So Rhine is a project from Gabriel Tachell and some local Pacific Northwest musicians, and is the continuation of his UK act Perfect Harmony, but the name has changed and the the location is now Seattle, Washington. got it? But what matters is how damn good this is. Even with some questionable clean vocals this Opeth ian […]

So I get this mysterious CD in the mail from Russia. I can’t tell who the band is or what the release is. Windows does not recognize it, so I start trying to decipher fonts and and initially think the band is Black Wisdom, and thanks to the internet I figure out the band is […]

Oregon’s Omnihility burst onto the scene in 2014 with their second record (their Unique Leader debut), Deathscapes of the Subconscious , a pretty damn solid tech death offering with a heavy Origin lean. Well, yet another line up shuffle (as with the debut Biogenesis to Deathscapes), this time adding bassist Isamo Satu and vocalist Adam […]

Canadian guitarist Phil Tougas is hot shit right now. Not only has he served in the past in Vengeful, he currently plays in Serocs, Zealotry and First Fragment. But his main project right along with fellow former First Fragment/ Vengeful  and current Beyond Creation drummer Phil Boucher, now appears to be Cthulu/Lovecraft inspired death metal act, Chthe’ilist.  Initially, Le […]

The UKs The King is Blind appeal to me on a few levels. One, they hail from my old Hereward the Wake stomping grounds in East Anglia. Two, they feature former members of Entwined (an almost famous goth doom metal band from the 90s that released an album on Earache and were thought to be the […]

Every few years a album comes along that changes the game in tech death. Going back to this band’s namesake with Gorgut’s Obscura, Death’s seminal latter output, Origin, Atheist, Cynic, Necrophagist, Theory In Practice’s Colonizing the Sun, the Canadian scene, Gorod and others. And here is another one, in Obscura’s fourth effort Akróasis. These Germans are far from new comers  and certainly […]

By the time you read this article, California’s Absymal Dawn will be embarked on one of the year’s (if not longer) best death metal tours. They will be opening for three certifiable legends in Cryptopsy, Cannibal Corpse and Obituary. But Abysmal Down is no normal opener, a wide eyed rookie death metal act. These guys have been around since 2003. Have released 4 albums, 3 of which on metal behemoth label Relapse. So these guys DESERVE to share the stage with such seminal acts.

Though coming up around the same time as bands like Born of Osiris, Periphery, Within the Ruins, The Contortionist, Veil of Maya, The Faceless and many other ‘Sumerian-core’ styled bands, Minnesota’s After the Burial stood out on their second album Rareform, (“The Fractal Effect” is still a damn cool song). But as with the genre as […]

So not only do we have a release from the label mecca of adjective/noun named brutal death metal, Comatose Music, we have the second release from the band who features the owner of said label, Steve Green (also in Lust of Decay)who plays guitars and does vocals here. So if you STILL don’t now what to expect here on […]

There is nothing wrong with the debut album from France’s TankrusT, nothing at all. There’s also nothing particularly striking about it either. They hail from France and seem to come from the ashes of some underground bands called SIC, One Shot, and Filet o’fish fuckin (yup), and they play a form of modern, tight, chunky, and almost Danish sounding […]

I’m not familiar with San Francisco’s Insanity. They were apparently one of the early legendary and influential US death/thrash bands in the mid  to late 80s, but didn’t release an album until 1994’s Death After Death. So they missed the death metal explosion and peak of the early 90s, which I imagine why it was lost in […]

When initially listening to San Jose’s Spinebreaker, I’m at first reminded of the now defunct Short lived Skinfather and their 2014 release, None Will Mourn; both California bands, both young ‘kids’ playing a form of mid range, hardcore tinged Dismember/ Swedish death metal , and both releases are vinyl only. Of course that;s a broad generalization, as Spinebreaker […]

“Never judge a book by its cover”. You’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. When I got Nine Plagues in the mail, with a logo that looks like something I would have drawn on my 9th grade English folder, I set my expectation pretty low. However, as it turns out that the […]

Spain is known for a lot of things; its history, its culture, its cuisine and even to some extent it has a respectable death and black metal scene. But I’m not sure sunny Spain is the country people thing of when it comes to despondent, depressive doom/death metal. Well, once again Canada’s Hypnotic Dirge (arguably […]

Horror and metal have always been gore filled bedmates and inherently related. The misanthropy the (sometimes unfortunate) misogyny, the shock value, the violence, the extremity and the allure for society’s outcasts. The relationship was perfected in 1986s Trick or Treat (not the 2007 shit fest) with Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons bringing metal to the big screen.

Since transforming into a fully orchestral, symphonic death  metal band with 2011 Agony (my very top album of that year), the band has been pretty divisive with an either love them or hate them approach. Some claim the band is soulless, forgetful tech death with no riffs, simply window dressed with symphonics. Others, myself included […]

When listening to the debut from Greece’s Caelestia I’m reminded of a release I covered earlier this year; Dysrider’s Bury the Omen . Big, polished, modern take on melodic death metal, both using operatic female and gruff male vocals and both heavy on the synths and orchestration. Where Caelestia add something is a more Gothic metal vibe with […]

I can’t say I’m overly familiar with the Lithuanian blackened doom/sludge scene, but the debut, Dugne (seabed? bottom of the sea?) from Deprivacija certainly holds some promise if the rest of the scene is as competent. 6 songs, 55 minutes, a gritty, feedback laden, gravelly guitar tone and delivery despondent slower, crawling riffs and pained raspy screams will give […]

Suppressive Fire is a new, slightly blackened 3 piece death/thrash metal band from North Carolina, and while I’ve never been a huge fan of black/thrash, Suppressive Fire lean a little more to the thrash side and their war laden themes and imagery had me more intrigued than I usually would be with something this style. With […]

Recalling the glory years of Scandinavian 90s melodic death metal, Finland’s Suotana  and their debut album hearken back to an era of early Children of Bodom, Norther, Lothlorien, Ensiferum, Kalmah and such. Big, epic, keyboard drenched, catchy, bouncy slightly blackened melodic death metal is the order of the day, and while there is nary a […]

Spellbook, the 2012 debut from this Canadian/Balkan one man project was a pretty solid slab of thrash/death/black metal. Not much has changed in 3 years. The sound is a tight, almost robotic (due to programmed drums), death/thrash release with gruff almost Chris Barnes is growls. There’s no wasted sound, no intros, no interludes, and while […]

The US and mainly fertile Floridian death metal explosion of the early 90s is stuff of legend; Death, Cynic, Atheist, Obituary, Deicide, Nocturnus, Malevolent Creation, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and the Morrisound ‘sound produced some of the best death ever, that to this day is considered seminal and whose influnce is still going well over 25 years later. Well in 1993 a band called Brutality released Screams of Anguish on label monsters Nuclear Blast, and while it arguably juuuuuust missed the genre’s peak its more classical based style insured that it rubbed shoulders with some of the classics of the day.

Despite the founder Mika Mage originally hailing from Finland, Finnish moniker and album based on the Kalevala poems, Nihilistinen Barbaarisuus hails from deepest , darkest Philadelphia and  have ties with some other USBM bands such as Shadow in the Crypt and others. However, despite a real, honest attempt at early 90s European symphonic black metal, the album […]

One could argue that the 2015 debut album from super group  Gruesome, Savage Lands, is the current pinnacle of early Death worship, to the point where they actually almost recreated actual songs from Scream, Bloody Gore, Leprosy and Spiritual Healing. But also tucked away in 2015 was the second effort from California’s Skeletal Remains, who […]

Back in 2013, I was impressed by the second album, The Next, from Mexican guitarist Antonio Freyre and his gathering of International musicians including bassist Mike  Poggionne (Vile, Monstrosity, Lecherous Nocturne) , drummer Timo Häkkinen (Sotajumala) and Phil Tougas of Zealotry/Vengeful/Chthe’ilist on guitars delivering a dizzying chaotic, Canadian take on death metal that imbued Cryptopsy. With the only change being Josh Smith (Monumental […]