Sun Of The Sleepless - To The Elements
Review by nikarg

9.3

Sun Of The Sleepless is the one-man band of Ulf Theodor Schwadorf (real name: Markus Stock), best known from Empyrium and The Vision Bleak. Even though the project was formed almost 20 years back, only a couple of EPs and a split with Nachtmar were released in the early days, making To The Elements the band's debut full-length and the first piece of new music after no fewer than 13 years. Its creator described it as "a fist in the face of a shallow world!" and indeed it is. It was also more than worth the wait.

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Orden Ogan - Gunmen
Review by ScreamingSteelUS

8.3

Orden Ogan have followed up Ravenhead, their shortest and most accessible album to date, with Gunmen, an album that feels more like the band's earlier works with its density and weight.

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Accept - The Rise Of Chaos
Review by ScreamingSteelUS

7.3

The Rise Of Chaos struggles at first to get off the ground. I won't hesitate to say that "The Rise Of Chaos" and "Koolaid" are the weakest singles Accept has put out in the last decade - certainly no "Teutonic Terror" or "Stampede" - and wading through those inertia dampers only to break through to an even less dynamic midsection takes the wind out of your first listen.

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Decapitated - Anticult
Review by nikarg

8.0

The awful tragedy that hit Decapitated ten years ago brought important changes to the band, with new members joining and with the guitarist and main songwriter, Vogg, deciding to switch to a new style. Most of the early tech-death era fans hate this change, but it is a reality and they either have to accept it and appreciate Decapitated's new music for what it is or just listen to something else. Anticult is bound to get the Polish extreme metallers some new admirers, but it will almost surely send away forever many of the old ones that were still following the band.

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Rage - Seasons Of The Black
Review by D.T. Metal

8.4

Huh? Didn't Rage release an album just last year? Good for you Peavy; shaking things up with a new line-up apparently got your creative juices flowing again.

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Suffocation - …Of The Dark Light
Review by nikarg

6.4

Four years after Pinnacle Of Bedlam and with two new additions in the line-up, drummer Eric Morotti and guitarist Charlie Errigo, Suffocation are back with a new album. The expectations from a band that has shown remarkable consistency in its output quality and has played an important part in shaping much of what death metal is today are always high. The question is if …Of The Dark Light meets these expectations.

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Schammasch - The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite [EP]
Review by Apothecary

 

When bands that have won themselves a sizable following through the employment of a certain sound suddenly change their sound radically with a new release and piss off a good portion of their fanbase, I love it. Why? Because it shows the band in question doesn't care about pleasing fans by recycling a certain formula, and that a lot of fans are a lot less about "let the band do what they want" than they'd lead you to believe. This is inevitably going to be the case with this new EP from Schammasch.

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Wormwood - Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth
Review by nikarg

9.5

It is a common experience that some albums need time to sink in and grow on you, sounding better and better after every listen. On other occasions comes an album that gets you hooked from the very beginning and the more you spin it, the more you are left flabbergasted by the sheer brilliance of it. Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth belongs to the latter kind.

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