Have a seat, and grab a snack. This is gonna be a long one. Way back in 2015 I reviewed a pretty nondescript EP, Maleficium, from this New Jersey band called Lorna Shore. It was Ok, odd band name, and a few keyboards, but nothing really stood out. The same can be said for the […]

When I blindly downloaded the promo for the second album from Turkey’s Inhuman Depravity, I was fully expecting an utterly ‘broodle’ death metal onslaught of Comatose Records proportions. what I got was a far more varied and surgical old-school technical death metal record that reminded me if bands like Suffocation, Deeds of Flesh, and in […]

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I blindly hit ‘play’ on Bexadde, on Germany’s FDA Records after getting the CD in the mail along with the new Slaughterday. With that moniker, I was maybe expecting some fuzzed-out stoner doom? But I certainly not modern atmospheric/post-black metal, not exactly what FDA Records is known for. […]

I have no excuse why it has taken me to review the debut album from Baltimore’s Greylotus. I got nothing. It’s even sadder considering, I listen to it a lot, and it’s going to be a clear-cut album of the year contender for me, so let’s get to it. Basically, Greylotus’s Dawnfall is if you […]

For almost a decade, German duo Slaughterday has been rendering their Autopsy worshiping ( Slaughterday is a song from the Mental Funeral album) tones with  3 albums and a couple of EPs. And with album number 4, even with the word ‘doom’ in the title, they continue that trend with another killer album. With an album […]

Can someone in the Norfolk (UK) area please go and check on NRE? Seriously, from what I’m hearing on his sixth and final album under his And Now The Owls Are Smiling moniker, he must have undergone some drastically emotional shit since 2021s Dirges, a despondent but still atmospheric and at times melodic black metal […]

I randomly grabbed the 2018 release, Hard 2 Kill, in a used bin back in 2018, and was pleasantly surprised with the Southern groovy take on death metal/thrash from these Texans. But I never really appeared on my radar again until I saw the fucking epic album cover for their newest effort, and thought “Oh […]

Hilning is the solo project of former Afgrund vocalist/guitarist, Aldriendir (aka Andreas Baier), and as if you could not tell from the cover art, it’s a radical departure from Afgrund’s savage, Nasum-styled grindcore. Unfortunately, where Afgrund kicked out some pretty goddamn solid material in their 3 album existence from 2007-2012, I’m not sure Aldriendir’s foray […]

While a Christian metal label, Rottweiler Records has been home to slightly more unorthodox Christian metal, mostly straying away from the heavily populated metalcore/deathcore realms reserved for Facedown and Strikefirst records (that said, the recent Voluntary Mortification does fit in that genre). They have been able to locate Christian brutal death metal bands ( Taking […]

The 2020 solo debut, Verisaarna, from Hex Inferi ( ex Horna), was a blistering, icy cold blast of classic black metal in the Marduk-ian realm of relentlessness, with some innate Finnish nastiness thrown in. And while Kataklysmi is not quite as palpably frosty, it delivers much of the same frozen swathes of black metal, maybe […]

Like The Mist From the Mountains and I Am The Night from earlier this year,  Pestilent Hex is a Finnish symphonic black metal supergroup  of sorts. However, this particular project is from a duo  (L.L and M.M) who also perform in Desolate Shrine, Ordinance, Convocation and Corpsessed. And whereas the the two projects above have […]

You’d think an epic, symphonic death metal band named after Icarus’s father would deliver a Greek mythology-based album. But what we have here is a concept album about Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated, 1845 artic expedition where two ships, Erebus and Terror, and their crews of 129 went missing (also the loose basis of the excellent […]

Austrian technical deathcore/technical death metal outfit Spire of Lazarus has been on my radar for a bit now since they released two video game-themed albums under the moniker Dayum. Both 2017s Dark Souls and 2019s Ghost of Sparta (which is being re-released at the same time as this album, under the new name with Reality […]

I imagine being a Swedish death metal band, playing Swedish-styled, HM2 death metal AND hailing from Stockholm carries a little weight with it, what with Entombed  Grave and Dismember all hailing from your hometown. However, youngsters Katakomba are up to the task and have delivered a fine, if not damn brilliant homage to their hometown […]

Ho hum, album number 12 from these now fully established scene veterans, who have blown up in one of metal’s most consistent and best-selling acts. And if past logic shows us anything this should be a better Amon Amarth album based on the band’s affinity for good, then not as good, then good then not […]

I grabbed this promo to review as I dug the 2020 debut from Germany’s Eisenkult, …gedenken wir der finsternis back in 2020 ( though I somehow completely missed last year’s Von Himmel, Hoch Herab) as it was a super melodic, medieval black metal release, and I love that shit. So it appears somewhere between the […]

In my ongoing quest to discover symphonic death metal of any sort here in 2022, I’ve stumbled across some awesome, obscure stuff this summer alone,  like Japan’s Imperial Circus Dead Decadence ( whose 殯――死へ耽る想いは戮辱すら喰らい、彼方の生を愛する為に命を讃える―― might be my album of the year- which was just going to be too much of a challenge to review/type), The […]

I’m always on the lookout for heraldic, medieval black metal in the vein of Véhémence, Eisenkult, Sühnopfer, Abduction, Ungfell, Hanternoz, Passéisme, Heltekvad  and such. And here we have the debut EP from one-man band, Frenchman Alexis Chiambretto, and this 4 song 22-ish-minute debut is a must-have if you enjoy any of the above bands. You […]

What the heck is this? Christian Deathcore? Good Christian Deathcore even? What is it……. 2010 or something????? It’s been a while since I covered and enjoyed a Christian metal record, let a alone a Deathcore one that recalls a peak of the genre and bygone era when the likes of Earth From Above (still the […]

As a listener and certainly as a reviewer, there’s always a certain point when you are checking out a potential album where you say to yourself “Nope, I don’t like this” and move on ” or say “Yep, I’m digging this” and keep listening. On Seraphic Punishment, the debut album (though they have been releasing […]

Listen, when it comes to power metal, like my porn tastes, I have very specific, odd niches that I enjoy. For some reason, I skip right past the ‘normal’ power metal like Primal Fear, Firewind, Hammerfall, Iced Earth and such and dive headfirst in with unfettered glee into the uber cheesiest, symphonic cosplay-loving, LARPing, cape-wearing […]

I grabbed the debut full-length album from Barcelona’s Mankind Grief as Lacerated Enemy has released a couple of solid blackened deathcore releases already in 2022 ( Hurakan’s Via Eterna and Downfall of Mankind‘s Vile Birth) and Monarch had a song on it called “LV-426”, so I was hoping for a full-on Alien/Aliens themed album. Alas, […]

Now THAT is an album cover. T-shirt immediately purchased. But how is the music? Well, Lacerated Enemy has taken a break from symphonic/blackened deathcore and delivered us a fucking monster of a slam/brutal death metal record from France’s Kanine. And if you thought Organectomy (whose Nail Below Nail releases the same day as Karnage) or […]

You have to admire the balls on the PR company that sent out the email for the promos for Imperious, the debut album from Colorado duo Inexorable…”For Fans Of: Dying Fetus, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Dimmu Borgir and Children of Bodom“. Fucking hell!!!!!!- Sign me up! Admittedly, the bait and switch worked on me. Hook, […]

California’s Inanimate Existence has been releasing quality albums for a few years now, but never seems to quite break into the discussion of absolute top-tier tech death with say, First Fragment, Gorod, Obscura, and such. Even when they had Riley McShane (Continuum, Alleageaon) in their ranks back in 2014, they were juuuuuust on that cusp. […]