Bordeaux France’s Ad Patres returns with the third full-length Unbreathable. I reviewed their last record A Brief Introduction to Human Experiments back in 2019. Ad Patres brings an excellent combination of technicality, musicianship, and brutality. There is no shortage of any of these items with this record. Things get kicked off with an eighty-second intro […]

I get nostalgic for 90s and early 2000s Death Metal quite often. So many excellent bands and albums were spawned from those years that a list would literally wallpaper a house. So, as I listen to the debut from three quarters of Grief of Emerald, Death Reich, I go back to those special days of […]

Sirrush (a dragon from Babylonian Mythology) is a new-ish Italian black/death metal band from Italy, They have been around since 2011, though Molon Labe is their first full-length album, and I had to review it as it tackles one of my favorite historical events of the Classical Age- The Battle of Thermopylae. No matter your […]

After Swedish Death Metal, my favorite kind of death metal is that burly, chunky blackened death metal,. Big beefy riffs, commanding deep vocals, and a pretty strong militant vibe. It’s a sound Behemoth perfected in the mid 00s, (with Zos Kia Cultus being the arguable apex of the style) and recently bands like Poland’s Hate, […]

Last year, I reviewed the fourth album, Emptiness Fills the Void, (Non Serviam Records) from this Swiss melodic black metal band, And was rather impressed with band’s tight, modern take on classic Scandinavian (Dissection, Naglfar, Catamenia, Dawn etc) melodic black metal from the 90s. So when I heard Non Serviam Records was reissuing the band’s […]

I was drawn to the 4th album from Switzerland’s Stortregn (Swedish for ‘downpour’) by the as always killer Dan Seagrave artwork alone as I had never heard of this band or any of their albums. But as what happens a few times on blindly checking out a promo, I ended up really liking this band and […]

Delving into this release just from the initial look at the cover, the imagery of the band members, logo etc,  I will admit, it is a bit different soundwise than expected. Nothing bad mind you, it’s just going in, I was expecting a cold, speed assault similar to Marduk and their brethren but what I’m […]

Under the alias of ‘Zornheym’, bassist/guitarist Tomas Nilsson, played in Dark Funeral from 2011-to 2014, and now he and some of his Swedish metal pals (notably Diabolical drummer Angst and Facebreaker’s Richard Bendler on vocals) has formed his own band under that moniker but those expecting anything like Dark Funeral will be sorely disappointed, as Zornheym play a […]

Hailing from the fertile metal lands of Stockholm, Sweden, unsung melodic black metal outfit Wormwood appear poised to raise their modest profile on the back of their hugely impressive debut LP. Taking cues from melodic black metal legends Dissection and Naglfar and blending these influences with traces of melancholic folk and pagan metal, Wormwood’s stellar […]

France’s Bliss of Flesh are a new act to me, so this, their second album, is my first exposure to the bands style of Black/death metal, but I am very impressed with Beati Pauperes Spiritu, so much so it actually stole a lot of the thunder and attention from Necrophobic‘s Womb of Lilitu. I can […]

Black metal has been a very hit or miss genre for me.  My main experiences lie with Immortal, and the popular and oft-criticized Dimmu Borgir.  But I enjoy branching out from the death/grind spectrum of metal that dominates my speakers, and decided to grab the new Grief of Emerald.  After doing a little research, it […]

France’s Griffar started out as a pagan black metal band; their 2000 release Of Witches and Celts featured lengthy, highly melodic compositions and a buzzy, wall-of-sound approach. After a few aborted attempts to return over the last decade, they’ve finally reformed with an updated and more muscular sound. Griffar now sounds like late 90s melodic black […]