Reviews

Are you familiar with Hot Graves? I wasn't aware of graves being hot either, but the band, it turns out, are pretty good, and Plaguewielder is in no doubt their best release yet.

Well, a slight over-estimation.

3rd rock from the (seventh) sun.

When Smoulder’s debut album came out, traditional metal fans slowly but steadily started to become obsessed with it to the point that, in these four years that went by, it managed to gain the status of…

The HIRS Collective have been making queer grind for a while and a lot of it, but never until We're Still Here did it feel like we're finally getting a cohesive album from them.

Listening to new metal releases every week is bound to give you some degree of metal saturation. It's up to a noisy avant-garde psych folk atmospheric war metal album to change that.

I discovered Lethvm in 2019 with their album Acedia, which was some top-tier Amenra worship. Four years on, and the Belgians in Lethvm still resemble their compatriots, but they distinguish themselves…

I’m not sure if there’s any band I’ve compared albums with in my reviews more than I have with Mastodon. It makes sense, since Mastodon are a great band; however, the range that Mastodon have covered over…

Blasphemous music is an intriguing artform. Sometimes it’s just disgusting, and brutish diatribes against organized religions with the simple aim to shock and offend. If you based your opinions solely…

"Yeah, I got better songwriting and more powerful songs. But at what cost?"

Blasphemous music is an intriguing artform. It challenges the traditional philosophies provided by organized religions. It embraces individualism and man's control over his own destiny. It provides…

BlurCurve are the kind of band that one can argue over whether they are an alternative metal band or a heavy rock band, so it’s perhaps coincidental that they’ve named their new EP after Pluto, which caused…

Aah, Lucifer's Fall. It's hard for me to be entirely objective when reviewing this.

Changing one of your main songwriters is a pretty big step. Sometimes you need to test the waters on something more bite-sized.

Desert Storm's sixth full-length release is an enjoyable yet inconsistent piece of stoner rock.

If you were looking for the next Bolt Thrower, and perhaps thought Memoriam was the answer, then I Kommand you comrades to think again.

Spectral Lore continues the trend of releasing full-lengths disguised as EPs.

Here's a Rotten Soundtrack for the inevitable Apocalypse (which hopefully won't be too soon). Brace yourselves for the incoming impact. It'll all be over in a flash, before you even know…

The first time I mentioned Illuminated Void on Metal Storm in January 2022, I referred to Matt Schmitz’ Sleestak as ‘not the most active band’; given the output of his various projects since that article,…

Finnish “death schlager” band Viikate has long been a favourite band of mine, ever since I discovered their debut album way back in my teens. They have come a long way since then, however, so how does…

Blind Oath were born when five metal fans that had devoted their lives to booking, hosting, and travelling to see live shows of some of metal’s great ones met with their heroes in Night Demon, Manilla…

One thing that I’ve learned from Limbo is that, if your album starts off as thrash and you want me to listen to the whole thing, morphing your style into turn-of-the-millennium Opeth by the end of the…

Likely due to common ground in terms of association with mind-altering substances, stoner rock/metal and psychedelic rock are frequently found mentioned in close proximity to one another. Although there’s…

We're pretty used to calling music "otherworldly" and usually in a good way. For Liturgy, it was such a twisted form of black metal whose glitches, blaring horns, convoluted lore and philosophy…

The least obnoxious annoying quirky of Babymetal's albums so far.

With their newest release, Dawn Ray'd demonstrate that folk black metal can work just as well as thrash in conveying pissed-off wishes of anarchy.

You.are.a.toy!…

Omg! I remember them!

Given that, on 26 May 2023, Kalmah will be releasing their self-titled album, it is perhaps wise to look into their earliest, as well as their latest, works. The swamp-striders have remained ever consistent…

Be honest. You clicked on this because of the cover art.

Surprise, surprise, another great meloblack/melodeath band from the land of snow and metal. Do the Finns ever disappoint in such genres? Well, Suotana, at the very least, prove here once again that they…

What can you do after going through the stages of death metal, sludge, hardcore and finally industrial? Easy: you do everything, everywhere, all at once.

What is the definition of epic? If you ask multiple people that same question, you will no doubt get a different variation of the answer each time, but what I will tell you is just give a listen to Ascent…

It’s now been over four years since the last High On Fire record dropped; yes, there has been Matt Pike material since them, but it’s been a long wait for new material from the band itself, particularly…

2019 saw the Birth Of The Marvellous. Since that birth, Sermon has grown up, and is now unleashing a sophomore release that is golden, in its verses and everywhere else.

The Monarchy has fallen, but this album won’t be the Downfall of Ad Infinitum’s nascent Legacy.

“Each track [on Rot] takes its inspiration from the horror movies that have impacted the band’s psyche since the release of their previous album, Close” - if you’ve ever had a Halloween movie all-nighter…

There's certainly no "loss of beauty" on this record, let me tell you that. An early contender for extreme doom AOTY? You can bet on your life, it is.

Kollapsed’s music takes cues from post-metal and atmospheric doom acts such as Isis and Cult Of Luna, topping off dirgy riffs with blackened screams, at times settling into plucked, moody patterns that…

Radu has kindly done me the service of paving the way for this review, and I’ve made it my business (because Radu has made it my business) to review almost everything that E-an-na has released thus far…

Are you ready for some adventurously epic symphonic meloblack from the former Eurovision contestant Keep Of Kalessin?

Ne Obliviscaris, the band whose name means ‘forget not’, have spent pretty much their whole career making unforgettable music; Exul is the latest high point of a discography already crammed with highlights.

What's in a dream? Beyond the physical plane, could it be a world to escape our own time-construct to explore other dimensions? Or is it just our garden, the cradle of our souls? Hanging Garden's…

At the more atmospheric end of the progressive metalcore spectrum, Invent Animate have subtly distinguished themselves within the roster of bands that have dominated the trajectory of metalcore in the…

Acid King have returned with classic, droning, stoner metal… and not much else.

Due to the graphic nature of the following material, listener discretion is advised.

The masses of humanity have always had to suffer.

Power metal that unfortunately lacks the staying power...

Come and feast your ears on some Japanese Kruelty, as they give you a serious hardcore beatdown on this chugging hell of an album, Untopia.

Does doom metal have to be so doom and gloom? Well, of course it doesn't, in the traditional sense anyway; it can actually be thrilling and entertaining.

What exactly do we have here, I wonder? Is it black or is it death? Well, whatever Úlfúð have pulled off here, it's pretty darn good.

One of the most unique bands to come out of Portland is Die Like Gentlemen, and Hard Truths is one of their most intriguing releases to date; believe me, the title says it all.

Sometimes, a band/album name, album artwork and/or genre tag in combination can be enough to convince me that I will dig an album; such was the case with Barishi’s Old Smoke, its spectacular artwork based…

Embryo sounds like a malignant, alien tumour, and should be your 2023 choice for scratching that Darkspace and Decoherence itch.

On their first album of the 2020s, Utgard, Enslaved made a break from the elaborate long-song prog that had dominated their 2010s output in favour of shorter, more compact, and arguably more accessible…

Downfall Of Gaia have always been impossible to place under a single genre. Sludge? Crust? Post? Black? All of them in various combinations, usually with the "atmospheric" tag in the front. But…

What makes Balkan post-metal bands suddenly turn into avant-garde prog jazz outfits?

Metalcore and noise rock aren't often paired together. They should be.

Warning: political thrash metal ahead!

Omne, I hear you ask, if someone queries a maths equation, does that make them a maths debater?…

Technical death metal doesn't always have to be such a complex genre, you know? Gorod demonstrates with The Orb how it can be as equally groovy and exciting as it is technical and complex.

Omne, I hear you ask, do you pity the fool?…

Vitriolic Sage's third album proves that modern black metal is alive and well, as beautiful lead guitar melodies and furious drumming collide in these five songs of visceral sorrow. The Dream Road…

When proclaiming that a once all-conquering band is back on form, there are degrees to which a band can return to form. Is this the next The Black Halo or Ghost Opera? No. Is it the best thing that Kamelot…

According to Ikarie, “if Cuerpos En Sombra was about pain, Arde is about transformative rage.” This rage hasn’t particularly transformed the band or their musical approach from how they sounded the last…

Entropia have been a bold musical force pretty much from the outset, and that’s only become more and more the case with each passing album. After an incredibly ambitious effort 5 years ago in the form…

Ever since the emergence of the mighty Skyclad, folk and metal have been good friends, and it is really up to the listener to decide which kind of folk they prefer with their metal, or which style of metal…

A crushingly addictive metal album that fires on all cylinders and still adds enough variety to spice up a fine-tuned formula — what isn't there to like?…

Formed by musicians from the hardcore scene, the Norwegians in Håndgemeng have bestowed the term ‘stonercore’ upon the music they’re currently producing. In truth, there is very little of Ultraritual that…

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."