The Human Race is Filth is a misery-inducing proposition from York, PA that put out a whole helluva racket on their second release, Liberate.  Barely even sticking around for 20 minutes this guitar/drums/vocals duo take the murderous grind of Phobia, Catheter and Disrupt, fatten it up with the oppressive punk thickness of Doom and His […]

Insane, experimental sludge is the preferred poison of infernal Irish lunatics Zhora on their second full-length album, Ethos, Pathos, Logos.  This record is very much in the key of Rwake’s landmark work from Hell is a Door to the Sun through Rest, Deadbird’s The Head and the Heart, Spaceboy’s underrated discography and Neurosis’ classics Enemy […]

After a demo and a 7”, Kentucky’s psycho-sludge duo Nest return with a pulverizing, drugged-out LP, Metempsychosis, an album that breaks all of the rules and sends dirge lovers on a harrowing trip through the nastiest recesses of the human mind.  As thick as many of the dirtiest 4 to 5 member sludge bands with […]

If you like your death metal cavernous, oppressive, miasmal and distinctly Australian, then the excellent self released debut from Sydney’s Golgothan Remains is right up yer ally. With a clear Incantation backbone with murky, discordant hints of Ulcerate and country mates Portal, the aptly named Perverse Offerings to the Void delivers something that fans of Dark […]

In the grand tradition of underrated, fellow Chicagoans, Forest of Impaled, Blood of the Wolf erupt from the Midwest with a stellar sophomore release of pummeling, blood pumping blackened, death/war metal  and it’s  a god damn scorcher. I have not heard the band’s debut  I: The Law of Retaliation, but you can bet I’ll be rectifying […]

Based on the cover, name and album title, I was fully bracing for some thrash metal here, but it turns out Massachusetts’ Scalpel are a death metal band with a fondness of older 90s death metal and East Coast Death metal. There’s not much that needs to much explanation here. Scalpel’s second effort of no […]

Hailing from the tiny country of Luxemborg, Mindpatrol’s third album is an ambitious, solid, concept based album of extreme/progressive melodic death metal that might appeal to fans of Opeth, Loch Vostok, Ne Obliviscaris and other ‘kitchen sink’ bands. As with most progressive bands, Mindpatrol’s Vulture City has a deep concept with this effort being about the […]

I would imagine that the members of River of Souls have been called many things within their life and career, though I highly doubt that the term “slackers” has ever been one of them. Having just released their debut full-length, The Well of Urd, upon listeners just a mere few months ago, the band have […]

Well, this certainly was an awesome recommendation.   New Haven Connecticut’s Xenosis have literally blown me away with their third full length album, Devour and Birth.  The opening track “Night Hag’ mixes progressive elements from bands like later era Death, with the melody and harmonies of a band like Spawn of Possession or Beyond Creation. I […]

If you have ever asked yourself “what happened if black one man black metal was rendered with a classic Swedish death metal guitar tone?”, Frenchman Stephane Thirion is here to answer your question with his self released third album,  A fleur de peau (‘Sensitive’? ‘On edge’?). First off , I was thankful this wasn’t a Kataklysm […]

Though still maligned as a genre, Deathcore had a a pretty solid year in 2017 with Aversion’s Crown, Thy Art is Murder, Oceano, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Fit For An Autopsy, Slaughter to Prevail, Conjonctive, Shadow of Intent, Boris the Blade and Reaping Asmodiea releasing solid efforts, and as the year closed out, […]

I’ve got to hand it to New Jersey’s Mortum, from the little snippet of material that I had heard from them before I signed up to review their new album, Eheieh Chaos, I wasn’t too impressed. The music wasn’t bad per se but it wasn’t anything new or more than just a little intriguing; yet […]

Technical death metal. There’s generally two type of people when regarding the sub-genre. Those that don’t like it, considering it nothing more than a noodly-broodly fretboard wankfest that’s more show than substance, and well, those that do. I happen to fall in the latter category and think that tech-death is some stellar shit. Honestly, I’d […]

Hailing from Toronto, Decatur play a beefy from of groove/thrash metal inspired by the Northeastern US scene (Shadow’s Fall etc), but the selling point here is the debut effort was produced by Gojira’s Joe Duplantier. So you would expect this thing sounds great, and it does with Duplantier glossing the rhythm section with his heavy fingerprints, and […]

What we have here as an impressive self released debut of Lovecraft themed melodic black/death metal from  Denver’s Crafteon. Eschwing the usual Lovecraftian throes (churning miasmal chaos or deep complex, atmospheric black metal), Crafteon go for a cleaner, sharper sound more akin to Dissection, Dimmu Borgir or Ancient’s better output. The guitars have a crisp clean […]

Nashville, Tennessee’s Laser Flames on the Great Big News may not have an easily digestible name but their motor revving, road ready blend of proto-metal guitar grandeur, infectious vocal trade-offs between Stevie Bailey (guitar/vocals) and John Judkins (guitar vocals), rough n’ tumble punk-inspired rhythms, psychotic murder metal touches and the auxiliary keyboard support of producer […]

I’m not sure what it was that made me choose to cover The Netherlands’ based act, River of Souls, and their debut album, The Well of Urd. Maybe it was divine intervention from the metal gods themselves. Whatever it was that drove me toward the band, I am glad it did, as River of Souls […]

Like an Ennio Morricone soundtrack meets Goblin and Zombi with liberal sprinkles of Inter Arma, Grim Ravine, Graves at Sea, Black Sabbath, Icepick Revival, Indian, Soulpreacher, Rwake, Swedish/Finnish gloom and an unholy, nail you to a cross of shame sludge attitude; Ottawa’s trio Longhouse have dropped a fearlessly frightening sludge-themed album that not only adheres […]

Vancouver butcher Graham MacSkimming has crafted a pretty impressive underground resume.  As a vocalist he channels Reagers’ era Vitus with an eerie tonality and violent vocal schizophrenia in sludge/doom overlords Witchsnake and he’s had his hands in seminal death/thrash/punk cultists Violent Christ, Ligeia and several other projects that are well-worth a listen.  Vile Ent is […]

Last year, I received a demo from San Francisco’s Sentient Ignition, they didn’t want a review, just some feedback from me about their sound. The basic premise of my feedback was they were promising, talented, sounded like Black Crown Initiate, and the vocals needed some work. Well, they wrote me back earlier this summer and sent […]

Not to be confused with Georgia’s excellent, psychotic sludgers Crawl, the Crawl in question here is a one man blackened sleaze sludge project helmed by one sicko that plays bass, drums and vocals.  The fact that organic instruments are used yet filtered through relentless torrents of distortion gives the record an industrial feel akin to […]

Running Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday” through a grinder of screeching, white-washed noise is how Floridian filth merchants Ether get their kicks on opener “Dearest the Shadow,” a hint at the oddball, angular quirks to come.  The band’s 2nd LP There is Nothing Left for me here is a craggy, down the mountain plummet of doom-y, […]

Khazaddums‘ 2015, Dwarven/Tolkien themed EP, In Dwarven Halls was a solid, promising little 3 song demo/release, but I was not expecting quite this big of a leap in quality a mere 2 years later with the band’s full length debut. Driving the massive improvement to the band’s brutal, Nile-ish death metal is the addition of full […]

So, amid my recent power/heavy metal reawakening, it dawned on me that all of the bands I have become enamored with have been European. Sure, I dabbled with the new Iced Earth, Demons and Wizards, Kamelot and a few others, but none really hit the spot. Then I received a promo from Pennsylvania’s Lör . An […]

Finland’s sickest sludgy scum grinders who happen to have a penchant for Norwegian darkness are back with their 7th full-length release since 1998…and that’s not counting the mountain of demos, splits and EPs that punctuated the interim between albums.  My introduction was the split with Bud Junkees (and even though I dig these guys too), […]