former fan boys. I must give you a fair warning I am no such person. If […]

Lets get one thing out of the way first, I’m not Engutturalment Cephaloslamectomy over and over in this review, from now on its EC, get over it. Second thing that  I should address is that Indiana’s EC, while a Slam band of the slammiest order, it’s immediate from opener “Worthless Intro You Will Skip”, that […]

While it certainly never went away, the modern rise to prominence of the old-school Stockholm Death Metal sound is a welcome return for the world of extreme music. For me, those familiar buzzsaw tones and pummeling grooves are like being wrapped in a flannel blanket in front of an open fire, with a cup of […]

I decided to check out the promo from Texas’s I Am Destruction, as it was a Unique Leader release, and that’s usually a fire hit. Also, this band and features guitarist Paul Dundas, who used to play is fellow Texans  I Am, who I recently discovered and really liked, hoping for a similar styled and […]

Viogression hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, began in the hey day of death metal and although they released a second album in 1992: Passage, and the album suffered a lot from production and song writing issues, their crowning achievement is the 1991 debut – Expound and Exhort.  A 12 song album that mixed a blazingly heavy […]

For a few albums now, England’s co-god fathers of Doom metal (along with My Dying Bride and back then, Anathema) have, like My Dying Bride, successfully mixed their old doom/death sound and their more commerical, mid era Depeche Mode plod, peaking with 2015s The Plague Within, where vocalist Nick Holmes even brought back death metal […]

En Ergô Einai is the second album from this atmospheric black metal duo from Switzerland consisting of Berg (All instruments) and Fluss (vocals, lyrics) and boy is it good, I mean really fucking good. Of course, you will only enjoy this as much as me if you really like the shriller melodic black metal stylings […]

When one thinks of the phrase Cemetery Filth, what picture forms? For me, I think of that Linnea Quigley graveyard scene in “Return of the Living Dead.” If you’ve seen it, you know the one. For others, I’m sure it’s quite different. When it comes to music, you’re probably thinking of some grimy, slimy, disgusting […]

Redundant Protoplasm hailing from Virginia Beach are a young goregrind band.  If you cannot pronounce the song title names then yes the particular band has done their homework.  “Truncated Ileostomy/Terratoma Dizygotician” starts off this tongue-twister of 13 tracks of puking, vomitous, farting, blasting madness.  Vocals alternating between high and lows and at times having a […]

It’s been 6 years since Milwaukee’s Ara released Destroyer of Worlds, and although guitarist Jerry Hauppa (who once wrote for this very site) remained busy with the likes of Steel Iron, Northless and Prezir,(sadly his instrumental project, Concentric is no more) it’s a new Ara record I’ve been waiting for from Mr Hauppa and co. […]

Nothing like a little world chaos and a global pandemic to really get the blood pumping, amiright?! Maybe it’s just the lingering threat of societal collapse talking, but I think crust and grindcore is really on the cusp of having a moment. It’s that raw mix of anxiety-ridden rage, irremovable pessimism, and willingness to watch […]