It took 6 years, but we finally have a new ADE album, their 5th, titled Supplicium (‘Punishment’) on a new label, Time To Kill records, and with yet another new lineup. Entering the fray is Hideous Divinity Drummer Edoardo Di Santo (as ‘Atticvs’ here), and Eyeconoclast bassist Gabriele Vellucci. What hasn’t changed is that ADE […]

It’s been since 2020, with Blodiga Skald‘s The Undrunken Curse, that I got truly excited about a folk metal album. *sigh* there was a time when any album with horns, strings, or an accordion would have got me all sorts of worked up. Sure Ensiferum, sort of does it for me, but when I say […]

That logo? Dave Ingram on vocals? Nuclear Blast Records? It just feels right, doesn’t it? 5 years after their return from a 12-year hiatus with 2020’s solid Scriptures, UK death metal veterans Benediction is back with album number 9. And while the band’s middle and later catalog isn’t quite the stuff of legend, there is […]

After two fine albums on FDA Records (including 2022’s fucking outstanding Feldwärts), Germany’s war mongering death metal act Scalpture have made the jump to a different German label, Testimony Records for their 4th album, though it comes with mixed results. Saying Landkreig is a step back from Feldwärts is probably a bit over an overstatement, […]

The debut album from the Scotlands’s solo artist Evangelos Vasilakos (also of equally fittingly named black/death act Chestcrush– who have a long in the upcoming Deathgasm 2 movie) has the most fitting band and album name ever, as this album is Caustic, Phlegm-y , Purulent, and Apocalyptic all at once Ladies and gentlemen, what we […]

I’ve covered this husband-and-wife duo for two EPs now, first with 2022’s The Void and then 2023’s Elemental Binding.  Both deliver excellent, discordant death metal with themes based on video games, D&D, and such. So I was super happy for the band when they signed with Transcending Obscurity, a perfect label for them. And the duo (Sunshine Schneider—guitar, […]

After two excellent, reinvigorated albums in Hammer of the Witches and Crytoriana, Dani Filth and his hired gang of ever-changing musical mercenaries, took a step back with 2021, Existence is Futile, where the constant line-up changes, appeared to have taken its toll, mainly Lindsey Schoolcraft, who was settling into her role as the new Sara […]

Colorado’s deathcore kings are here to beat your fucking face in. Right the fuck in. No theatrics, no choirs, no sweeping symphonics (ok, maybe just a smidge in 2 songs), just 4 songs in 18 minutes to remind you they arguably sit atop or near the top of the current pure deathcore heap. After delivering […]

I was late to the Istapp (‘icicle’) party, only discovering them on 2019’s stellar, The Insidious Star, but subsequently going back and listening to prior albums from the mid-10’s like Blekinge and Frostbiten. Honestly, though I had kind of forgotten about them, but 6 years after The Insidious Star a revamped Istapp is back. There […]

From the promotional email: FFO: Mental Cruelty, Worm Shepherd, Lorna Shore Yep, I’m in. How these Brits haven’t been on my radar before this EP is a mystery to me. They play my favorite genre of music right now and reside on one of the better independent labels doing said genre. But trust me after […]

After bursting on the scene with their 2007 debut, The Somatic Defilement, Tennessee’s Whitechapel quickly rose to the top of deathcore hierarchy with the follow-up, This Is Exile, in 2008, still a classic in the genre all these years later. However, subsequent albums like Our Endless War, Whitechapel, Mark of the Blade, and A New […]

Finland’s Admire The Grim, are a new melodic death metal band that leans heavily into their country’s fairly rich history of the genre. On their debut album, Resist they deliver a competent if by-the-numbers album of shredding, tightly played, melodeath that fans of Children of Bodom, Kalmah, and such should definitely appreciate. Fronted by Katri Snellman […]

Finland’s Havukruunu ( ‘coniferous crown’) first got on my radar with 2017’s Kelle Surut Soi, but in 2020, they obliterated my radar with 2020’s Uinuos syömein sota, which was my clear-cut favorite album of the year. The funny thing is, we have never actually reviewed them! Well let’s fix that together, shall we? The word […]

Listen up, fans of early Gatekeeper, Terminal Nation, Fuming Mouth, Kruelty, Acephalix, Vastum, and Xibalba take fucking note. You need the debut from Arkansas’ Open Kasket in your life, right fucking now!!! Open Kasket plays a form of meaty, girthy beatdown/hardcore-driven death metal that lumbers and slopes with bad fucking intentions at every turn. With […]

I actually got this promo in the fall of 2024. I immediately enjoyed it, planning on doing a review for its early 2025 release, but as usual, life, other promos, and work got in the way, and I forgot about it. But here we are, and let’s get to it. Adorned with a wonderfully 90s […]

Boston’s Pathogenic is a new act to me but they have been around a while with a debut album, Cyclopean Imagery way back in 2011, and a self-titled follow-up album in 2019. Neither of which I have heard. But I was looking for an early 2025 release to review, and the promotional description of ‘progressive […]

A few months back, I ran into Mark Kloeppel, one of the guitarists for Misery Index, and Missouri act Cast The Stone, Ive ‘known’ him and fellow Cast The Stone member Derek Engemann from various shows I’ve attended in St Loius over the years. We got to talking about Scour, the black metal band he […]

Sometimes, an album contains all great songs, no filler, no skips. Sometimes an album has a few good songs. Sometimes you buy an album because you saw one good video on MTV Headbangers Ball in the 90s, and the rest is terrible. Sometimes an album has one really killer song that makes the whole thing […]

2024 was a stellar year for German black metal. Albums from Asarhaddon, Opus Irae, Chaos Invocation, Kanonenfieber, Suffering Souls, Dauþuz, Far Beyond,  Stiriah and Servant were all damn fine releases. But at the tail end of 2024, Mavorim released an album that I never really got to spend too much time with before the year ended, and it’s […]

Germany’s Obscura needs no introduction. They have resided near or atop the tech death heap since 2009’s Cosmogenesis. For me, they peaked with 2016s Akroasis, but all of their albums have been excellent, including their last effort, 2021s A Valediction, which saw former members Christian Munzer (ex-Necrophagist, ex-Spawn of Possession) and fretless bassist Jeroen Paul Thessling return […]

You can virtually cut and paste my review of 2021’s Maere for this Austrian duo’s 6th album, as they are so locked into their despondent, post/ shoe gaze/ atmospheric black metal sound, it’s scary. That said, at a trim 67 minutes on 1 CD as opposed to Maere’s 2 CD, 84-ish minute affair, the band […]

For four albums now, Ex Deo, the Roman-themed symphonic death metal act from Kataklysm’s Maurizio Iacono has steadily improved from a lazy Kataklysm clone with keyboards to a pretty solid act. Well with a Switch of labels from Nalapm Records to Reigning Phoenix, here is a taster EP to celebrate the shift. After covering the […]

I missed the last album 2022s Born to be Dead, from Rogga Johansson’s Revolting project, just one of his 258 bands. However, the last time I heard them, on 2020s The Shadow at the World’s End, it was clear I was getting a bit bored with them, despite really enjoying the 3 album run of The […]

Śmierć (‘Death’, ‘End of life’) is a long-running Swedish band paying to Polish hardcore with Polish titles and such. Op​ó​r (‘Resistance’) is their third effort and they were kind enough to reach out to the site directly and send me a copy of the LP, with its gorgeous artwork and all. The album is co-released […]

Remember these guys? At one point in the mid-1990s Denmark’s Konkhra was on the very cusp of international metal stardom. As nu-metal exploded and death metal was selling out/transitioning to more commercial groovy sounds (Gorefest, Grave, Obituary, Entombed, Mercyless, Dismember, etc), Konkhra capitalized on this. And with albums like Sexual Affect Disorder, Spit or Swallow […]