After Swedish death metal, I’d put New Yawk/East Coast, slammy, groovy death metal as one of my next favorite styles in the genre. So when I get a promo that lists ‘For fans of Dying Fetus, Suffocation, Pyrexia and Skinless’, I damn well check out that promo. Fleshgore is a Ukrainian band that has been […]

Just when I think we don’t need any more ‘Crypt’ named bands I get a random promo from one of the oddest band/label combinations- A brutal death metal band from Wales, that sound like they are from America’s Midwest and East Coast, residing on a sludge doom label (for the cassette release) and the CD […]

We last heard from French Dismember worshipers, Iron Flesh back in 202o/21 for Summoning the Putrid, a damn fine release of Swedish death metal with a nice balance of melodic slicing riffs and more doomy passages. Well, for the follow-up, Iron Flesh continues the same sound going full-on Dismember homage with 48 minutes and 10 songs […]

Back in 2018, I covered Blood of the Wolf‘s second opus, II: Campaign of Extermination and it was /is still a fucking ripper of a record delivering some truly blood-pumping, war-mongering black/death metal that put them pretty high on the heap of the genre (“With Fire and a Thousand Flashing Blades” still makes me want […]

I have not listened to a Comatose Music release in a while, so I thoughts I’d check in on the reliably predictable label and see what one of their latest releases was like- and boy the label’s shift to proggy power metal was a real surprise! I keeeeed. It’s brutal slamming death metal – what […]

Seattle’s Exist in Ruin is a symphonic black/death metal brainchild of one ‘Teren’, who plays guitar and bass and does the drum programming. But for the project’s debut EP (released digitally earlier this summer, but picked up by Italy’s Wormholedeath to re-release) he has a host of guest and session musicians helping him out: Jonah […]

I’m not a huge thrash metal guy. Other than some that were my gateway bands into death metal like Slayer, Possessed, Metallica, and Holy War (and for some reason never heard or purchased a Megadeth album). However, in the late 80s, I did have a soft spot for thrash from my homeland of England mainly […]

Way back in the late 90s/early 2000s, The End Records were arguably the best independent record label around that wasn’t one of the ‘big’ four- Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Relapse and Metal Blade- when it came to underground metal.

With releases from bands like Agalloch, Ulver, Arcturus, Anathema, November’s Doom, Crisis, Love History, Sculptured, Scholomance, Unexpect, Virgin Black and others, the label was diverse, ambitious and often genre bending.

But for me personally, one of the band’s early flag ship US bands that was able to compete with their European brethren was Tennessee’s black metal act Epoch of Unlight.

I heard a couple of great Summoning inspired bands back in 2021; Norway’s Urdôl Ur and their debut, Seven Portals To The Arcane Realms and  Withered Land‘s The Endless Journey. But nothing so far in 2022. Enter Hungary’s duo WitcheR, Lélekharang (‘Soul Bell’) which is unfortunately not based on the Andrzej Sapkowski books or Henry Cavil […]

In my continuing efforts to ween myself off Lorna Shore and actually listen to other music, I randomly stumbled across the second album from Columbian death metal band  Casket Grinder, and holy hell does it kick all sorts of ass. The album consists of the band’s split, ep, and demo material recorded prior to their […]

Ok, here’s another one of those promos I get, where the ‘FFO/For Fans Of” is just too good to be true – like someone was in my head when they wrote it. In the case of Depravity, the debut album from Belgian newcomer Slaughter the Giant, where bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, At The […]

Let’s be honest, any deathcore records released in 2022 are going to be compared to Lorna Shore‘s Pain Remains, and releasing the same month as Pain Remains is a ballsy move. But Unique Leader pulled off two successful competitors with A Wake in Providence and Bonecarver. Let’s see how Nuclear Blast’s entry, the debut from […]

Both my family and TeethoftheDivine staff recently had an intervention for me. They were worried that my obsession with symphonic/blackened deathcore was harming my relationships and causing psychological and mental damage that I might not recover from. It was suggested I take a break from the new Lorna Shore album and listen to something else… […]

There’s an old adage “You can have too much of a good thing”. And for me, that “good thing” is blackened/symphonic deathcore, and I can have as much of it as I fucking want. And Spain’s Bonecarver has delivered yet another killer addition to the genre to go with the 2022 onslaught of releases from […]

I’ve long extolled the virtues of Germany’s Disillusion on these very pages. From their breathtaking, classic debut, Back to Times of Splendor, to the divisive follow-up Gloria to the band’s comeback after a 13-year layoff in 2019s The Liberation. Well thankfully, we don’t have a long wait for them to follow up The Liberation, as […]

There have been some great Swedish /HM2 style death metal releases in 2022; Necrom, Entrails, Demonical, Katakomba, Sentient Horror, and Ripped to Shreds Disfuneral, have all released killer albums so far this year. But this autumn, a few more releases will drop and compete for your hard-earned cash. Back in September, Tampa Bay’s Carnal Ruin […]

With a name like Lightlorn ( ‘having no light’ or ‘bereft of light’) you’d think the debut EP from these Gothenburg atmospheric/post black metallers would be a truly grim, depressive affair. However, the 4 lengthy songs that comprise this EP are actually some of the most delightfully uplifting, melodic black metal I’ve heard in a […]

High the Memory, the second album from Norway’s Abyssic was one of the more underrated surprises for me back in 2019. Using a base in UK funeral doom ( My Dying Bride notably) and adding a dominant cinematic symphonic/orchestral layer, it was a superb album that made the world of lumbering doom a little more […]

As heralded by their single “Rebirth” (which appears on this album as a remixed bonus track) from earlier this year,  one of the UK’S leading deathccore/slamming death metal acts, Ingested is a band reborn. Now a three-piece consisting of drummer Lyn Jeffs, guitarist/backing vocalist Sean Hynes and vocalist Jason Evans and aided on this album […]

Despite their early impact and influence, I’ve never been more than a casual Defleshed fan, for some reason preferring Hypokras, Carnal Forge, Darkane, Dew Scented, The Crown and I.N.R.I for my hyper-speedy, thrashy, melodic-ish death metal in the late 90s early to mid-00s. I own 1997s Under the Blade and 1999s Fast Forward, but both […]

Well, Chris Reifert and co. are still at it and back with album number 9, their fourth (depending on what you view the 2015 Skull Grinder LP) after returning from an extended hiatus with Macabre Eternal in 2011, an OK if an underwhelming return to the fray. But then we got 2013s The Headless Ritual […]

When you run the risk of being simply known as “the band that Will Ramos of Lorna Shore used to sing for”, you’d better deliver on your album that you recorded after Ramos’s departure  …. And Boy to A Wake in Providence respond and let the blackened deathcore world know they are NOT simply going […]

I checked out the promo for the third album from this UK-based act as it dropped words like Nile and Behemoth as well as Roman and Greek Mythology. Sold! And I wasn’t disappointed as Ex Mortis Gloria (From Death Comes Glory) is a damn solid record. A little research into the band shows it comprises […]

It’s been five years since the Bay Area’s Acephalix released Decreation back in 2017, and there have been a few changes, as the band is now a five-piece again with a couple of lineup changes. But the sound has not changed; it’s still a filthy, death metal-based form of D-beat/crust that’s part Grave, part Nails, […]

I usually don’t review digital-only releases, but when you stumble across a symphonic tech-death supergroup based on one of the greatest video games series’ of all time, I’ll make an exception. Video gamers will recognize the moniker as one of the weapons from the Gears of War series, and indeed Hammer of Dawn is a […]