OK so, I guess let’s get the confusing stuff out of the way first, yeah? Vorder is the current iteration of a Swedish Doom/Sludge/Progressive band many of you might have known as V, but with a bit of a new lineup consisting of former Katatonia, In Mourning and Disrupted drummer and current Grand Cadaver drummer Daniel Liljeqvist on, uh, […]

I mean… what a name, right?? Look, I know that these Norwegian Grind/D-Beat/Punk Rockers ain’t exactly new to the block – in fact they’ve been menacing their way around the world of extreme music for over a decade at this point, but that moniker – I don’t care how many times I see it. Every […]

Welp, that didn’t take long. Maybe things really are looking up? I know everyone had a shit 2020 – I won’t bore you with the personal details of my god-forsaken year – but while lots of folks have been ready to kick 2020 off a cliff and welcome the new year with open arms, I […]

It goes without saying that it’s difficult for a band to stand out in a crowded field. With dozens of bands all mining similar influences and plying similar styles, you either have to turn in an incredibly convincing performance that elevates what might otherwise be mundane or you have to apply a twist on the […]

If crossover was the result of punk and metal’s liquor fueled party hook-up, surely sludge was the junk addicted offspring born during the dark times they spent shooting tar with rusty works in an abandoned building. Sludge’s early years were spent as the musical gutter child of the vitriol and speed of punk and the […]

It’s been years since their last full length, but Fistula hasn’t kept quiet. They’ve pumped out an impressive number of splits and EPs over the past five years and in the process evolved in to one of the sickest, meanest bands out there. Their latest EP, Northern Aggression, is no exception, as it sees the […]

I remember the collective groan Morbid Angel received when they said they would be incorporating elements of electronic and industrial in to their next record. While that experiment turned out to be… well… let’s say less than good, the sad reality of Ilud Divinum Insanus should only serve to highlight all the great bands out […]

I don’t think there’s a genre tag I dislike more than “post”. Post-punk, post-hardcore, post-rock, post-metal… Unlike its sister tag “proto”, which implies something basic, spare, or primitive, the word doesn’t have much descriptive power. When it comes to post-metal, it’s easy to see it as implying a combination of post rock and metal, but […]

Ugly, brutish, and oppressive, Scorn has all the ingredients to be great. Primitive Man’s combination of d-beat crust, sludge, and crippling doom is a combination after my heart and they show a tremendous amount of potential with this release. Its aesthetic is almost grind-like, feeling like a Benümb album without any blast beats. There are […]

Kongh hit a bit of a sophomore slump on their last album. Enjoyable as Shadows of the Shapeless was, it was hurt by some monotonous riffing and a one dimensional atmosphere. Certainly nowhere close to bad, but it didn’t exactly have me craving a follow up. Now it’s four years on and a lot has […]

This year-old Chicago outfit is going out this fall on Obituary’s Carnival of Death tour, which is packed with old-school death (the reformed Broken Hope, plus Jungle Rot), and technical death (Decrepit Birth). Yet the press notes described Encrust as similar to Mastodon, Clutch or Kvelertak, so that seemed an odd addition to the bill. Then I sampled the first track, “Predatory Skin,” and […]

16 are back with the follow-up to their excellent reunion album Bridges to Burn. It’s a decent successor, if a little disappointing. Good enough on its own, Deep Cuts From Dark Clouds isn’t as memorable as their last outing and doesn’t measure up to the band’s earlier work. It’s more aggressive, more direct in its […]

Decent, if derivative, Dead Southern Bishop’s new self-released EP doesn’t make much of an impression. Their sound is firmly rooted in the southern sludge scene of the late 90’s and early 00’s and is similar to period bands Mugwart and Leechmilk. Being unoriginal isn’t necessarily an issue (i.e. Witchcraft, Orchid or, per this genre, Moloch), […]

I vaguely remember long running Swiss act Sludge and their late 90’s releases (Sweet Daisy, The Well, Scarecrow Messiah), as they had a couple of Tomas Skogsberg/Sunlight Produced efforts, had Samael guitarist Makro in their ranks and plied a dirty mix of death doom and thrash that was a pretty heavy sound coming from the […]