Unshine flashes through the same elven infested, misty forests as their fellow Finns, Battlelore. Pulitzer-worthily titled Earth Magick is yet another stab at female fronted, romantic, mid-paced metal musick (that’s an intentional typo, mind you). Where Finntroll actually sound like trolls on the roll and Korpiklaani like a pack of drunks on a fringe, I’m […]

Talk about being kicked into a bleeding pulp. I didn’t see this one coming, even though I had some kind of an idea of what to expect. This Godless Endeavor‘s sheer brutality and power of the contact left me gasping for air, down on my fours, begging for forgiveness in front of a much higher […]

As the regular visitors to the site might have already realized, I’m not the biggest fan of the current hard/metalcore wave. Too many bands, inflation, no one’s happy, yadda yadda – you get the idea. Far from being original, Canadian Hollow Ground do at least something right to these ears. 6 songs, 12 minutes of […]

2004 meant the return of legendary thrash bands, most notably, bands like Exodus and Death Angel, whose albums and returns were given a great amount of media exposure. This of course took some space away from the ‘smaller acts’. Reformed back in the beginning of the new millennium, Hirax have returned to grace the music […]

Testament’s Seen Between the Lines DVD is basically a 1:1 copy of their 1991 VHS carrying the same name. Featuring a few chosen live cuts from the Souls of Black –era, a bunch of music videos, interviews and extra footage of the band goofing around in Tokyo. There’s some hour and a half worth of […]

Ireland hasn’t exactly been up front of the stage with some of the other European countries, when it comes down to the heavy metal department. Sure, everyone’s heard of Thin Lizzy, but besides them the only two bands I can mention for sure are Cruachan and Primordial. Both of which caress and treasure their region […]

If the private investigator skills I picked up by watching Mr. Matula crack cases and score with the whores in one of the longest running German cop TV-shows, Ein Fall für Zwei, on TV can be trusted – Canadian Horfixion has more years (12) behind them than I can count (I’ve only got ten fingers; […]

Now that the Northern melodic death metal bands seem to be leaning towards more accessible tones, the battleground has opened up for the acts in the American continent. Quite surprisingly one of such newcomer bands, Soulscar, hails from Canada and even more surprisingly – there is little to be heard of the metalcore influence that’s […]

What the fuck is wrong with the drinking water in Poland? Newbreed’s CD shows a group of young kids with long hair in the midst of falling snow, looking as innocent as Hanson when they still sang about popping the cherry while roller blading on the videos. Yet, these young fellows show unsurprisingly good musicianship […]

Denmark’s Mercenary took a sucker punch at me a couple of years ago, with their Everblack album. The mix of two completely different genres, (dare I say, melodic) death metal and power metal, showed that it isn’t impossible to marry the two together if it’s done with the needed boldness and disregard for naysayer opinions: […]

I just came. Italy is well known for mixing perverted ideas together and expressing the results musically. Usually such releases are worthy of filling the garbage bin, but exceptions are known to happen. Thee Maldoror Kollective is one of such occasions with their latest album where things could have gone horribly wrong, but luckily didn’t. […]

Mnemic is one of the next generation ‘mechanical’ bands that combine elements from and between Fear Factory, Meshuggah and to some extend Strapping Young Lad. And quite like certain parts of the history, Mnemic doesn’t seem to want to break out from the rat race as things haven’t really changed dramatically on The Audio Injected […]

When I first picked up the new (and the band’s first) Demonoid CD, titled with an original name Riders of the Apocalypse, prejudiced views and harsh opinions stormed my head filling it with negative images. The neatly done artwork displaying quite traditional images of destruction and hatred along side with the band name (that asks […]

I wonder if my wild imagination as a kid and the countless of hours watching Robotech (yeah yeah, I know that it’s watered down from the Macross series) in the ’80s did the damage or what, but I grew a perversion for Japanese metal bands, especially those that played something resembling thrash metal. It seems […]

I have to admit that I didn’t soil myself by the band’s highly acclaimed Goremageddon CD, but I must say that this new EP really took me by the balls and delivered a sucker punch worth noting. The package consists of six songs out of which three are new, one is a decent Entombed cover […]

Without a doubt, Mokoma became Finland’s best kept secret with last year’s thrash assault album, Kurimus. The album made sure that the band would be remembered as one of Finland’s most original and inspirational groups ever. The quality of the song writing, the excellence in the lyrical field and the pure professionalism and excitement that […]

While I’m sure it’s the most tired tactic of them all, I can’t but mention the fact that Infinited Hate is another band where Rachel Heyzer-Kloosterwaard (of Occult and Sinister-fame) speaks sexily through her throat with Death Metal playing in the background. From what I gather, the band was formed late 2003 to fill the […]

Unlike most, I really didn’t think that Digimortal was as big of an abomination as some make it out to be. Sure it had its fair share of jumpdafuckup-elemenets, but it was still unquestionably a pure Fear Factory album where the things done right overweighted the things done wrong. Guess the success of the album […]

The Finnish metal scene is more lively than it has ever been. I’m not talking about the inbred fans, the demented critics and the sort but the actual bands. There’s plenty of variety, there’s shitloads of quality and the battle for becoming better than the other guy is intense. Unfortunately, it’s a double edged sword. […]

OH FUCK NO! Not again! I’m not talking about the global warming nor the upcoming nuclear holocaust, but a new atrocity committed against mankind. After suffering from a severe head trauma caused by the notorious Dust to Dust album, I was able to pick up the pieces and put myself back together and continue living […]

Excuse the cursing, but what the fuck have I done to deserve this? Seriously, I’ve done no harm to anyone, have caused no havoc nor bloodshed during the short time I’ve graced this planet with my presence. Yet, I’m punished as if I was the cause for Liberace being gay and thus making your mothers […]

Finnish sung metal has become more and popular in Finland (what a surprise!) and one can only hope that the basic trend has reached its highest peak. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it, but most of the bands of the genre, are boring beyond belief. It all basically started with Timo Rautiainen & […]

The Greek trio Bullethole, formerly known as Human Decay, has brought their debut CD Incarceration to the mortal kind, also known as human beings (that is us). According to the band themselves, what we’re given is a mix between The Haunted and Hatebreed. And to my surprise, they’re not that far off with their ‘thrash […]

I admit that I don’t have that much of knowledge (if at all) in grind. Sure, when I was young and vulnerable for all sorts of influences I listened to Napalm Death and Carcass from the tape that I stole from my brother, but I found the Sepultura, Dismember and Cannibal Corpse songs more entertaining. […]

Netherland’s Crustacean have been together since 1989, mainly touring and playing Slayer and have only released a handful of material. Demos included. None the less, Insaniac marks the band’s progress to full- length number dos. First, you can’t avoid the cover artwork on this disc. Cheesy computer generated 3D skeletons, badly modeled demon and bright […]