It can be awfully annoying, scandalous, and insulting when bands drastically change the line-up and completely alter the music styles of a band, but that’s precisely why Austria’s Manic Disease changed Read more […]
A band whose named isn’t as dropped as much as it should, Norwegian progressive doom crew The 3rd and the Mortal had some serious mid-90’s impact before trailing off into more experimental territory. Read more […]
Figuring that another mid-tempo/rock-oriented album ala 2012’s Stones Grow Her Name wasn’t fitting of their 15th anniversary, Finland’s Sonata Arctica have made somewhat of a concerted effort to Read more […]
Call me crazy, but there is a butt crack that adores the cover of Harvest Earth on the middle left hand side, correct? Perhaps its years of juvenile poop and fart jokes that have slowly riddled the brain, Read more […]
Primarily known for being one of the top behind-the-scenes dudes in German metal, Piet Sielck has enjoyed a fruitful career first, as producer/engineer of Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray, and Saxon, then with Read more […]
Gaped is a one-man band from Australia. One look at the cover and you know that you are in for some harsh stuff. If that wasn’t enough, the album opens with a gruesome sample of a woman elaborating on Read more […]
Omnium Gatherum. The mere mention of the band is enough to cause most of us here at DR to get a case of the warm fuzzies and maybe even drool a bit. It wasn’t always that way though. OG’s first Read more […]
Long-standing German progressive metal band, Vanden Plas, have collaborated with German best-selling author Wolfgang Hohlbein and released their seventh album which is an album adaptation of the first Read more […]
The term “New Ektomorf album” is a skewed one, for really, when was the last time the band truly put out a “new album?” It’s been a while, as the Hungarians are too enamored (to a fault) with Read more […]
Yo dudes, do you like breakdowns? Do you like things to get HEAVY? Are you under the age of 20? If you answered yes to at least two out of three questions immaturely posed, chances are you fall squarely Read more […]
Filth. Complete and utter filth. That’s the essence that settles in early when getting close with Coffinworm’s (though with that name, who could be surprised?) newest work, VI.I.VIII. A volatile mixture Read more […]
Per the usual, Flotsam & Jetsam are a step behind their contemporaries in Anthrax, Exodus, and Testament, each of whom already saw fit to re-record some of their seminal works. The results for all Read more […]
Getting really heavy here, and not in some stacked-half-stack sort of way where the volume can break the sound barrier. No, Oregonian troupe Shroud of the Heretic (could have sworn they were at least British Read more […]
Sometimes as a writer, there is a bit of a conflict between wanting to gush about a particular band versus a growing pessimism that “you’ve heard it all before.” Sometimes in hearing the sheer Read more […]
The argument exists in relation to Gus G. doing a solo album is that he already has Firewind, so why not focus one’s energy there? Then again, for reasons of the inexplicable variety, Firewind hasn’t Read more […]
Though it’s March, we here in central California (my area, anyway) is again enjoying another streak of Indian summer. It’s all the more fitting then that a release that fits so well with the idea of Read more […]
Alas, the all-female incarnation of thrash. It’s been a long time coming, although we are almost positive bands prior to Nervosa existed, they simply didn’t make it this far. Nervosa is a Brazilian Read more […]
The joys of the Internet age have done many things, for better or worse. Put one in the win category though for simple distribution access for smaller bands through sites like Bandcamp. While foraging Read more […]
Two of the finest atmospheric/folk/black metal projects of northeast US – Maine’s Falls of Rauros and Kentucky’s Panopticon. If you like either of these bands or the genre, you’re bound to dig their Read more […]
Thou’s antiquate wizardry metal alternates from heavy and dark to velvety and mystique. These qualities are exceptionally present in their latest release, Heathen – comprised of momentary melodic instrumentals Read more […]
With all of the art museum quality album covers coming out lately, it’s easy to get spoiled and judge a book by its cover. Hiidenhauta’s debut full-length Noitia on Minun Sukuni (roughly Bing-translated Read more […]
Self-described as playing “heavy, low-tuned, melodic music,” where Seattle’s Old Iron lack in verbal bouts of back-patting, they make up for with an enticing, not-quite-fully-realized display of Read more […]
Hirax have never been anything more than just plain ‘ole “good.” However, “remarkable” and/or “exceptional” may not be applicable terms for a band who since their 2000 reactivation, have Read more […]
Does anyone remember laughter? Or the start of the ‘happy’ melodic power metal movement? Think back to the late 1980’s and the arrival of Michael Kiske with Helloween, as the two Keepers of the Read more […]
With black metal becoming more and more progressive and “out there,” the question that someone is bound to ask at some point is, “At what point do we stop expanding?” We have become accustomed to Read more […]
You know you’re balls deep in a scene’s ascension when you have a label like Nuclear Blast signing acts like The Vintage Caravan. Well-played if often highly derivative 70s’ish infused hardrock with Read more […]
Somewhere in the realm of progressive death metal institutions Atheist and Edge of Sanity sits Sweden’s Morbus Chron. Formed in 2007 in Stockholm, they make their Century Media debut with their Read more […]
Frequently you can grow to enjoy an album that, upon first listen, really leaves you somewhat puzzled or embittered. Case in point: Psalm Zero. Occupying some peculiar abyssal territory between the likes Read more […]
Heavily leaden sludgy doom trance is just about the most complete and conclusive phrase to describe Coltsblood of the UK. Their music may be sluggishly slow, but their productivity is rapid! In 2013, Coltsblood Read more […]
Able to elude proper compartmentalization (which in itself, should be high-five worthy), Shear’s sophomore Katharsis is one of the rare Finnish metal albums that we can’t place an instant sub-genre Read more […]
