The Empire Shall Fall – Awaken (Angle Side Records)
Boy, Seamless sure faded fast, didn’t it? Ex-Killswitch Engage singerJesse Leach’s post-Alive Or Just Breathing output hasn’t caused very many ripples (see the Kyuss-influenced Seamless), but expect that to change with The Empire Shall Fall, which...
N.A.M.E. – The Internet Killed the Radio Star (Lifeforce Records)
Math metal is forever going to keep chasing the tail of Dillinger Escape Plan. We know that already. Yet if the scene wants to have any success, there has to be some attempt at...
Rotting Christ – Aealo (Season of Mist)
You know the underground is getting old when we start hearing about 20-year anniversaries, which just happened for the always-mighty Rotting Christ. The Greeks have remained a fixture in the underground metal scene for...
Destruktor – Nailed (Hell’s Headbangers)
With members of Destroyer 666 and Abominator in the ranks (read: the few good extreme metal acts from Australia), Destruktor live up to their name on the brutal Nailed. The troupe gets their rocks off...
Arsis – Starve For the Devil (Nuclear Blast Records)
We’ll be the first to admit we got a little too carried away over Arsis’ 2008 effort, We Are the Nightmare. Perhaps hearing an American death metal band properly replicate the neo-prog death sounds of...
Troll – Neo-Satanic Supremacy (Napalm Records)
Helmed by former Dimmu Borgir/current The Kovenant bassist/vocalist Nagash, Troll has been resurrected after an eight-year layoff with Neo-Satanic Supremacy. What was once was a one-man band (with Nagash doing all of the instruments, naturally),...
Overkill – Ironbound (E1 Music)
For the last 10 years or so, Overkill has usually elicited the “meh” response to a new album. Frankly, the band has never come anywhere remotely close to touching 1991’s Horrorscope and seemed to be in...
Aosoth – Ashes of Angels (Agonia Records)
A collision between a handful of French black/death metal luminaries, Aosoth’s Ashes of Angels lives up to the collective promise of its ensemble. Boasting current (or ex?) Antaeus singer MkM in the ranks, along with former...
Brainstorm – Memorial Roots (AFM Records)
When a power metal band starts to level off, it’s almost a career death knell. Once you’ve peaked and peaked early (read: Primal Fear, Evergrey, Sonata Arctica), getting that initial flair back is next...
Weapon – Drakonian Paradigm (Ajna Offensive)
If anything, true black metal has gone away from its original function. One has to find it disconcerting that any Johnny Hardcore come-lately can lay some keyboard swaths over a beatdown and call it...