Serenity – Fallen Sanctuary (Napalm Records)

It’s hardly a secret who Serenity is trying emulate and that’s fine, to be honest. Knock-off bands can sometimes produce some pretty strong material and for the sake of comparison, Fallen Sanctuary is more enjoyable than Sonata Arctica’s Unia,...

Cynic – Traced In Air (Season of Mist Records)

Bucking the trend of legendary prog/tech bands releasing one solitary album (see: Watchtower, Spiral Architect, et al), Florida’s Cynic return after 15 years with Traced In Air. The longevity and influence of 1993’s Focusis not something to be...

Destruction – D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. (Candlelight Records)

A fitting title given the state of the world, D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. is the fifth post-reunion Destruction effort and succeeds where 2005’s Inventor of Evil fails. Naturally, the band’s razor-sharp, polished thrash attack is in place, as the crystal-clear tones...

Rotten Sound – Cycles (Spinefarm Records)

Long-running Finnish death metallers Rotten Sound aren’t ones for brevity. Considering the 18-song tracklisting for Cycles, it’s like the band crammed two albums into one, or wrote nine songs and doubled them. Or wrote 36 songs and...

Suidakra – 13 Years of Celtic Wartunes (Wacken Records)

Quite the busy year for Arkadius and the boys, with their stint on this year’s Paganfest and now the domestic release for the CD/DVD compilation, 13 Years of Celtic Wartunes now hitting the shelves. This scribe...

Anathema – Hindsight (KScope Music)

Oh Anathema, where have thou been? Little has been heard from the Anathema camp since 2003’s striking A Natural Disaster, save for some odd EP’s and DVD’s, but the back-tail of 2008 figures to be...

Swallow the Sun – Plague of Butterflies EP (Spinefarm Records)

Having finally touched down on North American shores last year with Katatonia, Swallow the Sun remain at the helm of Finnish gloom and doom metal. 2007’s Hope was a lateral move after ‘05’s killer Ghosts of Loss album,...

Evergrey – Torn (SPV)

Couldn’t see this one coming. 2006’s Monday Morning Apocalypse was a commercial and critical bomb, as Evergrey tried to clutch the brass ring and distance themselves from their progressive dark metal past. Considering the band is much more...

Wetnurse – Invisible City (Seventh Rule Recordings)

Amidst the potpourri of disparate sounds, elements, and little ditties that make Invisible City a next-to-impossible album to classify, is an underlying Voivod influence, one that instantly made this scribe stand up, put down the Cheetos,...

Mouth of the Architect – Quietly (Translation Loss)

We’re really starting to get hazy with all of this metalgaze stuff. For what Neurosis started and Cult of Luna and Isis picked up on is now being beaten to death by Rosetta, Ghost...

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