In May of last year, I review’s Skam’s Sounds of Disease – an album that perfectly encapsulated the times we were living in. A blistering, manic foray into a world of mental anguish and instability that just seemed more and more an appropriate soundtrack as the year went on. Nearly a year later, things on […]

The Lion’s Daughter is likely a lioness. Unless the lion bred with another big cat, like a tiger, and the offspring was a liger. That’s objectively pretty neat. The Lion’s Daughter are also a progressive/sludge metal band from St. Louis, Missouri. We’re talking about the latter, and this is their new album (4th overall), sexily […]

Back in 2016, New Hampshire’s Vattnet Viskar looked poised to break out in a BIG friggin’ way. While genre darlings Deafheaven were indeed the face and forefront of a blooming Blackgaze scene, the Granite Staters had made some giant strides to make a name for themselves in An increasingly packed field, leading up to 2015’s […]

There are experts in Greek black metal.  I am not one of them.  But seeing In the Days of Whore pop up in promos I thought Zaratus could be a legitimate gateway into this corner of black metal, for myself and perhaps readers.  Zaratus is a great shortcut to entry because its two members are […]

Remember the doom/death metal band Sorrow from LI, New York?  I still have their demo when they were called Apparition, saw them live a few times, then they changed their name to Sorrow and put out an ep and album.  Some of my favorite music.  I became friends with the drummer, Mike, who then had me do guest vocals on […]

“Well, I don’t know how many years on this Earth I got left. I’m gonna get real weird with it.” -Frank Reynolds… and probably Vreid. On full length number 9, Vreid are back to do two things; prove sweaters are metal and get weird. After all, being cold isn’t very metal. It’s difficult to be […]

Oh goodness this is good. Er, uh, wait – I mean, “GREAT BLAZING HELLFIRE THIS IS FUCKING RIPS!” Sorry. It’s finally springtime, friends! While I personally am a very big fan of winter (an not just because it’s the GRIMMEST time of year), I have to admit that after a year of the pandemic, a […]

I don’t know how much of a movie buff you are, but ya know how every year there’s one or two movies you don’t even have to see to know they’re gonna end up winning a bunch of awards? It doesn’t really matter how good it is, or if anyone ACTUALLY likes it. Those points […]

It’s been 5 years since Dutch black metal act Kjeld (helmet? cauldron?) released the excellent Skym (though I heard it a couple of years after the release), and the band has spent their time sharpening their razor sharp form of melodic second wave black metal with a few EPs and splits in that time, and […]

Talk about a match made in heaven…….Switzerland’s  Stortregn, a formerly pure 90s melodic black metal band turned more technical, surgical, shredding death metal with some of their black metal remnants left behind, on The Artisan Era, arguably the flagship label for this style with bands like Inferi, Demon King, Enfold Darkness and such. I’ve reviewed […]

These are the kinds of reviews that are only as hard as you want to make them. Here you’ve got a band celebrating its 25th year of making music with brand new material, and over that time they’ve never really missed a step – becoming true legends and pioneers of epic, bombastic Viking metal. Sure, […]

When Niklas Sundin left Dark Tranquillity early last year, I was genuinely bummed the fuck out. Mostly, I was upset about what it might mean for a band I held near-and-dear to my heart, but I was also bummed because I’d heard Sundin’s first solo offering from side project Mitochondrial Sun and came away pretty […]

Sometimes I like my black metal delivered in epic, rangy long albums like say Kjeld’s latest offering, Harakiri For the Sky’s vast double album or Utbyrd’s majestic foray. But sometimes I like my black metal in short sharp, icy bursts, like the debut EP, from New Finnish black metal duo Sarvekas, which is a perfect […]

The number-one rule in creating success, is to fully commit to whatever it is you’re trying to achieve. Trying to be successful in your career? Put in the extra hours and make yourself available whenever called upon. Want to be the best player on the field? Hit the gym and run practice drills like they’re […]

Germany, as usual, is host to yet another stellar band.  Wolves Den burst onto the scene in 2015 with their debut album Deus Vult.  A brutal display of black metal.  Due to the album being released without a record label, the band opting to independently release it, their great debut went relatively unnoticed, which is […]

Anyone who really knows me, knows I like it fast, raw, dirty and just this side of sadistic… What? No, get your fucking head out of the gutter ya dork. No, I’m not talking about my relations with your mom (heh heh), I’m talking of course of Japan’s young bringers of Blackened Speed/Thrash Evil, and […]

Hulder? I don’t even know her… Now that I have that joke out of the way and you’re recovering from squirting vodka through your nose (burns, doesn’t it), let’s talk about BM. USBM, to be specific. I purchased and somewhat recently finished reading Decibel’s USBM book. To my dismay, the book itself was not about […]

It’s always fun reading through the greetings that bands, promoters and labels write when sending out promotional materials. There’s a lot of “ETERNAL HAILS!” and “GREETINGS!” and “Dear media partners,” followed by some description like “born from the feral wastelands of Poland…” or superlative tropes like “the metal underground’s best kept secret…” yadda yadda yadda. […]

The craziness of 2020 just kept rolling in. Did it not? Hell, everytime I thought I was about to get somewhat caught up in my “real” job and life, another curve ball of some shape or form got thrown my direction, ultimately taking time away from one thing to give to another. Nine times out […]

It can be so easy to fall into a rut when it comes to discovering new music. You get comfortable in a certain lane, start seeking out a particular style of music, and next thing you know it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy where everything new you check out just ends up sounding really familiar, like you’re […]

Wisconsin based,  metal collaboration (Shroud of Despondency‘s Rory Heikkila, Khazaddum’s Luka Đorđević and Enabler’s Brian Serzynski), Prezir (Serb-Croatian for ‘contempt’) is back with album number 2 after dropping a vicious little ep in 2017 and a solid full length debut on 2018 and the now trio, appears to really have further honed in on a […]

Sometimes, timing is everything. A song, an album, even a single melody, given the right circumstances or moment in time, can leave an indelible mark on your life. Nearly a year ago, such an album was added to a lifelong playlist of works that will forever hold a special place in my heart – Cattle […]

“Is this too much? Is this not enough? If I don’t cover up, Does that make it my fault?”  OOF. For some time now, Svalbard – led by vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Serena Cherry, have been proving time and time again that real life is far more horrifying and brutal than any fictitious song about […]

Sweden’s Mörk Gryning  (‘dark dawn’) were in a bit of a grey area coming up in the late 90s early 00s Scandinavian melodic black metal scene. Never achieving the status of say Dissection or Naglfar or the underground gem status of say Catamenia or  Vinterland years later, but delivering 5 decent albums arguably peaking with […]

I’m not sure what made me check out the promo from Glasgow’s Necrocracy (the Exhumed album?). Bland cover, weird band name (I guess the band started out more death metal, which makes the name make a little more sense), unassuming album title, released last year digitally and re-released on CD earlier this summer by a […]