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Listening to albums like this makes me feel really uncomfortable. It is the awkward moment, when you really have no idea of what to criticize. Although the bands abilities are developed to a maximum, the music seems kind of uninteresting…. Continue Reading →
Finally. Some folk-infused metal with iron running through its veins. I mean, imagine we’re walking through the dark pagan forest with nothing at our sides but sharpened blades, surrounded by enemies who want to take our wives and sell our… Continue Reading →
Doom has ever been one of the more conservative genres of metal – by which I mean its evolution progresses at about the same pace as the average doom riff. With links to the progenitors of the entire music form,… Continue Reading →
One very long song – just as funeral doom was meant to be. If ever there was a sub-genre of metal that lent itself to the kind of smothering journey which can only come from a near hour-long single piece… Continue Reading →
Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, otherwise known as the Pied Piper of Hamelin, was a vengeful dude who used his pipes to lure kids to their doom after stingy parents refused to fork money over for pest removal services. A truly… Continue Reading →
These Italian crust/grind/black metal bastards have really pushed the intense as fuck boat out, way out, on their 2nd album for Southern Lord, probably one of the first big underground labels to really embrace the insane crust/black/metal crossover. It’s silly… Continue Reading →
New releases from old bands are bad news. Really? Some bands just do not accept that they have become ridiculous and have sold out, so instead they play what they are passionate about. See Autopsy’s new album, Asphyx’s ‘Deathhammer’, Immolation’s… Continue Reading →
Epitimia is an odd boundary-testing band but one which is also strangely accessible. Nothing I’ve read so far has been quite able to place a finger on their sound. It mixes together elements of the black metal spectrum, particularly the… Continue Reading →
As far as I can tell, and my German is surprisingly flakey given the number of German bands I listen to, Nashorn is the name of a fairly intimidating piece of anti-tank artillery from World War II. Now, if the… Continue Reading →
This two-track, Greek BM split opens with an epic, fifteen-minute piece by Spectral Lore, whose excellent, earthy-and-euphoric full-length ‘Sentinel’ it was recently my pleasure to review. New track ‘Duty’ is similarly powerful and dramatic, albeit with a lighter tone and… Continue Reading →
Faster, higher, bigger…. more ‘epic’. There can be few areas of metal that have embraced new technology to the extent that power metal has. In the search for a ‘big’ sound, keyboards and computers have increasingly proved too much of… Continue Reading →
The idea of reviewing Skálmöld’s new album, ‘Börn Loka’ inspires considerable trepidation. Their previous effort, 2011’s ‘Baldur’ was an unlooked-for comic masterpiece in which the protagonist, permanently inebriated Viking underdog Baldur, was last seen dying of plague while ironically brandishing… Continue Reading →