From the band’s 2004 The Miseries Never Cease EP to their self-titled, self released 2007 debut album, I’ve long championed The Living Fields as one of the most criminally unsigned bands in metal. Well, the unsigned part was rectified with the band signing with Candlelight Records, and though this album took its sweet sweet time […]

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Imagine, metaphorically speaking, that two high speed trains are careening towards each other on a unavoidable collision course. One train is Origin‘s ultra technical, brutal, but intelligent form of death metal. The other train is Sigh and their over the top orchestral symphonics and theatrics. BAM!!!! They collide, each train melting […]

All Shall Perish‘s sophomore album, The Price of Existence was my favorite album of 2006. Unfortunately, their 2008 follow up, Awaken the Dreamers was a bit of a let down. In part due to the precedent set by the prior album, but also due to some more commercial moments, clean vocals and even ballads. So […]

OK, I reeeeeally need to revisit Incantation. Not only have I been enjoying the likes of Corpsessed, Gorephilia, Blaspherian and such, but the current wave of old school death metal has even got Century Media on the band wagon with the excellent Sonne Adam. Profound Lore Records has simply decided to truly dig into the […]

So in my 10 or so years of this reviewing gig, I’ve seen the increase in ethnic and cultural influences within metal. Of course, there’s the obvious folk/pagan stuff, but bands like Melechesh, Orphaned Land, Mictlantecuhtl, Negura Bunget and others have brought the world to metal.But never in a million years did I ever think […]

Hellmouth is the music equivalent of their hometown Detroit: violent, grimy, pissed off and ugly. Their debut, Destroy Everything, Worship Nothing was a feral but ultimately forgetful  crossover assault of black metal, thrash and punk, but on their follow up, Gravestone Skylines, with the same musical influences,  the band has improved their sneering sonic violence, […]

Somewhere in Boston , MA at the intersection of doom, post rock, sludge and fucking awesome lies the band Morne. A new act to me, but after seeing some positive press and the band being on Profound Lore, I just had to check their second album out. I was greatly rewarded, as will you upon […]

War and death metal have been ingrained within each other since the genre first started. And it seems a certain style of death metal has been associated with war. Sure there’s a few black metal acts and so called ‘war metal’ acts that that do the whole war thing, but I think most would agree […]

This little booger slipped through my highly efficient, organizational skills and structured teethofthedivine office space (i.e the pile of CDs and my daughter’s Disney DVDs on my computer desk at home). But a track randomly popped up on my Ipod warranting further investigation.. I’m not going to try and dance smartly around the divisive white […]

Man, after the bands 2009 self titled debut EP, I said I’d keep an eye on these Christian shredders in hope they would deliver something better. And boy did they ever! I didn’t quite see anything this good coming though. Adding a dramatic symphonic element to their early A Plea For Purging/ Woe of Tyrants […]

Adam Kalmbach has been a busy individual. Since I reviewed Old Ways,  his third CD of impressive, one man black metal back in 2009, he has released 6 more albums under the Jute Gyte moniker, including a couple of atmospheric experimental albums. There obviously isn’t a lot to do in Springfield, Missouri (I can attest […]

Metalheads could and will argue about which Death album is the band’s best effort, although to no avail, because arguments could be made for all of them (I’m kinda partial to Spiritual Healing). However, I’m not sure many people would argue that the lineup on 1991’s Human was the best one of  Chuck Schuldiner’s rotating […]

Yup! Another Iron Maiden compilation that follows up to 2008’s Somewhere Back in Time – The Best of: 1980-1989. While I’m typically not a huge fan of compilations, for those that missed Iron Maiden‘s reunion and Bruce Dickinson era part deux, as well as a couple of Blaze Bayley -era numbers―slyly delivered as live songs, […]

The debut release from LA’s Exhausted Prayer was an ambitious, promising but convoluted affair of cross genre metal that melded black, ambient and progressive metal. And now the follow up is here and it looks like the band has mostly fulfilled the promise of Looks Down In the Gathering Shadow  ― with improved song writing and more […]

For you whippersnappers out there, the current  incarnation of General Surgery―the one that reformed in 2003 and has released  two full-length albums since―is a far cry from what the band was in 1991 when they unleashed their seven song debut EP Necrology. One of the early super groups, culling members of the then burgeoning Stockholm Death metal […]

I’ve never really considered myself anything but a relatively casual fan of The Black Dahlia Murder, despite their rather large status in the realms of modern metal. With a sound that’s been cloned more times than Jenna Jameson has had cocks in her, their appeal loses even more luster as I blame them for the […]

As I’ve mentioned in other Dark Descent Records’ reviews, I really like the fact they are balancing out some awesome reissues (Uncanny, Utumno, etc.) with some new acts like Adversarial, Miasmal, Corpsessed, Gorephilia and Washington DC’s sickly heavy, crusty d-beat blackened doom act, Ilsa. While essentially lying in the same murky sludgy and heavy territory […]

I’ve been sitting on my review of this simply stunning double LP for a while now for a couple of reasons. First, it’s such a monolithic, emotionally draining and fantastic album that putting it into words is nigh impossible. Second, I just want to listen to and absorb this record over and over again and […]

Despite my relative familiarity with old school Swedish metal, old and new, as well as most of Rogga Johanssen’s many current and former Stockholm-styled projects (Paganizer, Ribspreader, Bone Gnawer, etc.) I actually had never heard of Revolting. It’s even more surprising that their newest effort was released on FDA Rekotz, the label responsible for my […]

Lost in all the controversy and arguing over the new Morbid Angel album is the  fact that another legendary, godfather act of death metal also returned after a long hiatus in 2011. The difference is…these guys did it right. After two certifiably classic death metal albums in Severed Survival and Mental Funeral, Autopsy released two  […]

A stalwart of the Chicago doom/death metal scene for over a decade, Novembers Doom raised some eyebrows with their last 2 albums; 2007s The Novella Reservoir and 2009s Into Nights Infernal Requiem. The band injected more pure and aggressive death metal into their melancholy laced sound, with surprisingly brutal results. However with their latest release, Aphotic, the band appears to have returned to their doomier, sadder and more tempered releases of their first 5 albums. So while casually Facebook chatting with Novembers Doom drummer and fellow metalreview.com writer Sasha Horn a full fledged interview sort of evolved. And here is the subsequent impromptu result….

Here’s a nice little surprise in the form of the second album from Chicago’s symphonic black metal act Withering Soul. With ties to one of first US acts plying the style competently, the underrated Veneficum, in keyboardist/guitarist Krystopher, Withering Soul’s sound has a distinct European tone that obviously culls from the likes of early Dimmu […]

Halo of Flies is having a pretty awesome run of LP releases over the last few months. Going back to last year’s The Makai and Protestant LPs, this year they’ve released the sublime debut of Light Bearer (ex Fall of Efrafa) and Northless’ follow up to 2010’s No Quarter for the Damaged CD/EP. As with […]

This has to be a late April’s Fools right? Or some sick practical joke and somewhere Trey Azagthoth and David Vincent are laughing it up, and will let us in on the joke, then release a proper album, right? Because if not, I’m going to be pissed, as are lots of other death metal fans. […]

So a member of (our)  TOTD forum asked me if I could review this band–that has some friends of his in Japan–as they are excited for some possible international exposure. I agreed. Though, I admit to not expecting much, but I’ll do a favor for a longtime reader — even if the CD was released […]