Reviews

I talked a lot about some avantgarde albums that Kenny from Imperial Triumphant appeared on this year, but it's up to another Imperial Triumphant member to bring us reverse symphonic black metal.

And here I was, wondering how Simulacrum sound like without John Zorn. Now they're produced by Colin Marston.

I've spent the last week getting into John Zorn. Let's see if I'm finally prepared to review his music.

It's okay to cry, bro.

Symphonic power metal or power rock, or more accurately in the case of Royal Hunt, power whatever with a great symphonic keyboard player. Yes, this is the same band from Denmark who started out in 1989.

If you were anticipating Agent Orange 2.0, this is not it.

Let the illumination begin.

The concept that there is a new Contrastic record out feels absolutely surreal to me. The fact that grind fans aren't freaking out about it is instead saddening.

Meanwhile, in a church in Sweden?…

It should be a criminal offence to make brutal death metal albums longer than 30 minutes.

It‭ ‬has been the year when most people have been forced to hide from the world,‭ ‬it is a good thing that Communic have not.‭ ‬

Do you like your black metal just lightly experimental?

Boris and Merzbow collaborate so often that they used to have a separate band profile here just for the collabs. Now they team up for a sixth time to say "RIP 2020".

Not as masterful as I had hoped for.

Remember Albert Witchfinder from Reverend Bizarre? Now he is in Opium Warlords to put the doom back in drone doom.

Why merge black metal and post-hardcore to create a filthy violent sound, when you can merge them to create an intoxicating beautiful one?

It's my birthday. You have to listen to what I review.

"Why this is not revieved here?" - Bad English That's an excellent question. Let's change that, shall we?…

It has boobs on the cover art. It is fantasy-themed and Michael Moorcock-influenced. It has vocals drenched in reverb. It begins with hammer and anvil sounds. I could have finished the review right…

An Italian melancholic doom single-track album with guests from Saturnus and Swallow The Sun. Let's get it!

Drifting along with the tide.

I can usually expect to discover at least one great stoner metal band each year; I had to wait longer than usual in 2020, but finally Green Druid have filled this year's quota.

Maybe I should pay more attention to instrumental prog even when it doesn't get sampled by Doja Cat? Do we still call these djent? I don't know. All I know is that I had more fun with this than…

"Post-black" has always been something of a nebulous term, one that means different things to different people. Some consider it to simply refer to bands that have evolved beyond the origins…

They had us in the first half, I'm not going to lie.

More than most subgenres of metal, good post-metal relies on creating a compelling atmosphere; on Raya, Pothamus demonstrate that they are well aware of this requirement.

I feel like it's probably considered quite a big thing to get Anneke van Giersbergen to feature on your album, which makes the decision to feature a second version of the song she guests on with her…

The real comeback album?…

They were sober at the time too.

It can be really interesting to see how a musician's side-project influences their main band's sound.

Mizmor albums usually come with awe-inspiring cover arts by Polish painters and with a massive blend of black and doom metal to match the colossal feeling. On Dialetheia, Mizmor is joined by frequent collaborator…

Come on feel the? synth?…

Rage on a page.

Guilty.

Solid but unspectacular.

Damn it grunge, you ruined Kreator.

I can't say that grindcore was really a "new" thing in 2000, when Fuck The Facts burst into the scene, but in 2020 Pleine Noirceur shows that neither the band nor the genre stagnated in…

Can you put your false self on weight watchers?…

How many bands do you know that you can immediately recognize their sound from the first two notes of any song of theirs? And how many bands do you know that have whole albums in their discography that…

Competent at being average.

If there's one band that has had the misfortune to be underappreciated and fall into obscurity in the gothic metal genre, it's the Italian then-metal band Monumentum. This is a total shame because…

Let's face it, you are only listening to this because of his day job.

Just like the Pied Piper, leading rats through the streets.

Mortal Love is without a doubt one of my favorite gothic metal bands of all time. While many would consider their sound to be another copycat of The Gathering, this band manages to impress me with a fresh…

!T.O.O.H.!: the band whose music is as unusual as their name. Free Speech is exactly as peculiar as you would expect a !T.O.O.H.! record to be, but is it any good?…

You can take the man out of The Moth Gatherer, but you can't take The Moth Gatherer out of the man.

Towards Belief is the sound of a band pulling off a musical evolution with aplomb.

I really thought Dark Quarterer would have a more consolidated fanbase by now, but it's not like they're the only band treated poorly by history.

Siste Lys is one of those releases that is highly enjoyable yet also ever so slightly disappointing.

Like the rest of us, Gama Bomb have spent the bulk of this year living for the lockdown. But as it says in the Bible, all things must return to the sea. Was that the Bible? Maybe it was John Carpenter.

To be or not to be? No need for that question here. This should never have been in the first place...

2020's given a lot of negatives to a lot of people, but it's brought quite a few positives for fans of Heike Langhans.

How precisely can there be a Devil's soul when the soul is the Devil?

Akhlys having to follow-up The Dreaming I sure is a massive task.

Lord have mercy.

Those of us who live in the United States have a peculiar problem around this time of year: there's some dumbass holiday wedged in between Halloween and Christmas that prevents us from decking our…

Most likely Chile's (or South America in general) longest-standing doom metal act, Poema Arcanus returns after 7 years. Continuous delays (not even mentioning Covid-19) have put several obstacles…

Has the time come?…

The good prog just keeps coming.

Pallbearer is always a standout act to my ears. While many doom bands have become too gothic, too stoner, or too funeral, Pallbearer continued the legacy of traditional doom that few in the past 20 years…

Quite the spectacle.

Guessing neither the band nor the label foresaw the digital age then.

In 2020, Tombs released what is, for my money, a strong contender for their finest record. That record wasn't Under Sullen Skies, but this is a perfectly good album too.

Imagine making not one, but two of the best death metal records of 2020. That's the situation Wake find themselves in.

There have been a number of stellar moments in the impressive career of Dark Tranquillity to date. Moment is not one of them, but it's not a disaster either.

It's been a while since we heard from Jesu.

Band members are expendable. Music will always find a way.

Nader Sadek is back with 22 minutes of new music? or is he?…

It wasn't enough to do a review of the post-metal project of the guy from Throane, now I gotta talk about more French projects with a black metal band of two guys from Ataraxie.

Capturing the essence of melancholia in grandiose fashion is a task frequently sought after, yet rarely achieved.