New to me, Elffor is the long running side project of a Spaniard by the name of Eöl, who also plays keyboardist in Numen and Suffering Dawn. He has been releasing albums since 1998, and this expansive 2 disc compilation from South Korea’s Fallen Angels Productions covers all 6 albums and throws in a couple of […]

I kinda dug, Disgust, the 2012 debut from Indiana’s Yellowtooth, founded and fronted by Peter Clemens who has served in more death metal bands like Invasion (an underrated US band playing Stockholm styled death metal before it was vogue) and Nocturnal Torment.  It was a groovy, crusty slab of southern drenched death/doom/stoner metal, and the follow […]

Hailing from Indiana, Psychomancer are a death metal band who toiled on the scene in from 1997 to 2011, then broke up after two albums in the mid oos. Well they are reformed and have released a new EP on the home state label owned by Yellowtooth’s Peter Clemens. I wasn’t familiar with the band […]

I don’t claim to be any sort of Slam aficionado or expert, but a few releases have slammed the shit out of me recently; Bloodscribe’s Prologue to the Apocalypse, Abominable Putritidy‘s The Anomalies of Artificial Origin reissue, Dysentry’s Fragments, Whoretopsy’s, Never Tear Us Apart,  Cumbeast’s eclectic Groovy Massacre, and this, the fourth album from Norwegian stalwarts, Kraanium. Much like […]

Falsifier and Born Hanged, the first two EPs from this UK downtempo/deathcore act have become the Sermon of Mockery among deathcore fans, being the holy grail of deathcore collectors  and reaching stupid prices. So Black Tongue have parlayed that and their prior Infant Annihilator infamy (whose releases also go for high prices) into a deal with […]

I had zero expectations for this album. Considering the label’s recent out put, that cover, the moniker and album title that reads as ‘mediocrity’ at a glance. However, with this sophomore effort, these Swiss vets (who have toiled in DarkRise since 2003) have actually , along with Epsilon’s Zu Richten and Tomb of Finland‘s Below the Green, are bringing a […]

So South Korea’s Fallen Angel’s productions has been around since 2010, and based on my recent package from them, they have a pretty distinct niche for international, simple, middle ground, lo fi black metal (Pest, Elffor, Dark Plague, Kvalvaag, Skoll, Krigerewolf, Catacumba) and even some home grown nihilism (Taekaury), but one of the bands more recent releases, […]

You have to hand it to Blast Head Records, they certainly haven’t locked into a singular style for their releases and bands. They got pretty well most genres covered from brutal death metal (Hate Division, Nebulous), epic black metal (Valdrin, Eternium), grindcore (Nervous Impulse) and even Swedish death metal (Morbid Vomit). They also like to […]

OK Mighty Music, THIS is more like it!!!!!!!!!! After a slew of awful rock, Mighty Music has released something that I more expect from the label. Some chunky, beefy European death metal by way of Austria’s Epsilon (formerly known as Side Y)and their second full length album. These guys are new to me, but I like what […]

Wisconsin’s Jungle Rot have been toiling in the US death metal scene for over 20 years now. But the last few years, since the band signed to Victory Records in 2011, has seen a second coming of the long running act. The three albums for the label (2011’s Kill on Command, 2013’s Terror Regime and this year’s Order Shall Prevail), sees the band at the very top of their game, aging like a fine wine.

I’ve been rather enjoying this current run of lighter, melodic, sometimes folky, sometimes ‘Cascadian’, sometimes ‘post’, artsy black metal influenced arguably started by and influenced by the likes of Wolves in the Throne Room, Altar of Plagues, Deafheaven, Alcest and Agalloch a few years back. Recently, the likes of Vattnet Viskar, Ghost Bath, Downfall of Nur,  Alda, Soar, Wiegedood, […]

While trying to find a video/sample to put into my reviews of Alda’s Passage, and Crom Dubh‘s Heimweh, I keep seeing YouTube suggestions for songs from a band called Vallendusk. Well, eventually I clicked on one of the songs from the band’s Pest Records 2013 album, Black Clouds Gathering, and I was hooked. And not just […]

So Vomitory broke up in 2013 after one of the most consistent yet unheralded death metal discographies to ever come out of Sweden. But 3/4 of the band ( drummer Tobias “Tobben” Gustafsson, guitarist Anders Bertilsson, and vocalist/bassist Erik Rundqvist) are back under a rather uncreative new moniker, Cut Up. I’m not sure what you are expecting from a band that’s […]

I was a mere reviewing infant when Massachusetts’ Warhorse dropped their lone full length album back in 2001. And while digitalmetal.com covered the release, I never got around to hearing it, and many of you might not have also.  Luckily, Southern Lord Recordings is here to assist you and reintroduce you to one of the more revered US […]

One could argue that after four classic albums (Among the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka, Black Seeds of Vengeance, In Their Darkened Shrines, Annihilation of the Wicked), South Carolina’s Nile could be construed to be running in place for their following 3 albums, culminating in 2012’s At the Gates of Sethu. While unmistakably still a Nile album, production issues plagued […]

While the likes of Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour of Penance, Logic of Denial and such get the lions share of the attention when it comes to Italian death metal, a couple of lesser known Italian bands have come to my attention of late- namely Inverted and Necrosy. Inverted with their impressive The Age of Harvest and Necrosy […]

So largely, this album , along with Morbid Vomit‘s Return to the Crypts and Cult of Endtime‘s In Charnel Lights,  and Abscession’s, Grave Offerings are responsible for my relative lack of enthusiasm for Entrails‘ Obliteration. And to be fair, Obliteration is still pretty good, but its safe sound along with these other albums really tempered […]

Back in 1998 Nile, a death metal band from South Carolina, released Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka on Relapse Records. One could argue, and i would be one of them that the release reinvigorated American metal (as well as Relapse), a death metal scene that was saturated in Nu metal, Pavement Records, JL America and Crash Music bands that were simply soulless speedy death metal clones. However, Catacombs, changed the game.

I’m pretty sure that 2014/15 has been the strongest year for the Swedish Death metal revival movement since the genre reignited back in 2008/09.  And its just not bigger names like Bloodbath, Entrails, Feral, Just Before Dawn, Puteraeon ,Revel in Flesh, Usurpress, Brutally Deceased, Wombbath or dusted of compilations and of ‘lost classics’  like Goddefied, Sorcery and Festerday.  New, fresh, […]

I’ve said it before, I’m saying it now, and ill say it again; I don’t know what the fuck is going on at Mighty Music. Once a bastion for burly European death and black metal, the label is churning out mainstream rock, or just tripe like The Grumpynators, Fried Okra  Band, Franklin Zoo, Bullet Train Blast, See the Sky, Black Book […]

So deathcore has been fading for a few years now. Even prior heavy weights Oceano, I Declare War, Impending Doom and Whitechapel barely registered with their respective last releases or bands are simply becoming more tech death metal (Abiotic, Job For a Cowboy). But last year, New Jersey’s Lorna Shore released a solid little EP called Maleficum, […]

Back in  2013, Germany’s Sulphur Aeon made quite a splash with their debut  Swallowed By The Ocean’s Tide. And rightly so, being a crumbling, cavernous, but memorable sonic monument to Lovecraftian horrors. And yet here we are two years later, and the follow up seems to have been, well… swallowed up. I’m not sure I can […]

Switzerland’s Schammasch made quite stir last year with their second album, Contradiction (it made my 2014 year end list), so Prosthetic Records has reached back and dug up the band’s 2010 Black Tower Productions debut Sic Lvceat Lvx  (meaning ‘Thus, let the Light shine’), given it a nice new mix and remaster and new cover. And […]

Bindrune with past and present bands/releases has really found a superb niche within a particular style with its folky, natural black metal acts like Panoptcion, Nechochwen, Obsequiae (though no longer on Bindrune) , Waldgefluster , Infera Bruo, Ahamkara, Falls or Rauros and such, so it seems that Washington State’s Alda and Bindrune is a match made in heaven. Clearly […]

Translated as ‘loss’, France’s Verlies is a new three piece act, and Les Domaines Du Hommes was self released back in 2014, but the re-release has been picked up fittingly by Hypnotic Dirge Records. So the combination o the band name, country of origin and the label should clue you in as yo what to expect here. Yes, […]