Hailing from Michigan (Detroit), Hellmouth are a snarling, gnarly crossover band that meld, punk, thrash and hardcore into a mix that’s a refreshing change from the usual Ferret fare though it lacks real staying power, once the initial burst of feral energy wears off. Citing influences like Celtic Frost, Black Flag, Venom, Black Sabbath and […]

March 18, 2009, The Riot Room, Kansas City, MO It was a night of firsts at the tiny Riot Room; my first pagan/Viking/folk metal show, my wife’s first metal show after 12 years of marriage and my first ever in person meeting with another member of the metal media-Blabbermouth and Outburn’s (and now our own […]

From the label that brought us the excellent When the Deadbolt Breaks comes a grooving, loping doom/sludge act, though this one comes with a thick stoner doom haze and features (former) Metal Maniacs scribe JJ Koczan on vocals. Hailing from New Jersey, Maegashira (some rank in Sumo wrestling I gather) is armed with a beefy, […]

Portland Oregon’s Nanda Devi (named after the second largest mountain in India) aren’t doing anything particularly original or inspiring with their take on the suddenly popular to hate post rock, Neur-Isis styled metal, but it’s a worthy entry into the genre. Five relatively rangy songs (6-10 minutes) and three untitled instrumental fillers make up the […]

Originally released on 625 Thrash Records back in 2007 and now re-released by arguably the original grindcore record label, Texas’s Insect Warfare continue where the monstrous grindcore recent efforts of fellow Texans Kill the Client, Maruta, Captain Cleanoff and Napalm Death, left off. Basically, Insect Warfare is like my mother in law; short, explosive, loud, […]

I really, really wanted to like this; an experimental black metal duo from New Hampshire, from a cult label with a history of solid releases? Cobalt anyone? Even more so after reading lots of positive press including our own Scott Alisoglu and a Nathan T. Birk interview of the band in Metal Maniacs that gushed […]

Hailing from Finland, Folk three-piece (with the aid of some noteworthy session members) Crimfall entered the folk metal fray back in 2008 with their Burning Winds demo. And now with their Napalm Records debut, As the Path Unfolds, those demo tracks as well as eight brand new tracks deliver exactly what you’d expect from a Finnish Folk/Viking band-and more. With the luscious Helena Haaparanta providing an operatic gloss to the expectedly up beat, typically Finnish, blackened yet epic and bouncy fare, Crimfall, like the recent release by Kivimentsan Druidi, Arkona and country mates Battlelore, have given folk/Viking metal some elegance amid the grime and chain mail driven throes typically associated with the genre. From the bombastic chorus of “The Crown of Treason” through the ethnic chants of “Wildfire Season” and Middle Eastern Aura of “Sun Orphaned” to ballad “Aubade” the album covers all of Folk Metal bases with confidence, gusto and an orchestral grandeur. I visited with guitarist Jakke Viitala to find out a little more about one of Finnish folk metal’s newest additions…

If your self released effort gets reviewed here, you must be doing something right, and the UK’s (Bradford) The Belonging show that a self released effort can compete with most label released efforts. I don’t remember much about the bands prior release, Setting the Scene, so it could not have been that good, but on […]

As I start to get to the last of my 2008 releases that I feel worthy of review, I stumbled across the full length debut from Modesto, California’s Better Left Unsaid, a band whose demo, The Silencing, I reviewed and enjoyed at another site. Now on Jamey Jasta’s Stillborn Records, BLU play a form of […]

Whereas the upcoming release, Lullabies For the Dormant Mind from label mates The Agonist is a vital, powerful and stunningly good example of female fronted metal done right, the debut from Wisconsin’s Luna Mortis is little more than a mish mash of styles that while, has some promise simply does not do enough to justify […]

If you have some interest in a gasmask clad Chicago black metal outfit which has members of Nacthmystium, Cianide and Dysphoria in its ranks, plying a form of relentlessly  simple yet effective, Marduk/Dark Funeral meets Impaled Nazarene styled thrashy black metal, then look no further than Kommandant. There’s not much more to elaborate on really; […]

There was a lot of buzz about the Relapse debut of Germany’s tech death band Obscura, especially since being joined by Necrophagist members Christian Muenzner (guitars), Hannes Grossman (Drums) and Pestilence bassist (for Spheres) Jeroen Paul Thesseling. Now I’ve had about a month to let the album, sink in, I can confidently say the hype […]

It’s been a while since I heard anything remotely metal from Victory Records, but all of a sudden they release a slew of records in the form of Arise and Ruin’s improved thrash attack, Corpus Christi’s As I Lay Dying impression, Wretched’s impressive The Black Dahlia Murder worship and this fine melodic death core assault […]

Hot on the heels on Century Media’s Kivimetsan Druidi, come another female fronted, dirt, fur and paint covered folk metal band infusing classical/orchestral elements into the tried and true Finnish take on folk/pagan/Viking metal as plied by the likes of Ensiferum, Turisas and such. The results are largely successful, mostly due to Helena Haaparanta who […]

Seriously, what are you expecting to read here? I suppose I’d better write something I guess…. 20 years, 11 studio albums, 1 million records sold worldwide, Cannibal Corpse are the very epitome of death metal consistency and even though the band is often still referred to as the band Chris Barnes used to be in […]

While the very concept of melodic death metal is somewhat of a paradox, and one could argue what exactly it entails, I think most readers of this site at least have some general idea of what melodic death metal is, so rather than try to dissect the genre and possible entries, I’ve listed 10 melodic death metal albums that A) fit the genre in my eyes, and B) would be the 10 must have examples of the genre I would choose to take on this forsaken sand dump. Now, I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch, especially from the 1997-2004 range, so feel free to chip in and tell me how wrong my personal opinion is…

So what if you took the three guitar, Brown note devastation of The Acacia Strain and mixed it with the worshipful heft of Sleeping Giant and other Christian hardcore bands? You’d get The Great Commission and Strikefirst’s best (and heaviest) release since their re-ignition and arguably heavier than anything parent label Facedown Record has released. […]

More Christian metal here, though this time more in the form of the choppy, technical deathcore with melodic chops akin to For Today, A Thousand Time Repent, Hereafter An Odyssey and such. Obviously, folks that hate deathcore and Christian metal have already clicked of this review, but if you enjoy both or either your could […]

I’ve never been a huge God Forbid fan. I’ve given their albums cursory listens, but essentially lumped them in with the likes of All That Remains, Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage and such as far as they ply chorus driven American Metal that has one foot in the mainstream and one foot in the underground, and […]

While Willowtip’s trio of releases from Maruta, Kill the Client and Phobia certainly stole a lot of the acclaim for grindcore in 2008, here comes this belated release in my mailbox (along with the new Birdflesh) from the always quality grindmongers over in Czech Republic, Obscene Productions, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t one […]

Ladies (if there any that read this) and Gentlemen: I give you the first album of 2009 that will be vying for a spot on my 2009 year end list. I’ll admit, my expectations weren’t too awful high for the sophomore release from Ohio’s Christian melodeath/thrashers Woe of Tyrants as their Tribunal Records debut, Behold the […]

With 2006s Karma. Bloody. Karma, San Diego’s Vegetarian grinders added a sickly pallor to their chaotic deathgrind, and while that element seem to have been reigned in and the cleaner tones of Humanure and To Serve Man making a return, the resulting balance between sludgy oozing throes and deft caustic grindcore makes for an album […]

Halo of Flies Records are not particularly productive when it comes to releases, but when they do release something it usually gets my attention-for example Fall of Efrafa, Protestant and now Wisconsin’s Malachi and this release which consists of the bands previous two 2008 vinyl only releases (Malachi and Wither to Cover the Tread) on […]

So if you took the angular, earthy percussive assault of Kylesa or Leviathan era Mastodon, threw in the stoner heft of High On Fire, the sorrowful dirges of Crowbar and a very slight hint of psychedelic doom like Rwake, Minsk or Samothrace then name the band after Ivan Drago’s famous line from Rocky IV, you […]

The debut album, Hate Takes its Form, from this Danish death metal act was a pleasant surprise back in 2007 and a nice find for Deepsend Records. So I was really looking forward to this EP, especially after hearing from the label owner that is was to contain 3 rather tasty cover tracks as well […]