All of a sudden, I have got a glut of thrash/groove releases (Treyharsh, Murkocet, Malkavian, Voice of Ruin) hearkening to the late 90s tones of Machine Head, Daath, Devildriver, Chimaira and Skinlab. And while it’s a sound I’m only a bit lukewarm on, sometimes a production can make a release much more impressive. Such is the […]

I’m not a big ‘thrash guy’. Not since the classics of the 80s/90s has a thrash band captured my attention unless injected with a little more grit or death metal like Dew Scented. So here is the third album from long running, nu metal named, thrash band from Portugal, hardly the thrash or metal mecca or […]

It’s not often you get to cover Buddhist-inspired metal, much less Buddhist metal from Portugal. I was very impressed by The Firstborn’s fourth release, The Noble Search, back in 2009. It blended prog and melodic death with thick, roiling sludge, not unlike Mastodon or Gojira, and then blessed it all with a breeze of East […]

Have you ever heard an album that doesn’t suck nor does it rock the shit out of everything in its path… an album that’s just, uh oh, decent? Switchtense self-titled second full-length is that album. For its duration, it’s all entertainment and cupcakes, but after it ceases spinning, that’s it. It doesn’t leave a mark. […]