You’d be forgiven for thinking that The Famine were a Christian metal band (not that there’s anything wrong with that) due to their CD artwork, label affiliation, song titles like “The New Hell” and “The Cross and the Holy See” and for the fact that former and current members came from early Christian death metal […]

Michigan Christian metal act  As They Sleep are back with vengeance on their new album Dynasty. This is their first album on an actual label and with a take no prisoner’s attitude, As They Sleep has managed to make an enjoyable record even though it does have its faults. A rather noticeable trait on Dynasty […]

After an acceptable but clichéd, Christian band, As I Lay Dying riff off debut in Saints, Destroy the Runner return with an even more commercial, poppy, mainstream album that makes the likes of Demon Hunter, The Devil Wears Prada, Farewell to Freeway and A Day to Remember look like Nile. Cleaner, whinier vocals and lots […]

Though oddly touted as ‘Blue Collar metal”, Pittsburg’s Once Nothing are more in line with the Southern infused likes of Maylene And the Sons of Disaster, Cancer Bats, The Showdown and Remove The Veil, but add a heftier, sterner metalcore/hardcore tone rather than a more drawling rock backbone to their Southern core. Still though, the […]

Though most may take a look at the band moniker, album title and label and pass this off as yet another Christian metalcore bands trying to clone As I Lay Dying, the fact is with former members of Between the Buried and Me and short lived rock act Terminal in their ranks, Oh, Sleeper are […]

It’s been a while since I heard a great, traditional metalcore record (Life In Your Way’s Waking Giants is the last really great pure metalcore record I enjoyed). With so many bands either trying the death, grind or pop up their sound or just try too hard to be zany and different, its seems, actual […]

Ok. Christian hardcore history lesson time, don’t even try to scurry away from this one, this shit’s mandatory, and you’ll feel all the better knowing the ins and outs of those rockers screaming for Jesus once your through with this review. As the Christian scene continued to expand and diffuse through the latter part of […]

Regular readers of this site will know of my tolerance, nay affinity for metalcore, and I’m sure will question my like of a genre that most deem responsible for the downfall of metal as we know it. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s albums such as Waking Giants that bring back to this much maligned genre. I’ve […]

Like semi commercial Christian metalcore? Like Demon Hunter, As I Lay Dying, A Love Ends Suicide, As Cities Burn and War Of Ages? Just go ahead and grab this and forgo my review. Though not as heavy as label mates Becoming the Archetype and August Burns Red, Destroy the Runner are neither as commercial as […]

So, like most people, I have been in the dark about Zao the past several months. I’ve heard rumors of members leaving, old ones coming back, a possible break up and whatever else was on the Internet rumor mill. I was holding my breath in anticipation to see what would happen with this seminal metallic […]

Although this five-piece from Florida is new to me – apparently they have two other releases out. Not sure if those first two matter or not, but their newest one, on Solid State Records, is definitely a double take of an album if there ever was one. And I’m not just speaking of terms of, […]

Patience brings rewards. In the case of Immortal and Deceased – both bands who, despite starting off on a pretty good foot, have improved exponentially over the course of four-plus albums to become the modern masters of metal – patience brings very great rewards, indeed. Such is also the case with Zao. Early on, with […]