This past year has surely been a busy year for Mr. Patrick Mameli, singer and guitarist for Pestilence.  Their first four albums were remastered and reissued in deluxe formats and I reviewed all four of them here.  Perfect reissues!  Patrick has assembled a brand new Pestilence line-up:  Calin Paraschiv on lead guitar, Tilen Hudrap on […]

Delaware’s Scorched impressed me when I saw them live, recently on the Morta Skuld and Embalmer tour and they were cool dudes. Kick ass tour!! I picked up the debut album, Echoes of Dismemberment. This album destroys and I immediately recognized a bunch of their songs, from the live show. The singer Matt Kapa gave […]

For three albums now, Finland’s Decaying have delivered their Bolt Thrower/Asphyx take on war themed death metal with solid results. But with the switch from Hellthrasher Productions to FDA Records, the band appear to have deiced to change things up a bit and spread their creative wings a little. Not that the band still does […]

I’ve been a big fan of Malaysia’s Humiliation, brand of war inspired death metal, for a number of years. They release an album every year, along with some splits to boot. The band is always writing new music. As we speak they are writing their 9th album. Their brand of Bolt Thrower/classic Obituary/Hail of Bullets […]

I’ve been impressed with new label Raw Skull Recordz and their early releases from Bullcreek and Graceless, but the debut full length  from Sweden’s Gravestone is clearly the label’s best effort so far (at least until the new Just Before Dawn?) . You know exactly what you are getting here as the band features Penki Samuelsson from […]

If you have ever asked yourself “what happened if black one man black metal was rendered with a classic Swedish death metal guitar tone?”, Frenchman Stephane Thirion is here to answer your question with his self released third album,  A fleur de peau (‘Sensitive’? ‘On edge’?). First off , I was thankful this wasn’t a Kataklysm […]

It’s been 5 years since Death Strike, the solid second effort from this Dismember/Grave worshiping Dutch act, and although this was released on vinyl and digital last year, I waited with baited breath for the CD version from FDA Records, and it was worth the wait. The formula is the same; well executed Dismember meets  […]

Hailing from Wichita, Kansas, Bestialord is a killer new project from band members that served time in kick ass outfits Manilla Road and Sanctus Infernum.  Guitarist/vocalist Mark Anderson played on one of my favorite latter days MR records Spiral Castle.  Bringing along his SI bandmate Chris Johnson on drums with bassist Rob Harris completing the […]

Milwaukee Wisconsin’s Morta Skuld released a monstrous debut album in 1993, Dying Remains and I listened to it constantly.  Beyond quality death metal, with some thrash metal tendencies, but leaning more towards the brutal side of things, like Demolition Hammer and eventually some Solstice influence.  Well fast forward 24 years later and I get to […]

I was fairly impressed with Discreation’s 2015 effort Procreation of the Wretched , a solid European death metal record from a group of Germans I had never heard of. The album took a while to get going, but its last 2/3 was pretty damn good. End of Day, does not take a while to get […]

There are some similarities between Germany’s Corrosive and Sweden’s Entrails. Both were active in the 90s but never really became fully productive until the reformed on the 00s. Also, both play a beefy, killer form of Old school death metal with a heavy emphasis on killer grooves and Stockholm based riffage. Corrosive isn’t quite on […]

In 2012, I covered the Slaughter on the Water III festival aboard the USS Hornet in San Francisco Bay. Yes, a death metal festival on an aircraft carrier. Actually, make that inside the hangar of an aircraft carrier, and you’d better believe that shit was loud. I got tinnitus in my balls. The day was a blur […]

Unholy rotting corpses, Batman!  Zombiefication‘s latest EP, Reaper’s Consecration, is about as gnarled and old-school Swedish as death metal gets…and these guys are from Mexico.  Viva la muerte indeed. Reaper’s Consecration consists of five tracks of gruesome death rattling rotting flesh from bone, and the killer riffs ooze forth like hot pus from infected wounds.  […]

From the always reliable FDA Rekotz come some homegrown German talent on the form of Deserted Fear and their debut album, My Empire. It’s not a pure old school record or any sort of homage but instead a modern death metal record with some tangible old school nods notably Asphyx and Vader. Sound wise, My […]

Do not assume that the lateness of this review is somehow indicative of procrastination resulting from indifference related to Abnormality’s Contaminating the Hive Mind. Said procrastination is the result of…well, whatever else might lead to procrastination. In any event, the Massachusetts’ act delivers a memorable effort here for which extra (figurative) points are awarded for […]

How do I love thee Grave? Let me count the ways. It is the heart and soul of demonic growler, guitarist, and sole original member Ola Lindgren and the way he keeps the machine running in such a well-oiled manner. It is the rottenness and sheer weight of those riffs, the ugly enormousness of the […]

Cryptopsy’s 2008 album,The Unspoken King, was a polarizing album at best, an absolute abomination at worst.  Right or wrong, that output earned the band the dreaded deathcore tag, and the clean vocals of new frontman Matt McGachy (3 Mile Scream) went over like a turd in a punchbowl.  Fans expecting the brutal death metal that […]

This year-old Chicago outfit is going out this fall on Obituary’s Carnival of Death tour, which is packed with old-school death (the reformed Broken Hope, plus Jungle Rot), and technical death (Decrepit Birth). Yet the press notes described Encrust as similar to Mastodon, Clutch or Kvelertak, so that seemed an odd addition to the bill. Then I sampled the first track, “Predatory Skin,” and […]

This spring/summer has seen the German death metal scene deliver the goods with the likes of Tombthroat, Sophicide and the second release from Deadborn. All three delivering something a little different, with Tombthroat going for the throat, Sophicide making people forget Necrophagist and with Deadborn you’ve got a band that lie some where in between. […]

Hail Satan! That’s certainly what the folks of Nexhymn have been doing in the mountains of Colorado. Black Horizon is the self-released EP, and it’s essentially a relentless assault of brutal, hateful death metal. Think Suffocation meets Origin…but with a killer female vocalist. Angela Gossow would shatter under the sheer intensity of Holly Wedel’s voice […]

Released around the same time as Malfeitor‘s Dum Morior Orior and on the same label, Intestinal are also an old school Swedish death metal band who are actually from Sweden currently enjoying the genre’s resurgence. This is the band’s second effort after 2010’s Human Harvest, which I have not heard. And while I enjoy The […]

Battlescarred is an apt title on a couple of levels for Abominant, Kentucky’s Death Metal mainstays, an act with no less than eight full-length albums under its collective bullet belt. Sticking to their bullshit-free USDM approach no matter the trend or the financial risk, Abominant wear those USDM scars proudly, while their brand of scalding […]

So here is another dusted off unearthed Swedish death metal band back from the grave to join in on the genre’s resurgence. And while not a elite act akin to Entrails, Horrendous, Binah or Revel Flesh, Malfeitor to bring a little something different to the reanimation of the genre by way of less direct or […]

As much as I’ve always liked the Japanese Gods of the Deathly and the Doomed (a.k.a. Coffins), I don’t recall enjoying one of their numerous releases on a multitude of formats (probably even 8-track) quite as much as new EP March of Despair. By that I mean that it ended up being more than a […]

Something just crept up out of one of the bogs in balmy Alabama and it’s a hideous monster on the prowl to maim and sever anything in its path. That monster is Ectovoid, a new band more or less formed out of the ashes of Bloated Carcass. Cheesy hyperbole aside, the debut album from Ectovoid […]