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If anyone’s capable of sonically replicating the sound of a human brain dissected and rewired by the hands of a grinning sadist, this is it. Imagine all those album covers from melodic death metal bands covered with screaming faces but… Continue Reading →
US trio Primitive Man take no prisoners with their onslaught of skull-crushingly heavy blackened sludge-doom. The guitars are downtuned and drenched in feedback, whilst the drums are crude and sparse, often breaking into tribal-sounding patterns. The excellent vocals consist of… Continue Reading →
Progressive metal – in this case with a definite rock edge – is a road into the hinterlands of heavy metal that can demand a certain amount of perseverance. There are plenty of bands that pull it off fantastically: Aryeon,… Continue Reading →
The Monolith Deathcult’s new album Tetragrammaton redefines ‘over-the-top’ combing colossal death metal song-writing with more samples than Fear Factory and Ministry’s coke-addled lovechild. With love of keyboards, The Transformers and a manifest mission to delight and divide it is not… Continue Reading →
Now this is a real treat. Germany’s black metal masters Helrunar and Icelandic bards Árstíðir Lífsins on one release. My main concern is that two bands with such a flare for atmospheric black metal won’t even have time to get… Continue Reading →
It’s been, quite literally, a lifetime since the last Witch Cross album. Back in 1984 metal was just metal and you wore long hair, jeans (most likely blue, I’m afraid), trainers and it was all about vinyl or maybe a… Continue Reading →
Stalwarts of the Viking metal scene Månegarm are back with their seventh full-length and a little surprise in store for long-term fans. As the title Legions of the North suggests, these sons of Sweden have laid aside their habit of… Continue Reading →
Deth Rok, from Ministry collaborator Aaron Havill, falls into a broad category of music that I would describe as come-down music. Or, more accurately, music that you should avoid – at all costs – listening to when on an actual… Continue Reading →
Acherontas help to form a phalanx of Greek black metal bands with a progressive purpose and a grim determination to expose us all to their black arts. Moving in the wake of ground-breaking countrymen Rotting Christ and Septicflesh, Acherontas forms… Continue Reading →
Ukrainian newcomers Mental Torment are right at home on Solitude. As the cover would suggest, ‘On The Verge…’ is murky, despondent doom-death in the funereal vein, full of giant, crashing riffs and plunging dirges. The theme of the album is… Continue Reading →
The words ‘pagan’ and ‘metal’ in close proximity conjure up certain preconceptions in most metal minds. Let’s be honest, those preconceptions are not always positive and much of that is self-inflicted by bands whose musical hopes and dreams should probably… Continue Reading →
Originally released back in 2011, ‘Spiritual Alchemy’ is the product of a two-man melodic doom-death band from Moscow. Alarm bells started ringing when floaty intro ‘Windy Days’ (stop sniggering at the back) started playing, its saccharine keys and harp effects… Continue Reading →