What do you get when you cross mid-90s Black Metal ie: Dark Funeral, The Abyss, Necrophobic and Dissection with Helloween, and Metallica? The kind of vibe that Bloodcross is laying down on Gravebound. These unholy Finns are firing on all thrusters with this debut full-length. After releasing the Abysmal Blood Demo in 2021, they (presumably) […]

Canada keeps kicking out sick tech death bands in 2024. Sentiment Dissolve has been around since 2021. The Orwellian Dream kicks off with “Forced Birther.’  Right off the bat you can hear how intricate their arrangements and vocal patterns are. You can hear the Archspire influence on the vocal patterns which are quite impressive done […]

Technical Death Metal is one of those sub-genres I must be in the mood for. The same goes for Power Metal, but I’m talking about Replacire and not Sonata Artica; the former being the Eric Alper driven death machine that I had no idea existed and the latter being one of the best Power Metal […]

Sweden’s Wormwood burst onto the melodic black metal scene with 2017’s excellent Ghostlands, followed up by Nattarvett, the first of a planned trilogy of albums. Part two of the trilogy, 2021s Arkivet saw the band take a melancholic downturn befitting the tale of mankind’s general shittiness. I was hoping for a return to the more […]

I reviewed and raved about the Cavalera brothers re-recording the first two recordings of Sepultura, Bestial Devastation/Morbid Visions EP, last year.  Last year when they played “Escape to the Void” and “Inquisition Symphony” live, on the Morbid Devastation tour, I knew it was a matter of time before we all got notice that Schizophrenia was […]

When Arizona’s Gatecreeper burst onto the scene 10 years ago they did it with such gusto, ushering in a bludgeoning death metal sound.  By incorporating many elements of the Swedish chainsaw – buzzsaw HM-2 heaviness with large elements of groove they became one of the heaviest bands, overnight.  Across their prior two albums and eps […]

Henry Kane (AKA Jonny Petterson from Wombbath) has released two fine grindcore/crust albums under this Poltergeist-named project; 2017s Den förstörda människans rike, and 2020s appropriately named Age of the Idiot. Both delivering furious, Nasum-ish-styled Swedish grind/crust. However, his third release is a completely different beast altogether. and you should probably brace for it a little bit. […]

Minnesota’s Grand Demise of Civilization returns with their fourth full-length album. If you are not familiar with Grand Demise of Civilization they play a unique style of black metal. Part of what makes their sound unique is their use of eight-string guitars mixed with unbelievably relentless drum work. “The Redeemer of Wrath” kicks off the […]

Death. War. Pestilence. Famine. A dying planet gasping for breath as it is gripped in the throes of Armageddon. Legions of demons sweep across the land, killing all in sight with reckless abandon. As the skies fall and the moon becomes black as sackcloth, it is out of this malignant hatred that Downcross was formed […]

Ohio continues to be one of the main hotbeds for quality American death metal bands.  I am new to the 200 Stab Wounds bandwagon and it was 2022/2023 when the band came onto my radar.  The label breeding ground for death metal bands getting signed to bigger labels is Maggot Stomp Records. 200 Stab Wounds […]

I originally started this off with a silly intro, but it’s not fitting. This is serious, bone-shaking death metal, and everyone should pay attention. Not that Tzompantli needed to improve, but they sure as shit did. On their second album, Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force, these gentlemen have knocked it out of the park […]

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 […]

WyndRider is a young upcoming stoner doom metal act from Tennessee.  In their short existence since 2022 they have released their self-titled debut last year and now Revival.  I’ve recently been in communication with Chloe Gould, their singer, and have been mightily impressed with her vocals, after receiving this promo to review.  I was so […]

1990; Fuck I’m old. In Death Metal history, however, it’s like I’m still in my twenties and it was DEATH METAL. Bands were releasing albums left and right, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel; the Earache label alone was like a goddamn factory with its roster of bands. Not to be left out were these dudes from […]

From the 2007 tech death debut, Of Fracture and Failure, New Zealand’s Ulcerate has been one of the death metal’s most consistently elite bands with 5 albums since. The band has evolved from the pure tech death of the debut into a murky, dissonant, almost black death band (they are on Debemor Morti – a […]

SOOO I am a huge Thrash Metal fan.  In the 80’s while I was trying to find the hardest and heaviest music possible one of the scenes, which for me, has always been on par with the American Thrash Metal scene, was Germany.  The main staples of Kreator, Sodom and Destruction were crushing it.  However […]

Devourer of All is the second album from Belgian black metal band Nyrak, (I could not find who or what a ‘Nyrak‘ is) a new band to me, but based on this excellent second effort they will be a regular band in my playlist and a band with a bright future. Playing a blend of […]

Many of the bands I review on this site, I randomly encountered. That’s the case for Tennesse’s  Summoner’s Circle. In my “why the fuck not,” era just last year, I saw a festival of which I had not heard in my state called Toledo Death Fest. Despite the hot sun, they were a stylistic sore […]

Finland. When I think of Finland I tend to think of the recent film Sisu. It’s about this gold miner who finds the mother load in a vein of gold. Long story short, some Nazis are killed in fantastically thrilling ways.  While I was listening to this debut album from Kratti Matka Kohti Kosmista, I […]

Thanks to this YouTube group, I spent much of 2023 discovering newer symphonic black metal, or at least releases in the genre that aren’t from the golden age, or releases that somehow I completely missed from 2010 on. I found superb bands like Spain’s Ensom, Canada’s Obscuris Romancia, Russia’s Skylord, Cuba’s Mephisto, Finland’s Shade Empire, […]

I am new to the Vale of Pnath fan club.  I’ve seen the logo over a number of years, however, I never heard them up until now.  This Colorado technical death metal act has been around since 2006 with 2 prior ep’s and 2 prior full lengths to boot. After hearing Between the Worlds of […]

18 years, 12 albums, 9 labels, 8 vocalists. You have to hand it to the lone remaining founding member/ drummer Dave Astor; he is certainly persistent and keeps shuffling lineups and releasing albums on multiple labels, even with all the above he’s seemingly settled on a somewhat stable lineup for a few albums now (Obie […]

I don’t know about the rest of ya’ll, but summer sure took its sweet ass time showing up ’round these parts. Yeah, it’s June now, and a lot of this country has been caught in the grips of an absolutely hellacious heat wave (sorry), but back when I had originally started listening to this release […]

“Fuck every fucking cop that’s ever fucking lived.” I want to start with those words, which are repeated many times in “No Reform (New Age Slave Patrol)” the fourth track from Terminal Nation‘s second album, Echoes of the Devil’s Den, to simply let you know the message, and to turn back now if offended. For […]

The last Christian metal record I covered was Voluntary Mortification‘s Suffer to Rise back in 2020, which also happened to be Rottweiler Records, which is fast becoming the premier label for extreme Christian Music with bands like A Hill to Die Upon,  Death Requisite, xDOULOSx, Krig, Desolate Tomb, Symphony of Heaven and such, much like […]