2018 has already seen a pretty good slate of old School Swedish death metal from the likes of Gravestone, Angerot, Ripped to Shreds, Demonical and Rogga Johansson’s 176 bands, and here is Metal Blade adding a newish act featuring a few familiar faces to the fray. Lik  (‘Corpse’) features Niklas Sandin (Katatonia), on guitars, Christofer […]

I dug the 2014 debut, Nightmare Vortex, from these German, Autopsy lovin’ ( Slaughterday is a song from the bands Mental Funeral album ) fiends, but for some reason completely missed the 2016 follow up, Laws of the  Occult, which has been rectified since getting this EP for review, and its a little barnstormer of an EP The […]

If you wish to be whisked away to the golden age of melodic, symphonic black metal, (i. e 1994-2001) and revisit classics like The Dynamic Gallery of Thoughts, Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, In the Nightside Eclipse, Aspera Hiems Symfonia,  Supreme Art of War, Nexus Polaris, New Obscurantis Order,  Born of the Flickering and Devs Iratvs, look no further than the […]

I’m going to forgo the history lesson and assume if you are reading this, you are familiar with At The Gates and their place in the annals of melodic death metal and are simply wanting to find out how To Drink From the Night Itself stands as a follow up the 19 years in waiting comeback […]

When Centinex split up in 2006 (but since got back together), members went on to form and help out with two intertwined acts, Interment and Demonical. Both have delivered solid efforts of Swedish death metal with Demonical having released 4 albums and Interment, two. Centinex and Demonical founder Martin Schulman has revamped the lineup since 2011s Death […]

Though considered a mere Children of Bodom clone early on their career, Finland’s Kalmah have gone on to have a decent discography that one could argue is more consistent than the band they were supposed to be ripping off. Through 7 albums, only 2008s For the Revolution stands as a slightly sub-par album (my opinion only mind […]

I’ve been a fan of Patrick Loisel since his Kralizec days ( I highly recommend you track down 1999s Origin)  and Augury has certainly continued that legacy. And while not very prolific, when Augury does drop and album, the world takes note. 2004s Concealed and 2009s Fragmentary Evidence both are critically acclaimed and arguable classics […]

Listen, if you clicked on this review, and as a result are angered by the band’s silly, tongue in cheek, self deprecating, metal mocking, style of metal, what were you really expecting? You see the moniker, you see the album name, you see the goblin. Take your ‘metal is serious’  and ‘no gimmicks’ comments elsewhere, […]

One could argue that Amorphis’s post Tuonela, Ad Universum, Far From the Sun ‘slump’ is a comeback stretch that is one of the more consistent, quality album runs in the annals of metal. With the arrival of Tomi Jousten, from 2006s Eclipse, through 2007s Silent Waters, 2009s Skyforger, 2011s The Beginning of Times, 2013s Circle (my […]

Germany’s Goregast have been at it since 2005, with 3 full length albums to their name including 2011s Desechos Humanos. They ply a form of slightly Swedish inspired death metal with some grindcore elements with lyrics in English, German and Spanish. Covered In Skin is a 10 minute, 3 song EP that was originally released […]

Sometimes it takes me a few songs or minutes to hear a band’s primary influence. Sometimes it takes less than 30 seconds. In the case of Switzerland’s veteran death metal act Requiem, precisely 16 seconds elapsed into opener “For the Blind to See”, I thought to myself “Holy shit, God Dethroned!”. This is the band’s […]

Back in 2016 these California newcomers ( though the duo has served in black metal act Lake of Blood since 2008) released their debut album, the aptly named The Embodiment of Hate, and it would have made my year end list if I had hear it earlier. Well, there will be no such issues with […]

Back in 2008, I reviewed an an album called Vltra by an Italian black metal band called Spite Extreme Wing for another webzine, and I loved it ( the release was also reviewed on these very pages with a similarly positive result). Well, the band is no more, I still play the song “ix” alot, […]

Some say there is a very fine line between genius and insanity, and the UKs eclectic Doom act Lychgate stand astride the line with a confident swagger and sneer, looking down among their peers. But insanity and genius also comes with pitfalls- just ask Dali, Warhol and Van Gogh. I had seen the first two […]

I’ve long championed Philadelphia’s Starkweather as a horribly underrated force in American metal. But with only 4 album since 1992, the less than prolific noisemongers keep themselves on the outer fringes of metal popularity, and that’s probably a good thing as more album like 2006’s landmark Croatoan or 2010s This Sheltering Night, might be too […]

Album number 9 from Ireland’s favorite sons see the band stick doggedly to the now perfected cragged, epic metal but also sees the band become a more tempered, somber act that results in an album that continues the band’s legacy, but seems to have a strange air of exasperation and despondency to it that I […]

If you like your death metal cavernous, oppressive, miasmal and distinctly Australian, then the excellent self released debut from Sydney’s Golgothan Remains is right up yer ally. With a clear Incantation backbone with murky, discordant hints of Ulcerate and country mates Portal, the aptly named Perverse Offerings to the Void delivers something that fans of Dark […]

When it comes to discordant, atonal, nightmarish, murky, chaotic, atmospheric death metal, Canada has Gorguts , Poland has Redemptor, England has Abyssal, Spain has Altarage, Portugal has The Ominous Circle,  The Netherlands has Dodecahedron, Denmark has Phrenelith, Finland has Corpsessed, New Zealand has Ulcerate, Australia has Portal, Switzerland has Schammasch And now the US has Nightmarer.  With the aptly […]

Oh man this is good! Rumbling, tumbling sludge with a burly death metal back bone and tangible nods to the likes of Lurk, Warcrab, Yellowtooth, Crowbar, latter Gorefest , early Mastodon, label/country mates Demonic Death Judge, and for a super obscure reference, now defunct Michigan act, If He Dies, He Dies. Apparently starting out as a more […]

2017 year was a pretty good year for lesser know folk/viking metal. While Ensiferum continued to stale with Two Paths, and Wintersun, delivered yet another bloated over hyped release, bands liked Wolfchant, Tersivel , Atlas Pain and Nordheim, Incursed released some really good albums that actually deserved more attention. Well, early in 2018, Dalriada ( my new […]

In the grand tradition of underrated, fellow Chicagoans, Forest of Impaled, Blood of the Wolf erupt from the Midwest with a stellar sophomore release of pummeling, blood pumping blackened, death/war metal  and it’s  a god damn scorcher. I have not heard the band’s debut  I: The Law of Retaliation, but you can bet I’ll be rectifying […]

So two major label, modern tech death metal bands are going to be vying for your attention this spring. On Metal Blade we have Rivers of Nihil and their  ambitiously evolved Where Owls Know My Name, on Prosthetic Records,  we have Orlando’s ‘philosophical’ (not all of the band members are Christian),  progressive death metal new comers, […]

Stockholm’s The Ugly are back with album number three and follow up to 2015s decent Decreation. Not much has changed as the band still has ties to Marduk (whose Fredrik Widigs plays drums and the mastering/mixing was handled by guitarist Devo), and thusly the sound shows it with a frosty, razor sharp, slightly melodic take on blistering black […]

As LBGQT rights remain in the forefront of today’s political climate, so it creeps furthermore into extreme music. Mina Caputo of Life of Agony and Kat Shevil (Winds of Genocide) have been out front of the movement in metal for a while now, but it appears to be picking up. Just this month I received […]

Back in 2015 I discovered this Indonesian atmospheric black metal act and their second album, Homeward Path was my favorite album of that year….by a long shot. So I’ve been eagerly awaiting the follow up since they announced it last year, and like Homeward Path, the sound has developed just a tad since the Black […]