Reviews

Gaze into death and be still.

Shrine on you crazy diamonds.

So here I am reviewing an album almost two years old. Reading comments, I see how little appreciation there is for this album. While it's clear not quite everyone will love this album, it's got…

Of the two ex-Iced Earth singers that recently moved onto Projects, one of them was wise enough to reconsider their commitment to said Project.

Of the two Projects that ex-Iced Earth singers have recently moved onto, at least one of them’s worked out well.

“Geez musclassia, you write a lot of reviews, are you not worried about spreading yourself too thinly?”, I may hear you say. In response, I’ll say “no need to patroness –…

"I went, sir, I showed them everything that could be done, they said they wanted a new world, but where can I give them a new world, that's why I called you all here to create this world again,…

There’s times when you look at a festival line-up or label roster and are intrigued over how one particular band fits in with the rest; I recently had that when I saw a stoner metal band on a predominanty…

Sergeant Thunderhoof is due a promotion, if This Spectred Veil is anything to go by.

Considering there was an 8-year wait between the last two Seventh Wonder records, that it’s only taken an additional 4 years for The Testament to be released makes its arrival almost feel sudden; let’s…

We finally have a song titled "Artificial Brain" on an album called Artificial Brain by a band called Artificial Brain.

There are few bands with discographies as lean as Astronoid, and yet with a mountain of expectations.

They may be named after a Morbid Angel song, but Heaving Earth are very much a modern death metal band.

Sergio Corbucci is dead, but Kreator are still very much alive. Seriously, I have no idea what that intro track is all about as I have no idea why bands use irrelevant intro tracks that offer nothing to…

I worry that I might be treading on some toes in reviewing a Chilean death metal album, but Void Of Unending Depths is worth some sore digits.

When returning after a decade’s absence, naming your comeback album The Exile seems rather fitting.

A bit out of my comfort zone, but overall an enjoyable time.

Don’t lose your head.

Since the ending of the 777-trilogy, it seems that Blut Aus Nord has been on a road of reinvention. Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses brings something new. Something sinister.

“Short but sweet” describes Isaurian’s Deep Sleep Metaphysics almost to a tee.

The Algorithm is five iterations deep and outputs another solid record.

As the Church of Batushka underwent many a schism, other robed black metal bands emerged to fill the void, with some of them offering a more twisted take on the Orthodox black metal concept.

A more aggressive take by one of the most cryptic death metal bands.

In some genres, a 20 minute album counts as a full-length, in other genres you can go well over 30 minutes and still have an EP.

Nowadays, few bands could willfully disregard the divisions between power metal and black metal, but for bands that were around to witness the birth of both genres, those divisions are merely a matter…

The band that needs no introduction.

He's not vicious or malicious, just de-lovely and delicious.

A dark ambient composer tackled on the industrial black metal sound.

Grief changes shape, but it never ends.

As one astute commenter noted, it seems curious to give the name Progressions to an album that seems to reject the concept of progression.

Anvil are now over 40 years old, and have seemingly barely changed over that time, which may not be for the better.

Morgue Supplier have finally broken a six-year silence with an album that is far more twisted and forward-thinking than anything they have done before.

With only 10 days between albums from Katharos and Katharos XIII, it’s a shame that we didn’t get daily releases from Katharos II-XII, but they wouldn’t be as good as Chthonian Transmissions…

A pendulum does what it does best. It swings back.

This is it. Geoff Nicholls' last album.

When I checked out Terror Cósmico’s Miasma, I saw it classified as stoner metal, which seemed a bit at odds with the freaky artwork and ‘cosmic horror’ band name. As it turns out,…

Modern Primitive is a Septicflesh album; it’s no less than that, but it’s not really much more than that either.

Some bands don’t struggle. They nail both the sound and songwriting right away.

Some bands nail the songwriting but struggle with the sound.

Some bands nail the sound but struggle with the songwriting.

No, not the crystal skull, never the crystal skull.

Hell in a cell.

‘Hollow’ is unintentionally a somewhat apt description of the experience of listening to Hollow.

Out of all the metal subgenres out there, one that really works great as being very bright is prog metal.

Delvoid remind me of a lot of bands that I like with Swarmlife; unfortunately, most of them are bands that I have mixed relations with, and the same applies to Swarmlife.

Is it too corny to say that Empire Springs glow brightly on The Luminescence? Probably, but I couldn’t think of a better way to start this review.

The last time that Evergrey had this short a gap between records, they followed up Recreation Day with The Inner Circle, so omens are good for A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament).

For the longest while, the thing that bugged me the most about Emma Ruth Rundle's discography was the fact that she had an album called "Electric Guitar 1", but no sequel to it. Well, that…

Bigger is not always better, with Wo Fat’s The Singularity providing evidence of this.

There was a time when bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were yet to release their first studio albums, but other English bands were busy shaping the future of music. December 1971, more than 50 years…

Tómarúm, according to a quick online search, is an Icelandic word meaning a vacuum or void. Having listened to Ash In Realms Of Stone Icons, Tómarúm’s music couldn’t sound less empty or voidlike.

Rumble in the jungle.

Hold on for dear life.

Haunter are pretty great at doing blackened disso-death, but they're even better as a country backing band.

Rashomon is the debut album of Ibaraki, Matt Heafy’s long-gestating black metal solo project… is that sentence entirely true?

Life in the cosmos is pretty brutal, eh?

Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space.

In Greek mythology we come across a legendary race, called the Hyperboreans, who lived in the far north of the known world, even beyond the North Wind. Fer De Lance’s debut LP is the music they made.

The path of might is one of glory.

There was a lot of great progressive/technical death metal in 2021; with more albums like The Black Hole Era, 2022 will end up being similarly fruitful for genre fans.

Sometimes you need more percussion than just a mere drum kit.

Negative Plane is part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

This is a truly majestic album, one that reminiscences on the classic bands who thrived during the great 70's progressive rock era, taking influences from bands such as Wishbone Ash, Yes, Genesis,…

The sum of R is one that mathematicians are too scared to calculate.

Ttthe shame for having to change their name from Gold to Gggolddd should not be the band’sss.

Are Bluetooth speakers the modern boomboxes?…

You can be astral and primal at the same time. Just ask those apes who found a monolith.

Tired of waiting for a new Alcest album? Why not try Finnish Alcest?

I don’t really review power metal, so when an album compels me to do so, I feel like that’s a pretty strong indication of its quality.

Do you remember how SubRosa took long, slow doom and gave it a dark folk twist? Well, take that as a musical base, add some post-metal, drone metal, dark ambience and whatever else you feel like throwing…