Australia’s Abramelin comeback album in 2020, Never Enough Snuff,  was a really good death metal album, which I reviewed as well.  Refusing to rest on their laurels, this band was a free agent, and picked up by Hammerheart Records, and Sins of the Father is the band’s latest offering. An issue I had with the […]

Spain’s Totengott returns with their third album, Beyond the Veil, and first for Hammerheart Records.  I have enjoyed their prior two albums, Doppelgänger and The Abyss quite a lot.  The band originally started as a Celtic Frost cover band and their primary influence falls in line with the monstrous Monotheist reformation album as well as […]

This summer, two pretty revered veteran, symphonic black metal acts will be releasing their ninth albums (both on June 28th no less!). Both released their debut albums in 1996 and both waited 6-7 years between their last albums and these new releases. One is Norway’s Limbonic Art, who released their debut The Moon In Scorpio […]

Sweden’s Sarcasm returns with their fifth album Mourninghoul. Sarcasm plays a unique throwback style of classic Swedish Sound (Unanimated, Dawn, Early Gates of Ishtar, Early Desultory) mixed with moments of modern heaviness by bands like Morbid Angel. “As Northern Gates Opens” opens the album and I was hooked right away by the coldness of the […]

When I was still a young 20 something discovering Death Metal, I ordered a sampler from a label called JL America through a magazine called Wild Rags. I still have the cassette in my collection and through that one little cassette tape I heard Impaled Nazarene, Pyogenesis, Disastrous Murmur and of course, Acheron. The track […]

Paul Speckman, (bass/vox), a long staple in the mid-west death metal scene, has been around since the 80’s with his main band Master. Some may be unaware, but some years ago, frustrated with the living costs in America and politics, packed up his shit and relocated to the Czech Republic.Buthere are still nods to their […]

When your promotional materials boldy claim that your album is the ‘Best Swedish death metal of 2023”,  you’ve got some balls on you, that’s for sure. But you certainly got my attention. The thing is…… the claim might be right. Even with some hefty competition from the likes of Wretched Fate, Iron Flesh, Angerot, Coffin […]

Far be it from me to understand  how or why certain bands make it bigger than others, why artists deserving of much more in the way of accolades and acclaim just never quite rise to certain levels of success. I’m sure the truth is probably that any number of factors come into play, not the […]

Hailing from Greece, Wothrosch started in 2018 but Odium is their first and only album, and what a scorcher to start of 2023.  We get 8 songs with one word titles and this guy appreciates that quite a lot. Opening with “Child”, it’s immediately evident this is some doomy sludgy black metal.  Rather than having […]

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 […]

I’m gonna go out on a real limb here and guess that you, dear reader, are probably no stranger to Horror films. You might even call yourself a fan of horror. Heck, I’m gonna double down here, and bet you might even have an affinity for shitty, low-budget horror flicks with the aesthetic appeal of […]

For whatever reason, I passed over this Dutch avant garde death/doom act in the mid 90s, when they released most of their discography (mainly the respected of 1994s Immense Intense Suspense and 1997s more commercial, quirky  Skycontact). Maybe I had my fill with Pan-Thy-Monium’s output or Celestial Season’s stringed effort or even Visceral Evisceration’s single album, […]

Wehrmacht hailed from Oregon and had a nice underground run in the 80’s.  Other than some demos, their body of work is with their two albums:  The 1987 debut Shark Attack and 1989 follow-up Biērmächt both released on New Renaissance Records.  Wehrmacht played a blistering style of crossover thrash metal, which at the time was […]

The physical reissue of this 2017 digital only release from this Norwegian symphonic black metal band caught my eye as it features Clemens Wijers of Carach Angren doing the symphonic/orchestral arrangements. And boy is this fucking good! Its definitely got a bit of a theatrical/dramatic Carach Angren vibe, with Wiljers rendering some superbly rousing strings […]

For years I have seen the Collision band logo and never investigated them until now. They hail from The Netherlands and stated in 2000. They have several albums under their belt and The Final Kill is their newest release-a 7 song ep. Collision plays a hybrid blend of thrash-crossover mixed with brutal grindcore. When I […]

Viogression hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, began in the hey day of death metal and although they released a second album in 1992: Passage, and the album suffered a lot from production and song writing issues, their crowning achievement is the 1991 debut – Expound and Exhort.  A 12 song album that mixed a blazingly heavy […]

Considering my love of all things symphonic, especially symphonic black metal and even more especially my love of French horns and brass, you’d think i’d be more aware of Hungary’s Sear Bliss. I have heard the name whispered on the lips of the elite  with 2004s Glory and Perdition often mentioned as a classic black […]

This past year has surely been a busy year for Mr. Patrick Mameli, singer and guitarist for Pestilence.  Their first four albums were remastered and reissued in deluxe formats and I reviewed all four of them here.  Perfect reissues!  Patrick has assembled a brand new Pestilence line-up:  Calin Paraschiv on lead guitar, Tilen Hudrap on […]

Give it up for Hammerheart partnering with Patrick Mameli to bring you the first set of Pestilence reissues.  Each paragraph will focus on each of these reissues, my thoughts and the impact each had on the scene.  My second Pestilence reissue review package will be in the new year encompassing Testimony of the Ancients and […]

Lets be honest. There is simply too much metal out there nowadays for a fan to stay on top of it all. Thirty years ago? No problem. Twenty years ago? Difficult, but still do-able. Today? Fuhgeddaboudit… Even the most devout of metal collectors (which most us are) will find it nigh impossible to stay afloat […]

Metal and perseverity go hand in hand, I feel many is a band that you can mention that work and toil away in the trenches with little or no recognition, or get a following for work ethic, etc and Cirith Gorgor can fall in to the this category. I’ve been familiar with them since the […]

In 1991 Wild Rags Records released the debut album from Los Angeles, California, grind/punk act Nausea.  I bought it on cassette and cd.  The album is essential grind and we all know that guitarist/singer, Oscar Garcia, had already sang on one of the greatest grindcore albums of all time, World Downfall, from Terrorizer, in 1989.  […]

For obvious reasons there’s something about winter that makes me lean towards the more furious and frosty spectrum of my black metal listening habits. And this winter, Marduk, Taake, Thromesis, Inferion, Dodsverk and this, the fifth album from The Netherlands’ Sammath have all satiated my need for a more primal and  classic take on the style. However, […]

Downcast Dutchmen, Officium Triste, have been wallowing in misery for nearly two decades, releasing four full-lengths along with a handful of EPs, splits, and demos during that time. Despite having been an avid fan of death/doom that whole time, I somehow managed to miss out on their entire output. I have a feeling that every […]

As much as I’ve always liked the Japanese Gods of the Deathly and the Doomed (a.k.a. Coffins), I don’t recall enjoying one of their numerous releases on a multitude of formats (probably even 8-track) quite as much as new EP March of Despair. By that I mean that it ended up being more than a […]