It’s kind of hard to be a death metal band in the 21st century. You know you want to play something that is heavy, brutal and has growling in it. The question is, how brutal do you want to be? How technical should you play? Should you be more experimental and throw in some saxophone? […]

If there was a musical equivalent to vaudeville (late 19th century variety entertainment) it would be represented in the form of the fourth album from Pensées Nocturnes, Nom d’une Pipe! Like the theatrical genre of years past, this album cobbles together classical, swing, bal-musette, reggae, and jazz in a bleak, disturbing black metal skin. The […]

The fact that I was born in 1984 means that I have missed out on a lot of metal history. Sure, it has been documented in the form of records and concert footage, but it’s not the same as actually being at a specific event, such as the early genesis of death metal with early […]

The sophomore release, Formshifter, from Allegaeon refines and polishes what they had established with their debut on Fragments of Form and Function – tight, technical, groove and hook-laden riffs with catchy choruses and blazing shredding all along the fretboard and deep, commanding death growls. Unlike a lot of other technical death metal bands, that like […]

What is a midnightmare? Is it having a nightmare at midnight? Or a nightmare in the middle of a nightmare? I think that answer lies with Dreaming Dead, and it’s a lot of Death worship with some classic-Swedish metal (particularly Eucharist) thrown into the mix. Normally, this would not at all be a bad thing. […]

After being with Century Media for four albums, God Forbid marks their debut on Victory Records with a show of defiance and determination on their sixth album, Equilibrium. The positive and indomitably titled “Don’t Tell Me What to Dream” kicks it off with a Meshuggah-style riff over a commanding Byron Davis shouting the song’s name. […]

One thing that I enjoy about music is that it can take you on a journey. Similar to a good book, a band can place you in entire worlds, allowing your imagination to run free. The post-rock instrumental band from Akron, Ohio, If These Trees Could Talk, takes the listener on a journey though a […]

The debut album Vitriol from the Italian band Evenoire is an interesting beast. They are firmly rooted in the goth and symphonic sub-genres of metal along with some tentative outgrowth into folk territory. Yet, for the goth and symphonic elements being so dominating, I feel that it is of their most uninspired moments. Vitriol is […]

It’s tough to be a metal band in 2012. Not only does one have to contend with piracy, a shrinking music industry, and a crowded pond filled with the scum of other metal bands, but one has to be able to stand out musically. Some bands take the safe route and pay tribute to their […]

When an album cover depicts four long haired zombies devouring the flesh of the dead from the grave, I expect it to be a very unrelenting death metal album. Dismemberment, mutilation, disembowelment and any other descriptor for human evisceration are what I expect to drive the music and lyrics. Exhumed delivers the splattered gore on […]

Are you tired of your metal bands jumping from genre to genre in order to fill up 10 minutes? Or how about their overuse of wussy acoustic guitar interludes? Or arrogant, meretricious guitarists using their guitars as  a masturbation tool?  And are you just sick and tired of some jack-ass belting, belching, crooning, whining and/or […]

Black metal is a curious beast; it can be a very conservative sub-genre and at the same time, one of the most diverse types of music to be composed. Bands like Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir and Deathspell Omega have shed most of their black metal roots in favor of something different. Whereas, Darkthrone, Dark Funeral and […]

A common idiom states: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” something December Flower (taken from the In Flames song of the same name) has taken to heart with In Flames, Eucharist and Dark Tranquillity; at least their earlier forms from the mid-90s. This German quintet, made up of former members of Chronicles of Tyrants, […]