I originally started this off with a silly intro, but it’s not fitting. This is serious, bone-shaking death metal, and everyone should pay attention. Not that Tzompantli needed to improve, but they sure as shit did. On their second album, Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force, these gentlemen have knocked it out of the park […]

I was a fan of Grey Sky Fallen’s last album, from 2020, Cold Dead Lands.  I enjoyed their take on doom-death metal, alongside some progressive influences.  I did not realize at the time the band had four prior albums, a plethora of EPs, and had been around since the 90’s. Molded by Broken Hands is […]

What’s the heaviest band you’ve ever heard? Sunn O)))? Black Sabbath? Electric Wizard? I’m talking about music that is slower than a Sloth crossing a road. Dooooom! But where Mudshow is concerned… they mix into their music spoken word poetry from Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘A Season in Hell’ which [successfully] creates a foreboding atmosphere. This is […]

If you fell asleep at the end of 2023 then you would have missed up-and-coming band Red Vinter’s We Built Our Own Death Machine demo, which literally dropped, right before 2024.  While it’s a demo, any release that drops at the end of a year is dead in the water, so to speak.  The band […]

Is this the Death/Doom album of the year? That’s for you to decide, bitch. However, Death/Doom is absolutely my wheelhouse and I have been underwhelmed by a lot of the output so far this year. At this time last year, I felt the same, and then Mother of Graves punched me in the gut. So, […]

Another year, another excellent release from one of my favorite old-school death metal bands, Heads for the Dead. 5 songs in 24 minutes isn’t much, but maybe it will tide us all over until the next one arrives. All you have to ask yourselves is if they still sound like Heads for the Dead. The […]

The creators of cavernous unholy death metal, Incantation, once again return to the table with Unholy Deification.  A 10-song 41-minute album that is not quite on par with their last album, Sect of Vile Divinities, which I reviewed three years ago, and which I hailed as one of the finest albums they ever crafted. One […]

Ocean of Grief is a melodic doom death metal band hailing from Greece and I have sat on this release for a bit before reviewing it for a number of reasons.  I love doom-death metal and some bands embrace the sorrow, depression and lonely atmospheres more than others.  Sometimes when these types of emotions are […]

There’s a couple of reasons I checked out the debut from British newcomers Ageless Summoning. 1) it’s on Dark Descent Records. ’nuff said. 2), the promo material dropped Steve Tucker-era Morbid Angel and Immolation as influences, and certainly when the opening lurch of “Usurper of the Void” and its otherworldy  Trey Azagthoth solo cemented that […]

Far be it from me to understand  how or why certain bands make it bigger than others, why artists deserving of much more in the way of accolades and acclaim just never quite rise to certain levels of success. I’m sure the truth is probably that any number of factors come into play, not the […]

I really enjoyed Portugal’s Oak’s debut album, in 2019 – Lone.  As one would expect with funeral death/doom metal the songs are ultra-long.  The debut album had four songs and the album length exceeded 50 minutes.  Lots of atmospherics and plodding and bludgeoning heaviness.  The music never got into that sludgy type of style, just […]

I haven’t been super excited about death/doom metal and its subgenres, for a while now, heck I completely missed the Shape of Despair album from last year, and they were one of my absolute faves in the genre back in the day. Heck, the new Insomnium, barely registered with me. But in 2020, Colorado’s Fires […]

Many bands choose the self-released route nowadays, and I’m opting to believe Shores of Null is one of them. They’re far too consistently superb to not have attracted some attention from the larger metal labels, such as Century Media, Season of Mist, or Nuclear Blast. Their 4th full-length, The Loss of Beauty reinforces this. Their […]

I initially grabbed this promo strictly due to the striking cover photo (courtesy of Tatiana Lebedeva), literally not knowing anything about the band or album, other than that it mentioned depressive and one-man black metal in the promo blurb. So with the band’s moniker, album title, and song titles like “I Choose to Die”, No […]

I’ve been working through writer’s block for months now, and nowhere near my normal standard of productivity. I’m at the stage where I am wondering if I have anything to add to the heavy music stratosphere, or if anyone cares about my voice. You know, existential bullshit. Anyway, here I am, a couple of dick […]

Intro, take 2. Let’s talk about some filthy, nasty, ass sweat-inducing death metal. Last year, I had several albums that could fit this description on my year-end list, with a few just short of it. I think the only band in the genre I did not see live last year was Tribal Gaze, but maybe […]

Death/doom is my wheelhouse. This year at MDF, I was finally able to see one of my favorite bands, November’s Doom. During the middle of the day, no less. That was a bucket list item. So, when a band of which I have never heard lists them as influenced by, or for fans of, well, […]

My friends, we are inching ever-closer to that most wonderful time of year again when you can actually go outside and, like, EXIST without instantly bursting into flames. When the air is crisp and everything doesn’t smell like either hot piss or cooked manure. The modern human is not made to endure summer. Summer arrives […]

Thronehammer’s vocalist Kat Shevil Gillham sings and drums on the debut EP, from UK’s Enshroudment.  I’m really an old school doom death fan. I do enjoy new bands in this genre but bands like Morgion, Anathema, Paradise Lost, Dream Death– all their earliest releases, as well as My Dying Bride, all hold a special place in my heart. This 3 song […]

Detroit’s death/doom mongers Temple of Void has parlayed 3 solid albums (notably the last 2 efforts,  2017s Lords of Death and 2020s The World That Was on Shadow Kingdom Records) into a deal with heavyweight label Relapse Records. And as you’d expect on a jump to the ‘majors’, the band has upped the ante, but […]

I’m surprised how low profile a release from a band comprised of death metal legend Chris Reifert (Autopsy, ex Abscess, ex The Ravenous) and his new Autopsy bass player, Greg Wilkinson (Brainoil, Deathgrave, ex Graves at Sea) has been. Even for Peaceville. I wouldn’t have even heard of this project if it wasn’t for a […]

Finland’s Desecresy return with their 7th full length album Unveil in the Abyss. Those unfamiliar with the band must know Tommi Grönqvist is a one man band. He plays all the instruments, does all the vocals and this talented bastid also does all the artwork. Their album covers always having a main color theme and […]

Finland’s Desolate Shrine fourth album, Deliverance from the Godless Void from 2017 was and still is a great album,  and five years later here I am reviewing their fifth album Fires of the Dying World 7 songs in 46 minutes. Actually 6, since the opening track is an intro and it’s like a moody classical […]

Up until 2017s The aptly named The Dismal Circle, I was unfamiliar with Germany’s death-doom veterans Ophis (‘snake’), but that album was a solid effort with some suitably crumbling, hefty death/doom that had strains of classic Morgion engrained in the moping lumbers. And that has continued for album number 5, and is possibly even a […]

Houston’s Malignant Altar‘s Retribution of Jealous Gods demo from 2019 perked my ears up quite a bit. I knew the band was going to be a force to be reckoned with. The 3 songs were heavy, dark n cavernous and really filthy and grimy death metal. Realms of Exquisite Morbidity is their debut album and […]