Reviews

It is 2021, and hearing so many iconic progressive metal influences on one record feels refreshing. Black Sky is the fourth album from the Stockholm-based classic prog metal outfit known as Seventh Dimension…

At long last, Amenra have treated us to Mass VII... I mean De Doorn.

There's few things more important for an up-and-coming band than making sure your debut album opens with a killer song.

How I love it when great releases arrive so unexpectedly.

Hardly the most prolific studio band, Bossk compensate for the infrequency and slimlined nature of their releases with reliable good quality.

Foul-mouthed, hard-hitting, danceable, and catchy. Kotiteollisuus (and Tuomas) welcome you to Finland, then seriously question your decision.

On-point Brazilian old school death metal mastered by Jens Brogen. Got your attention? Good.

Engaging piece of work.

Some people in this world are so talented that it's unfair to the rest of us.

Where were you four years ago?…

And the beat goes on.

Conan? O'Brien or gigantic muscular barbarian warrior? The latter.

There are sludge bands that sound like stoner bands with more meat, sludge bands that sound like an apocalypse of noise. And then there's Yautja, who embrace the hardcore part of the sound.

No pressure Helloween, it's not like this will be the most anticipated power metal album released this decade or anything.

I discovered Salduie while looking for another Saurom. Their base state might, in fact, be more like another Eluveitie, but I guess Salduie got bored in lockdown, too, because the ancient times are growing…

It can be hard to work out exactly what your musical approach is on your debut album, as Age Of The Solipsist so ably demonstrates.

Extreme progressive metal is stealing the show in 2021.

Whatever cultural stereotypes come to mind when thinking of Finland and its inhabitants, consider them amplified tenfold and caked in rancid reindeer offal to get a better idea of what Cannibal Accident…

I don't mind retro pastiche that much, but I really enjoy it when artists can nail rehashing an old sound but doing it in a pretty unique way. It's hard to think of anyone doing this 70s melting…

A metalhead pianist with ADHD goes into a? wait, where was I?

Out For Blood.

As big a fan of djent as I am, sometimes it's nice to hear a new band come along that's able to write djent-less prog-metalcore.

If you told me that there is a band called Inferno on Metal Storm without any context, I would assume it was some 80s thrash metal band. If you had me listen to Paradeigma without any context, I would…

This may be the Bearer Of Many Names, but it's not the bearer of many riffs. However, Eremit squeeze every last drop out of the riffs that they do write.

When you devote most of your career on themes about cosmic terrors annihilating mankind's senses, at some point you have to wander what is left after the psychological Armageddon is over. Hagbulbia…

Portal have surely carved a name for themselves with their impenetrable sound, intriguing themes of cosmic horror, and an inhuman intensity. With over two decades up their sleeve and plenty of bands drawing…

We are like the dreamer who dreams, and then lives inside the dream. The octaves are not what they seem.

You would be forgiven if you made the ignorant assumption that this would sound anything like Persefone's Shin-Ken based on the cover art.

If the first couple of albums were the jab and the cross respectively, this is the uppercut that will knock you out.

Although restlessness may be a burden, it seems to be a beneficial burden for King Buffalo, at least so far.

The new Gojira album is not Magma 2, and it's not completely a "U Turn" from it. It has the perfect combination of both "old" and "new" Gojira.

One of the perks of becoming a huge band in metal is that, even if you decide to take a divisive musical direction, there will be a wave of bands inspired by your music that can explore what might've…

Imagine the smell of the grave.

Blah? blah? blah? that insanity quote from Einstein and all that?…

Solid mix of folk and black metal.

One thing we learned from the last Havukruunu album was how powerful a frigid opening could be: nothing prefaces an album full of dark, doomy, black-and-folk-encrusted heavy metal like a communal exaltation…

Back to the seventies.

There are still people out there eagerly awaiting a Windir album from Vreid. Finally, their wish has been granted.

Amorphis is one of my favourite bands, particularly due to the guitar work. I find few musical concepts less interesting than a guitarist's solo album with an array of guest vocalists. So what happens…

It's finally warm enough that I can easily go out without any jacket. Vallendusk are among the only black metal bands that can fit this weather.

Impaled Nazarene by the numbers is still great music by the numbers. After 7 years of silence, they are even somewhat more pissed off this time around.

Well, we waited quite some time. While seven years, it's half the time we previously waited for their self-titled comeback album; I feel like A History Of Nomadic Behavior is half the album we could…

A good slab of melodic hard rock that lacks staying power.

Ulthima was born in Mexico but relocated to Finland because that's where melodeath comes from when it isn't Swedish.

Sleipnir's latest flight has perhaps come later than expected; it seems like Odin's horse has been studying black metal in the interim.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am baffled!

I had a friend that took pride in the fact that, beside some early childhood sickness, he never actually puked before. I thought he was missing out. It's one of the more intense bodily functions available.

The djent band for non-metal fans tackle their difficult third album.

Almost complete absence of rhythm, the instruments all playing random shit without ever finding each other, and brutal vocals recorded somewhere in outer space. It's a yes from me, all the way.

It's kind of a meme at this point how much I'm making the other reviewers review Romanian music in my stead. Usually to avoid my own biases. But this one? This one I had to do myself.

Progressive sci-fi saxophone black metal.

Single-track metal albums are not exactly anything new, but single-track hardcore albums might be.

Fragments De Destinées is an album where the ambition is slightly better than the execution; however, that doesn't mean that the execution isn't still thoroughly enjoyable.

You may not have been willing to wait for Alexi Murdoch, but you'd be a motherfucker to act like you forgot about Abominable Putridity.

With new albums from Dordeduh, Vallendusk and Panopticon, it's been a hell of a weekend for folk-influenced black metal.

It's all well and good wearing your influences loud and proud in your music, but you still need to be able to write interesting songs; thankfully, that's not a challenge to Vokonis.

Satan still has the best tunes.

The world is full of surprises. I stumbled upon one of these surprises on a fateful day in December, searching for some old avantgarde metal and retracing the genre's roots, naturally having a look…

No, not that Solstice, the other, other one.

Fire your guns.

Dordeduh's debut album was called Dar De Duh. Album number two is called Har. I appreciate the simplicity.

With how much black metal has developed in the past three plus decades, it's hard to still find a niche within it.

Man, that vocalist really loves Bruce Dickinson's style, doesn't he?…

"What about the Wheel review?" "We've already had it." "We've had one, yes, but what about second Wheel review?"

Have you ever watched the movie Casino? Well (spoilers), Seeds by Domkraft is like that final scene where the guy who played Billy Bats in Goodfellas takes a baseball bat and just goes off on Joe Pesci.

Teramaze unleash their 2112 on the world.

It is only in the live setting where you can stretch a 16-minutes piece into a 52-minutes one.

If you've ever wondered what post-metal would sound like if it developed from stoner metal instead of sludge metal, Methadone Skies clearly share your fascination.

On shaky ground.

What better way to return from my long-overdue break from writing reviews than to review another gothic metal album with no review.