Reviews

Take my breath away.

It was just over a week ago that I was acclaiming Melancholia for delivering on the promise of their Clandestine Cuts appearance. One band that I’d given up hope on doing the same were Meridian Sun, but…

Gethsemane is the place where Jesus Christ underwent agony, treachery, and despair at the arrest that ultimately lead to his crucifixion. I'm sure we've all heard the story, and Vastum aren't…

Framed as Xasthur’s first venture into black metal in 13 years, upon closer inspection, Inevitably Dark is neither a true return to the old sound nor a development of the more recent neofolk/Americana…

Making up for lost time.

Move over heads, shoulders, knees and toes.

First Amenra did Mass IIII, now Briqueville have come out with IIII... someone should really pop over to Belgium and teach them all how Roman numerals work.

For most metalheads, Shylmagoghnar are held on quite a high pedestal for their remarkable sound and style. Can Convergence show some indication for those unfamiliar with this band as to why that is? And…

Between Dissona’s long-awaited return, Insomnium backing up the quality of Anno 1696 with the similarly impressive Songs Of The Dusk, and As The Sun Falls going toe-to-to with Insomnium, it’s been a good…

War is noise. But maybe just a little bit less so this time around.

You know there's something odd with your Yellow Eyes album when the title isn't three words randomly strung together. Instead we have something more like a detour EP experimenting more with how…

Heavy music for heavy emotions.

I jumped on this one pretty quickly, which is kind of odd, because thrash metal isn’t usually the subgenre I gravitate towards. Granted, when I saw the name Strident, I was thinking of the South African…

Do these progressive power metal veterans actually introduce Cycles Of Pain through this latest offering, I wonder?

If you want to experience some highly ferocious technical death/thrash wizardry, then why not join Xoth on their latest Exogalactic voyage?

Blut Aus Nord is a band that often works in trilogies. And just like they’re currently in the process of closing another trilogy, let’s look at how they closed the best one in the past.

There are certain sounds that I am intrinsically a sucker for, to the extent that they could probably be as done to death as stoner rock or OSDM and I’d still lap up every album featuring them. Percussion-heavy…

We cover a lot of bands in Clandestine Cuts, and many of them are of a very good standard, but there are those certain few acts who almost seem to guarantee future triumphs with the quality of their initial…

In the years since the release of World’s Blood, the ‘Western black metal’ microgenre has begun to grow just a tad; Untamed Land and Dark Watcher have produced solid material, and Duelist have even titled…

Cirkeln veer off from their meloblack roots to embrace a more primitive yet varied style, combining ominous doom riffs, aggressively thrashy hooks, and catchy melodies all the way through.

There have been quite a few unanticipated comeback albums in metal in the last few years. From Possessed to Conception and from Psychotic Waltz to Cirith Ungol, bands that dissolved decades ago have resurfaced,…

Afterbirth have already upped the ante when it comes to forward thinking brutal death metal. Wanna see them do it again?

In my saddest dreams, there's a request error when I publish a review and it's all gone and I have to write it again. Also my cats go missing. Ok, maybe things can get sadder than that. Dreamwell…

In its purest form, I find grindcore to be one of the more challenging genres to appreciate. However, beyond the surface level abundance of 15-minute blastathon albums, a handful of records pop up each…

This is blackened grindcore in its most malicious and aggressive form: listen with care and tread with caution (and perhaps not on a priest's face, as the cover depicts).

As has been said before, modern technology is both a blessing and a curse; while it has contributed significantly to the deterioration in social discourse in a pivotal period of human history, it has inspired…

Attention, Bolt Thrower fans! Warcrab is here to present a death/doom/sludge style that's meant to pummel any and all head-bangers to mush!…

Do you fancy yourself nothing more than some straightforward solid OSDM? Well, Cemetery Urn may just have what you're looking for with Suffer The Fallen, as it is solid OSDM and nothing more.

There's a chance you were already won over by 2021's Forlorn, so I don't have to do the Bong-Ra/Thy Catafalque clickbait again (oops), so this time I'll just tell you that this is some…

Given enough time, any avant-garde black metal band morphs into just avant-garde metal.

Having been on the scene for an astonishing fifty-one years, at a time when even heavy metal was unheard of, could this Dark Parade signal Cirith Ungol's final act? If so, then these warriors of heavy…

What does come after math?…

Through the Veil Of Death, Ruptured in the grasp of the witches of Asagraum's dark, evil, sinister spell, you'll succumb to the unholy powers of traditional black metal.

You know you landed in a weird zone when the user reviews for an album on a certain website are all 9/10s basically translating to "fuck Gruzja, it's the worst shit".

A cocky way to release a self-titled album: so this is Brujeria? The album covers all the sounds, influences and styles that this death metal/grindcore supergroup are known for, so the answer to that question…

Get ready to immerse yourself in a long-lost mythological ancient world, and uncover untold truths as you proceed through imaginatively beautiful untrodden landscapes. This is what Telesterion have set…

‘Twas ten years ago when the gates of Mordhaus last opened, pitching forth one unexpectedly final adventure: The Doomstar Requiem, a whirlwind of a musical that remains one of the most unique things I’ve…

This is chopper 666, reporting live from the fiery pits of Hell. Satan is headbanging. I repeat: Satan is headbanging.

"Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud / Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun / And loathsome canker lies in sweetest bud / All men make faults..." is a famous Shakespearean quote…

Monosphere’s arrival onto the djent scene back in 2021 with The Puppeteer was something of a breath of fresh air to me; djent, metalcore and prog were already closely entwined by that point, but the idea…

Theocracy’s Theocracy celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and this significant occasion in the prog/power heavyweights’ history is commemorated with the band’s first album in seven years, Mosaic.

Chances are you don't feel right with your place in the world. Sometimes you feel like you deserve more, sometimes you feel like you don't actually deserve what you have. Svalbard have a thing…

Myrkur’s gradual transition from folk black metal to just folk reached a natural conclusion with 2020’s Folkesange. This project hadn’t yet stood still between releases, but the next steps were unclear;…

The Lion's Daughter had already established a unique and successful sound for themselves on Skin Show, yet Bath House demonstrates that they’re not content to stand still. Experimentation is admirable,…

After reviewing Stortregn’s previous album Impermanence, I had certain hopes concerning where the band would go next. Finitude doesn’t really follow in that direction, but regardless it is an exhilarating…

Steven Wilson's move away from straight-forward prog rock in his main line of albums finally yields actual great results.

A bite-sized chunk of ethereal atmospheres.

Through Your Sunset / My Sunrise, Décembre Noir offer a glimmer of hope and tranquillity to those whose souls will inevitably succumb to the dark, doomy winter.

Fortíð translates in English to the word "past", and Narkissos certainly shows glimpses of that in its songwriting, but this Icelandic black metal trio have proven they are far more than a band…

Few black metal bands put as much emphasis on sheer disgusting blasphemy as Profanatica does. And while their image might look campy and excessive, they have always been serious about it. Even more so…

Impetuous Ritual are neither re-inventing death metal nor their own cavernous style. But they don’t need to when the result is this hellish.

The majority of the articles that I can see concerning Chaver’s Of Gloom are about the fact that it shares cover art with the new Doja Cat release. The majority of articles about this album should be discussing…

Since their formation back in 2000, Vanishing Kids have been releasing interesting albums that do not sound very similar to each other. With the addition of bassist Jerry Soffran next to the founding duo…

"Sie sind hier." They are here. With these words, Sulphur Aeon return after five years, once more heralding Lovecraftian horrors with entertaining and highly melodic death metal.

A band named after a (fictional) order of assassins might be expected to exhibit a level of subtlety. As it is, while the lumbering walls of distortion conjured up by Morag Tong offer little in the way…

I enjoy when unusual yet irrelevant patterns occur in the release schedule. One such instance was when two melodeath bands with names centered around the descent of a particular celestial body both released…

Epic power melodeath: now there's a genre blend that sounds interesting, doesn't it? On that note, here's a new outrageously fun, traditionally melodic act, with a real heroic attitude that…

After SubRosa disbanded in 2019, four fifths of the band’s final recording line-up went off to form The Otolith, whose 2022 debut Folium Limina was a commendable replication of their previous project’s…

Would we really be expected to believe the same individual behind the dreamy, expansionist drone antics of Neptunian Maximalism and ZAÄAR is also in command of the blackened death juggernaut that is Ôros…

The Circle may sound like the title of an occult group, but that's far from what we have here. If you want to hear something at the most mature end of the symphonic black metal spectrum, look no further…

A smaller bite of music for the patient and sick.

When it comes to stoner rock and stoner metal, female vocalists aren’t uncommon; for stoner doom specifically, though, the representation is lower. Bands such as Windhand have demonstrated that slow, gnarly…

Winter is now fast approaching, and we all know the change in weather has a dramatic effect on our moods. So, what better way is there to reflect on the dark and miserable month of October than with listening…

Dropping the apostrophe in the band name on the album cover for some reason isn't indicative of Harm's Way dropping any fundamental part of their sound. This is still dense metallic hardcore.

Heaven and hell all at once, indeed.

You want to do what to your replacement?…

Across their first two records, as well as their side-project The Nest, Wolvennest have tended towards very long, very entrancing albums. With their surprise new album The Dark Path To The Light, the Belgians…

With a perplexing cover that screams more sophisti-pop than anything metal related, Hunger nonetheless brings back some of the oddest hard rock music currently out there.

Of all the different metal genres, the ‘blackgaze’ or ‘metalgaze’ niche is one that I’m perhaps most neutral to, which is why when an album comes along that makes a more lasting impression than just ‘enjoyable’,…

Of all the different metal genres, the ‘blackgaze’ or ‘metalgaze’ niche is one that I’m perhaps most neutral to; there’s usually one or two albums each year that stands out, but most of it is ‘good, not…