Louisiana’s wrathful extreme music scene gets another notch on its termite-gnawed bedpost with this debut album from Pale Misery.  This musically dank, fetid trio rams the spiked gauntlets of black metal down the throat of crust-addled punk all across Black Candles and Gutter Scum’s sickening six tracks.  Goatwhore this is not as precision, tightly-bolted song […]

After a seething introductory EP (Vol. 1), sick and slithering Arizona sludgelords Gale called it quits in 2017 but as a favor to all devoted riff-heads they’ve decided to release their debut full-length follow up this past January (of 2019) before disappearing into the void for good.  It’s a damn nice thing of them because […]

Though Maryland is often most known for its legendary punk/hardcore and doom scenes, there’s just about every kind of kick ass music imaginable coming from its fertile creative soil.  Mutated sludgy crust/grinders Musket Hawk are a prime example of the variance emanating from the state with their 3rd and most vicious full-length yet, Upside of […]

I’m a little overdue on this one and frankly I didn’t really feel like chiming in with a review on Pig Destroyer’s latest platter of pain until some of the usual hype that comes with their releases died down.  They’re pretty much a love it or hate it proposition for most people at this point […]

Buffalo New York’s smog spitters Yanari are some cool ass cats; if you email them they will send you a copy of their Marine Leg EP for free.  As TOTD’s resident sludge nut I had to jump on the offer and find out the scoop.  Free swill isn’t the reason this is getting a good […]

North Carolina heavyweights The Asound have been cutting a swath through the underground building a growing following with their tree-topping musical might, a string of consistently kick ass releases and plenty of action on the live-front.  Some of these crud riffers with shifty songwriting ideals are heathens that have served in cult institutions Seven Foot […]

Massachusetts has spawned some muscular, heavy rock machines over the years including Only Living Witness, Ichabod, Milligram, Scissorfight, Birch Hill Dam, Roadsaw, Sam Black Church, Tree and Honkeyball just to name a few.  The unique thing that many of these bands did was that they incorporated intricate punk/hardcore influences into their sounds, even if only […]

I love Atlanta, Georgia’s doom n’ gloom masters Dead Register quite a metric ton.  Not only is the music powerful but if you just read the trio’s bandcamp bio you know that they’ve got a wicked, snarly smile going on behind all of their malice in the chalice bass riffs, heart-reaping vocals and molten percussive […]

Named after a faction from the popular Elder Scrolls video game series which I’m not very familiar with, English doom overloads Morag Tong follow-up their EP debut Through Clouded Time by dropping a lysergic, wandering slab of doom with hazy tones, psychedelic melody and a plummeting sludgy aggression seeping into their unholy pounding.  Faint whiffs […]

I’ve had my eye on Outer Heaven for a bit as the band hails from my home state PA and a friend of mine introduced me to a pair of their singles.  “Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay” and “Into Hellfire” are the songs that made me take notice and convinced me that Outer Heaven was […]

I’m hearing tons of sick underground music from India lately which is often brought to my attention from the fellas at Qabar PR (cheers Hassan and Zoheb) as well the madman Kunal from Transcending Obscurity’s main HQ.  All I can say is keep ‘em coming guys because I’m getting turned onto a metric fuckton of […]

An absolutely devastating split from India’s experimental crust grinders False Flag (a perennial favorite in the Snyder household) and Nepal’s doom-burnt thrash punks Neck Deep in Filth that gives you 5 tracks of pain when all’s said and done, without any filler getting in the way.  Anyone that was around for the heyday of freaked […]

Pummeling old school hardcore meets punk straight from the genre’s birthzone (Long Island, NY) is what The Great Lie offers up on their debut EP, All Roads Lead to Where You Stand.  Featuring the exclamatory holler of John Wilkes Booth’s main set of pipes Kerry Merkle, a thick rhythm section and a nasty twin guitar […]

Plowing their way through England’s Midlands since ’05, The Atrocity Exhibit provides a drippy, gooey take on punk-riddled sludge-grind that feels distinctly, well, English.  There’s a scuzzy take on this genre here that could only come from the UK and it’s a sound purveyed by killer fairly recent bands like Among the Missing, Mistress and […]

Absolutely sick little sludgy, abrasive split release here from a pair of bands that feature some under the radar heavy rock vets from both sides of the pond.  A good split EP should introduce you to two great bands that you might not know a whole helluva a lot about but after a few plays […]

Floridian lunatics Gnosis impressed me quite a bit with their debut album of fetid, meat n’ taters, doom-tinged blackened death The Third-Eye Gate in 2015…as the three year mark came n’ went between records I wasn’t sure we’d be getting a new one or not.  Thank Ol’ Scratch because these scum rippers are back with […]

At one point or another all three fellas in Oregon’s upstart, space-out sludge trio Flood Peak were members of the heathen, experimental dirt-doom band Sól (they’re still going strong) whose LPs Black Mountain and Upheaval are still way worth your listening time.  Currently, drummer Dylan Stuntebeck is the only man in FP that moonlights in […]

I’ve been a fiend for the Fus since the 90s; pretty much a religious, “Every album rules, maaaan,” type of nut up to and including the streamlined, utter-ass kicking heard on King of the Road.  In Search Of… and The Action is Go are my personal pinnacles but as a riff-roarin’ machine they couldn’t do […]

France’s chosen children of hard rockin’, Maryland doom tinged grooves return with their 5th full-length album, Banlieue Triste, which is their overall umpteenth release to date in a sprawling discography full of driving melody riffs, lamenting crooned vocals, a locked on rhythm section and generally damn good songwriting.  Hangman’s Chair have managed to survive a […]

I wasn’t sure how this one would turn out but they’ve got an organ player.  As a big fan of The Doors, Iron Butterfly, Birth Control and the first 3 Deep Purple’s, I gave it a shot and I’m very pleasantly surprised.  On album #2, the Denmark based smooth groovers Grusom transplant Fall of the […]

With a name like Druglord, I expected doom and I got doom.  I’ve heard their handle circling online conversations but until getting busy with their second LP, New Day Dying, I hadn’t heard too much of the music.  They are on the sludgy tip for sure as I get a few whiffs of early Electric […]

Norway’s Krakow is a prolific quartet that has amassed quite an imposing discography since their inception in 2005.  Somehow I have remained accidentally ignorant to their music despite seeing rave reviews of them around underground metal webzines and getting a few lauded recommendations by friends that I trust.  The 6 tunes on this release are […]

From the double-dipped tab of wah overloaded guitars and sinew taut bass lines that die their way to slow-motion life during the intro of the title track, it’s obvious that Ohio brutes Weed Demon mean business on their first full-length altar sacrifice.  Riffs collapse with the space warping grace of dying stars, slowly ratcheting up […]

Holy fuckin’ hell, this release is certainly up there in the category of “angriest music I’ve ever heard.”  The Black Sorcery is a Canadian quintet that plays a ghoulish, beyond foul hybrid of blackened death/grind with lurching sludge influences cropping up from time to time.  Even when the music does slow its unhinged ass down […]

If you’re looking to catch a buzz lift and you positively need a good battering of hard-liner blues guitar, blood-drooling wah pedals, deep rhythmic highs and soul howlin’ vocals, then chances are that Italy’s Black Elephant are gonna go down well with your needs.  Cosmic Blues is their third LP and I’m having a shame […]