Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the oversexed, fast car, jumbo jet, yacht party lifestyle of a playboy heavy metal reviewer and get back to basics. You know, get back to the reason why you have an aircraft carrier full of Ferraris in the first place, check out some underground promos, and find […]

In 2020 I reviewed Seattle’s atmospheric black metal band- Izthmi’s impressive debut The Arrows of Our Ways. The band had only released a prior demo and I had never heard of them before and was blown away by the debut album. Album #2 Leaving This World, Leaving It All Behind sees the band progressing in […]

Have a seat, and grab a snack. This is gonna be a long one. Way back in 2015 I reviewed a pretty nondescript EP, Maleficium, from this New Jersey band called Lorna Shore. It was Ok, odd band name, and a few keyboards, but nothing really stood out. The same can be said for the […]

OK so we’ve got, like, 3 months left of 2022? So who knows what can happen between now and then, but whatever. I’m calling it. Blood Empire is the most fun you’re gonna get out of just 4 songs this year. This thing is a goddamn blast. I need more ASAP. Of course, anyone who’s […]

When I blindly downloaded the promo for the second album from Turkey’s Inhuman Depravity, I was fully expecting an utterly ‘broodle’ death metal onslaught of Comatose Records proportions. what I got was a far more varied and surgical old-school technical death metal record that reminded me if bands like Suffocation, Deeds of Flesh, and in […]

Singapore’s grindcore act Wormrot returns with their fourth full-length Hiss and while the band has had two previous periods of going on hiatus I would not be surprised if a third hiatus or disbanding altogether is imminent. It’s been six years since the third album Voices was released. During this time long time singer Arif […]

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I blindly hit ‘play’ on Bexadde, on Germany’s FDA Records after getting the CD in the mail along with the new Slaughterday. With that moniker, I was maybe expecting some fuzzed-out stoner doom? But I certainly not modern atmospheric/post-black metal, not exactly what FDA Records is known for. […]

Sometimes a promo comes out that I just need to review. The promo in question here is Revocation’s new slab, Netherheaven. However, it was about third or fourth in line, I thought I had a lot more time, and then the boss comes in, knocks my macaroni and cheese off my desk into my lap, […]

I reviewed UK’s Heavy/Power Metal band Dark Forest’s fifth album Oak, Ash & Thorn a few years ago. I raved about the album and now they have returned with a 5-song ep Ridge & Furrow. Opening with the longest track, “Skylark”, excellent double bass drums with the continued Iron Maiden influences all over the place with some melodic yet excellent power metal […]

I have no excuse why it has taken me to review the debut album from Baltimore’s Greylotus. I got nothing. It’s even sadder considering, I listen to it a lot, and it’s going to be a clear-cut album of the year contender for me, so let’s get to it. Basically, Greylotus’s Dawnfall is if you […]

I’m just gonna go ahead and set all my clocks back by like, I dunno, 20 or 25 years? Etsy has LOTS of Princess Diana calendars from 1998 available, so I’m well covered there. I hear JNCO jeans are sorta a thing again? So much denim. The reason for all this turn-of-the-21st-century behavior? MELODEATH IS […]

For almost a decade, German duo Slaughterday has been rendering their Autopsy worshiping ( Slaughterday is a song from the Mental Funeral album) tones with  3 albums and a couple of EPs. And with album number 4, even with the word ‘doom’ in the title, they continue that trend with another killer album. With an album […]

Nergal, the controversial frontman for black/death mainstays Behemoth is basically that kid in school who everybody thinks is kind of aloof, doesn’t talk to anyone, and people somehow like. That is until he gets his license, drives by you in his new convertible his parents bought him with the top down, hair flowing, listening to […]

Can someone in the Norfolk (UK) area please go and check on NRE? Seriously, from what I’m hearing on his sixth and final album under his And Now The Owls Are Smiling moniker, he must have undergone some drastically emotional shit since 2021s Dirges, a despondent but still atmospheric and at times melodic black metal […]

I was ready to fight to review this. Not literally, though as it would have been between myself, Frank, and Steve. I’ve met Frank and I’m more than 100% certain he could kick my ass. While I’ve not met Steve, some of the fish he’s caught rival me in size, so I’m not confident. With […]

I dunno about you, but I love the defiant underdog. There’s just something super compelling about someone or something staring in the face of inevitable defeat and devastation, and flipping it the double-birds because “go fuck yourself that’s why.” I admire the hell out of that spirit. To that end, one of history’s most chronicled […]

I randomly grabbed the 2018 release, Hard 2 Kill, in a used bin back in 2018, and was pleasantly surprised with the Southern groovy take on death metal/thrash from these Texans. But I never really appeared on my radar again until I saw the fucking epic album cover for their newest effort, and thought “Oh […]

I reviewed Megadeth’s last album, Dystopia on here, when it was first released. Chris Adler, was still playing drums for Lamb of God and his drum work on Dystopia definitely increased their speed and that’s a great album. Since Dystopia, Dave Mustaine went through more lineup shifts. Longtime bassist David Ellefson was fired for getting […]

This is an instance where I actually bit off far less than I can chew. Damn it, I was really looking forward to a new full-length from Xenobiotic after really enjoying 2020s Mordrake and my body was FUCKING READY. Apparently Xenobiotic weren’t and that’s kind of a problem. Anyway, this little teaser, presumably before their next […]

I reviewed Phoenix’s Necrambulant debut album, Infernal Infectious Necro-Ambulatory Pandemic, on Lacerated Enemy Records in 2013. I reviewed that album for allabouttherock.uk and went on how much I loved their brutal slam death metal style. They reminded me of Cephalotripsy and still do. Sludgy slam with clogged sewer pipe vocals. After the debut album, they […]

Hilning is the solo project of former Afgrund vocalist/guitarist, Aldriendir (aka Andreas Baier), and as if you could not tell from the cover art, it’s a radical departure from Afgrund’s savage, Nasum-styled grindcore. Unfortunately, where Afgrund kicked out some pretty goddamn solid material in their 3 album existence from 2007-2012, I’m not sure Aldriendir’s foray […]

I’m sure you’re familiar with the snare crack at the beginning of Cannibal Corpse’s “Devoured by Vermin”, 1,2,3, 4… BLAAAAAARGGGGHHHH! Well, that’s how Sedimentum start off their debut Suppuration Morphogenesiaque, with a quick snare count and then the brutality of “Krypto Chronique II” KICKS (yes capitals) into automatic, 0-60 overdrive. The track slows to a […]

This is probably going to sound really stupid, which is something I’m not exactly unaccustomed to doing so… Oh well. It’s easy to forget sometimes that our favorite bands and musicians are, well, artists! In every sense of the word. They create, the evolve, they strive to grow and follow their artistic journeys and trust […]

Hatriot’s fourth album The Vale of Shadows continues to show, as their last album, From Days unto Darkness, they can stand on their own without Cody (bass/Vox) and Nick’s (drums) father Zetro Souza fronting the band. For those who are unaware Zetro is the singer for Exodus and after getting booted from Exodus after the Tempo of the Damned album partnered with his kids and […]

While a Christian metal label, Rottweiler Records has been home to slightly more unorthodox Christian metal, mostly straying away from the heavily populated metalcore/deathcore realms reserved for Facedown and Strikefirst records (that said, the recent Voluntary Mortification does fit in that genre). They have been able to locate Christian brutal death metal bands ( Taking […]