Reviews

Revel in Flesh – Manifested Darkness (FDA Rekotz)

Confusion was amok upon viewing the tracklisting for Manifested Darkness. Revel in Flesh (the band) have a song called “Revel in Flesh,” which is the same song title used by Entombed way back in 1990 Read more […]

Powerworld – Cybersteria (SPV)

Fluctuating lineup changes appear to be a constant in today’s metal scene due to the up and down nature of developing consistent income with the changing music marketing model. In the case of melodic Read more […]

Toxic Holocaust – From The Ashes Of Nuclear Destruction (Relapse Records)

Toxic Holocaust, more specifically lone ranger Joel Grind play thrash at its most basic. While they’re not quite at remedial level, Grind’s ideas lean mostly on the simplistic side, which may or may Read more […]

Starkill – Fires of Life (Century Media Records)

Chicago’s Starkill are a bunch of young dudes who can shred, fancy “epic” metal with a black metal twist, write relatively high-wire songs, and cite Dragonforce as an influence. Well, there had to Read more […]

Altar Of Plagues – Teethed Glory And Injury (Profound Lore Records)

Altar Of Plagues have always been a step beyond most of the ilk they shared a sonic template with, the grand-scale melding of black metal and post-rock aesthetics into a caustic and often-times bleak panorama. Read more […]

Shining – One One One (Prosthetic Records)

Whew, three years removed from the exhausting Blackjazz and the Norwegian Shining returns to the fold with a vengeance. The jazz/industrial/metal/holyshitwhat’shappening amalgamation that was Blackjazz Read more […]

The Omega Experiment – The Omega Experiment (Listenable Records)

The current net progressive metal has cast couldn’t be bigger. Where once many said the style had distinct limitations, there doesn’t appear to be much, especially when the likes of Devin Townsend, Read more […]

Atrocity – Okkult (Napalm Records)

This scribe will never forget Atrocity main dude/Leaves’ Eyes sideman Alexandar Krull asking a capacity Cleveland crowd, “How are you doing tonight, Chicago?” Talk about an unintentional, but ironic Spinal Read more […]

Visions of Atlantis – Ethera (Napalm Records)

I’ve said this on countless occasions, but there is a glut of symphonic/power metal bands overcrowding the genre with tons of mediocrity. Fortunately, one such act has been boldly steering the ship away Read more […]

Thy Art is Murder – Hate (Nuclear Blast)

One day, someone with way too much time on their hands (cue the Styx song) will take all of the deathcore bands who parlay the same beatdown, and will do some type of side-by-side comparison on YouTube. Read more […]

Iced Earth – Live In Ancient Kourion (Century Media)

Iced Earth mainmain Jon Schaffer has seen some dark times of late, with the flip-flop of singers, effectively creating a revolving door in that position. Tim Owens walked away from the band after recording Read more […]

October Falls – The Plague of a Coming Age (Debemur Morti Productions)

Ah, ambient metal. How great of a subgenre you are. One such purveyor of this style, October Falls, is a band who has gotten better with every release. Beginning as a mainly acoustic folk act, they’ve Read more […]

Misery Index – Live in Munich (Season of Mist Records)

Surely there is a rather large segment of those out there who have been to a death metal show. And at these shows, the audience is usually called upon to disengage from the traditional arms-crossed/tough Read more […]

Batillus – Concrete Sustain (Seventh Rule Recordings)

Intended to reflect the rust and decay of urban sprawl, Batillus’s Concrete Sustain is an album that is supposed to take a trip back to the short-lived mid-90’s industrial/alternative metal explosion. Read more […]

Centurian – Contra Rationem (Listenable Records)

No matter how you dress it up, generic death metal is just that – generic death metal. Look no further than the last few Nile records to see that no matter how cool the theme, it can’t distract from Read more […]

Purson – The Circle and the Blue Door (Rise Above Records/Metal Blade Records)

I took a ride with London’s Purson recently. Spending several, heady hours wandering through their debut album, The Circle And The Blue Door. I held the wheel to my vehicle, yet, this trip it was clear Read more […]

Cauldron – Tomorrow’s Lost (Earache/Century Media Records)

There’s not really much of an excuse for having a poor-sounding album unless it’s recorded in an intentionally poor manner. Or, if you’re still at nascent stage and don’t have any money in the Read more […]

Artlantica – Across the Seven Seas (SPV/Steamhammer)

I would think the natural inclination is to say Arltantica is a super group when you consider the pedigrees of everyone involved in the project. Vocalist John West has been associated with Artension, Royal Read more […]

Anciients – Heart of Oak (Season of Mist)

Getting really tired of bands not spelling their names properly…it’s not that cute, and frankly, will only serve to confuse those who are more easily confused than we already are. Petty gripes aside, Read more […]

KEN Mode – Entrench (Season of Mist Records)

Short for “Kill everything now,” Canada’s KEN Mode breed vitriol from every pour on Entrench, their fifth album, and first for Season of Mist. The Canucks portray what is now the very typical “angry white Read more […]

Imperium Dekadenz – Meadows of Nostalgia (Season of Mist Records)

It’s late March and winter has yet to vacate the Northeast. Global warming insinuations are cast aside, while camouflage shorts remain locked in storage. If this is the eternal winter black metal has Read more […]

Jungle Rot – Terror Regime (Victory Records)

Without delving too deep into discussion of beatdowns and their pervasiveness on the Victory Records roster, the fact there’s one at the 2:24 mark on Terror Regime proves Jungle Rot and the label are Read more […]

Cnoc an Tursa – The Giants of Auld (Candlelight Records)

What, another fresh black metal band from the U.K.? You don’t say. The logic is probably that you might as well get in now while the getting is still good, and yeah, it’s all good. Granted, most of Read more […]

Delain – Interlude (Napalm Records)

Delain is a Dutch symphonic metal with Gothic leanings, who start anew with Napalm Records with this compilation record Interlude. Featuring the alluring female vocals of Charlotte Wessels, the five-piece Read more […]

Potential Threat SF – Civilization Under Threat (Old School Metal Records)

During the tail-end of the first thrash movement, tiers of acts didn’t really push creativity forward so much as recycle their favorite riffs and chords, cutting and pasting them in the hopes that audience Read more […]

Amorphis – Circle (Nuclear Blast Records)

Tomi Joutsen’s dreads are so long they could form a superhero cape. His voice is as soft as a babbling tributary into a Finnish lake. His roar is that of a bear emerging from winter hibernation…upon Read more […]

Heavatar – Opus I – All My Kingdoms (Napalm Records)

The Blind Guardian Choir Company – Billy King, Rolf Köhler, Olaf Senkbeil, Thomas Hackmann – have created many a magic moment in the annals of epic power metal. Too many to count, to be frank. To Read more […]

Svart Crown – Profane (Listenable Records)

France has been producing remarkable extreme metal bands for the better half of the last decade and Svart Crown are no exception to this trend. Born in 2005 by main songwriter J.B. Le Bail, the band has Read more […]

Scent of Death – Of Martyr’s Agony and Hate (Bloody Productions)

Death metal bands are often afforded the luxury of being able to roll their influences into one mass of undetectable brutality. To a point, no one is going to sit here and nitpick a band if they fancy Read more […]

Old Wounds – From Where We Came Is Where We’ll Rest (Glory Kid Ltd)

Hardcore is an interesting area of heavy music, to say the least. With the gray area between metal and hardcore becoming larger ever since the advent of metalcore in the early 00’s, it’s becoming more Read more […]