Reviews

The Cosmic Putrefaction meets the most brutal stage in its voyage yet.

A recently deceased baseball legend. A recently deceased music collaborator. With Vida Blue, Mamaleek is dealing with the concept of loss and its acceptance. It is a vile mix of emotions that are hard…

When I reviewed the previous Ad Infinitum album, I managed to ham-fistedly work all their album titles to date into a somewhat apt intro describing the band’s journey to date. Unfortunately, Abyss also…

‘Bile Caster’ is the kind of band name that deserves to be backed up by vile, misanthropic music, and the contents of Writhing Between Birth And Death very much fit the bill on that front.

With a stripped-down approach, a significantly reduced number of guests and a rawer production than on previous albums, 40 Watt Sun delivers yet another emotional ride with Little Weight. But this time…

Sometimes.... dead is better.

Luck Wont Save You is a band that disappeared almost as swiftly as they arrived in their first iteration, but version 2 of the band is turning out to be far more enduring and productive.

It's true, the Devenial Verdict really is a Blessing Of Despair.

The Return Of The Son.

Endonomos have set out to break new ground in a devastatingly heavy epic doom fashion.

Anyone who’s been following Blood Incantation closely up to this point probably won’t be overly surprised by the nature of this latest step in their musical evolution, but the sheer extent of their progression…

Maze Controller Medium Humanoid (Human), Chaotic Neutral

A Dis-Harmonic PHILMography.

Considering the long wait this album had, the hype doomed the album to not be the perfect 10 that 18 years of hype may cause people to expect.

A significant name in the Polish metal scene, the curtain fell for Blindead in 2022 after two decades of existence, but as one door closed, another opened for Blindead 23.

What happens when occult rock goes all in on the gothic touches?

If you're a strict connoisseur of extravagant delicacies, and you find plebeian tastes appalling, then you won't find much to enjoy on this album. However, if you like to balance out your diet…

Embrace this one man's passion for death doom and The Nether Earth.

For all these years since Heritage was released, there has been a fanbase hungry for Opeth to just ‘sound like Opeth’; now, right as they’re on the cusp of dialling back the years with The Last Will And…

As much as I find myself increasingly drawn towards bands and albums that straddle genres and create altogether new sounds, there’s still joy to be found in a band writing familiar-sounding music to a…

Marche Funèbre show us the beauty and tranquillity After The Storm.

The Streaker’s Torch.

Slip not…

It's Polish black metal, but not quite as we've come to know it.

Here's Bewitcher, casting another blackened heavy Spell Shock.

Will Glacial Tomb manage to reach the light after venturing further through the Lightless Expanse? Whether they do or not, you can expect to find them in unsettling territory.

While it certainly isn’t without its highlights, I have found 2024 to be a bit short on truly standout releases compared with the previous few years, and those that have caught my attention have typically…

Welcome back!…

A lot of the times when we bring noise rock into discussion, it's because the line between noise rock and sludge metal is often very thin. Well, that's not the case here. The Jesus Lizard is…

Reaching The Balance.

A fresh talented super group emerges from beyond the Dreamless Veil of blackened death; let's see what this trio is made of.

Take my hand.

Cyborg Octopus’s last album was a lean, exciting, genre-hopping bonanza; coming two years after, Bottom Feeder is arguably a bit less of all those adjectives.

Slovenia once again sends death metal to space.

Me reviewing a Nightwish album worked out really well last time, so let’s get stuck into Yesterwynde.

An anthropocene fear of technology.

Groza have taken a step in a new direction, so you needn't refer to them as a Mgła shadow act from now on, hopefully.

A single job, of momentary success... And those who deserve to be known.

You guys like post-black metal, right? Then Agrypnie sticking to what they've been doing for the past decade should do the job.

Aptly titled.

Beware Greeks bearing gifts.

From tragedy.

For a first LP, it can be said that Conifère already knows how to do things right.

Die Urkatastrophe tells us about one of history's most catastrophic events, WWI. But, for fans of black and death metal, the music is anything but catastrophic.

A heavy psych swansong for a dreamy voice.

There is probably a very good executive-level excuse why this album is a Simone Simons album. Whatever it is it has little sway over the fact that rationally this is anything but. Perhaps squinting at…

Where Meteahna Timpurilor and Obârşie crept into view with measured drones, Datura Străhiarelor declares its arrival much more ostentatiously: a horn blares, a half-growled narration grows into gravelly…

When a band’s debut album comes with a 448-page artbook that provides illustrative accompaniment to its extensive lyrics (which include lines such as “icosadodecahedronal architecture, cubicuboctahedronal…

Life Knife Death, and music is as ferocious and simple as that.

Polish up those shoes, you'll be gazing at them awhile.

Seeing that this album had a Neige feature, I expected something in line with blackgaze. Well there is some of that on Janis, but I didn't expect for the rest of the sound to be so far away from it.

Pyrrhon's brand of technical dissonant death metal always had at least a bit of mathcore in it. With Exhaust they steer closer than ever towards it.

Spain isn't a place you'd normally associate with gothic doom, but the feelings with Helevorn are all the same.

If you want to enjoy some disso-black and meloblack but can't decide on which to go for, how about something with an equal blend of both? Well, look no further, because Firtan have mixed up a perfect…

Judas my guide.

Pearl anniversary.

Here, after 19 years, are Unsung Tales told from Rivendell in the style of blackened folk.

Insect Ark keeps evolving and changing drummers; let us hope this third iteration of the project lives for longer. Dana Schechter seems to have traded off some of the groove, while dark ambience has taken…

Post-rock and post-metal are genres in which emotionality and atmosphere are typically of major importance, and there are few bands to which this applies more keenly than A Swarm Of The Sun.

The meteoric rise of Blackbraid has given Native American-made metal a visibility boost internationally, but they’re by no means the sole representative of North American indigenous peoples in metal, and…

Dissection have Thulcandra, Vektor have Terminalist,... and now Nile have Apep.

Thirty years of sorrow. Here's another Officium Triste celebrating a landmark anniversary by delivering another offering of melancholic doom.

When I covered Papangu's debut three years ago, they impressed me for their blend of sludge metal and very niche prog rock. Well, now the metal aspect has been pushed back for Lampi​ã​o Rei.

For all the bands that get labeled as ‘progressive death metal’, there’s arguably not that many in the present day that are all that closely tethered to death metal as it was first known to be. Such groups…

Embers are still sparking for the Irish post-rock legends.

In Chile, first you get the thrash, then you get the black, then you get the headbanging.

Anciients were a band that stuck around just long enough to leave people desperate for more from them before suddenly disappearing; at long last, they’re finally back.

Don’t you love it when a band’s name fully matches their music? Concrete Winds have no qualms in crushing you with a fiery mix of death metal, black metal and grindcore.

Some time ago, very long ago, I was very abruptly exploring my tastes in music. Before rock and metal, I was a big fan of hip-hop, and more specifically hip-hop from the 90s, mostly the well-known rappers…

What Black Sites do we expect to find lurking within The Promised Land?