The “rocked-out” version of Satyricon can’t please anyone these days. Reaction to the band’s 2013 self-titled album was lukewarm at best, with many deriding the simplistic, almost dumbed-down riffs Read more […]
Having tracked Disarmonia Mundi since 2004 when they released their second album, Fragments of D-Generation, it’s safe to say that the band has only gotten better with time. The follow-up Mind Tricks Read more […]
Last year Fallujah set the benchmark for atmospheric death metal with The Flesh Prevails. This year, that title is looking to go to a different Unique Leader band – Wrvth. Formerly Wrath of Vesuvius, Read more […]
Whirling back to 1984, when this journalist craved more metal to fill his ears, a cover story on England’s Kerrang! magazine discussed a rising New York band called Virgin Steele, preparing to release Read more […]
It’s amazing how often a band description can be so misleading and inaccurate. While trying to appeal to the most people, band’s often cite a multitude of “sounds like” comparisons. However, Read more […]
2-member death metal, with the parties involved hailing from Sweden and the UK, gives a pretty good explanation of what you are going to find here. Any guess as to which nationality has the higher percentage Read more […]
For the last decade, it seems that on every third new Drudkh album, the band manages to find the net and score a goal. Not that the attempts weren’t there on those in-between outings from years 2007, 2010 Read more […]
Supremely underrated Iceland…back at it again. The country has such a small metal scene, yet its ratio of good bands to crappy is quite obvious, especially when taking a run at a band like Kontinuum. Read more […]
The doom genre seems to be really pushing out a number of winners here lately. The latest one to the table is that of Russia’s Mare Infinitum. Alien Monolith God is the band’s second effort, following Read more […]
One could say that ‘blackened death metal’ has a bit of wiggle room in its description. One can slide further towards one or the other at any point and still stand by the ole genre tag. There’s Read more […]
Reincarnation was a brutal death metal act hailing from Spain back in the 1990s. If you were to hear it blindly though, Spain wouldn’t be your first guess so much as New York. Reincarnation owes much Read more […]
There was a definite sense of “huh?” when viewing the artwork of Settler for the first time. Such a bright and happy image just didn’t seem in line with the music coming through the speakers. However, Read more […]
Now there’s a cool title: “Spleen Black Metal.” DR is unsure if this will develop into a new category for the always-tricky black metal, but it can never hurt to have another BM band of subsequent depth Read more […]
Fact is, there are so many ho-hum, uninteresting bearded dude bands ‘a-happening at the moment, that it was easy to initially take a pass on Houston’s Venomous Maximus. The American metal scene doesn’t Read more […]
With two full-lengths (most recently 2011’s Stench) and one EP (Power) under their belts, Nekrogoblikon continue their quest to spread their self-proclaimed goblin metal with Heavy Meta. Apparently Read more […]
Often it’s nice when an album turns out to be more than what you are expecting of it. In the case of Canada’s Fragile Existence, Cataclysms and Beginnings looked like it was going to be an open and Read more […]
After being unceremoniously dropped by Relapse due to poor album sales, Pyrrhon fires back with a short EP that falls in line with last year’s underrated The Mother of Virtues. That’s not to say that Read more […]
Neck of the Woods hail from the lovely, moderate climate surroundings of Vancouver. A band good enough to reach the finals of the Wacken Metal Battle in Canada, the band, remarkably, remains unsigned. Read more […]
With the staggeringly expansive genre tags that metal has shifted into over the years, sometimes it’s nice to drop the pretensions and enjoy the moment. The best way for this scribe to indulge into Read more […]
Containing some potent players in the power/progressive metal field with ties past and present to Chastain, Firewind, and Adagio, Texas quartet Darkology have been together for 11 years – spreading out Read more […]
If only Dark Sarah was the namesake band of someone. While it’s not necessarily the most menacing of stage names to come about, it’s indicative of how short the straws are in the female-fronted field. Read more […]
The Internet giveth and also taketh away. Proliferation of free/streaming music opportunities has certainly widened metal choice for the consumer over the past 15 years – but at the detriment of long Read more […]
You have to love descriptive language in the metal genre these days. Active since 2012, Danish quintet Encyrcle describe their sound on their Facebook page as ‘nocturnal speed metal’. Does that mean Read more […]
Wiegedood is Dutch for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), and it’s also the name of a strong new Belgian black metal act out of Ghent, East Flanders. Activated in 2014, this trio has quickly released Read more […]
Chances are if you are reading this, you are most likely a fan of the death metal institution that is Nile. Having served as Nile’s drummer since 2004, he has long been known for his thunderous drumming Read more […]
Anytime a band takes 14 years to release an album, it’s only natural to ponder “how things were” in designated timeframe. The year 2001 featured a far different metal underground than it is today, Read more […]
Critically respected, criminally underrated – that’s always been the mantra for Armored Saint in my eyes. During the 1980’s they could never breakthrough their initial “Can U Deliver” video ceiling- Read more […]
The inactive status of unsung American progressive metal heroes Zero Hero perpetually hangs over Abnormal Thought Patterns. Of course, it doesn’t help that hackneyed journalists like DR bring up the Read more […]
The universality of music in this day and age can make it rather difficult to pinpoint where exactly a band is from if you are hearing it blindly. No longer bound to having just regional/local influences, Read more […]
Probably caught too far in the margins for post-metal, France’s Klone are certainly towing a rather treacherous line with the album title of Here Comes the Sun. The heavyweight lawyers the Beatles can’t Read more […]
