Author Reverend Darkstanley
If it’s possible to combine the unholy loin fruits of Manowar, Bathory and Destroyer666 into one album – and that’s not even a fraction of the influences I could name here – then let it be remembered that Scythian showed… Continue Reading →
Someone clearly got out of bed on the wrong side this morning and that someone is three Canadian blokes from Toronto whose pure blast of nihilistic fury would even give veteran war metallers like Diocletian a chill. Adversarial bleeds dissonant… Continue Reading →
There’s very often something primal about metal from south Rio Grande and beyond into South America that leaves some of their equivalents in other parts of the world feeling distinctly light. Take Majestic Downfall, for example, based in Querétaro, Mexico,… Continue Reading →
After years of familiarity with a bunch of oddball horror, sleaze and psychobilly punk rock bands embracing violence, war, peace, sexual depravity and other general lawlessness, it’s difficult not to feel a little bit jaded when you come across a… Continue Reading →
Death-turned-black metal band Thornesbreed has returned from an extended hiatus with a following wind. Well, perhaps more of a hurricane, by the sound of a couple of these tracks, but with such deft control over those whistling winds that at… Continue Reading →
I’m all up for a bit of black metal that’s so cold feels like someone’s dropped an entire bag of ice cubes down your back and you’ve got your vest tucked into your underpants. So chilly, it hurts. But this… Continue Reading →
Finnish black metal may just be one of my discoveries of the year. Ok, I’m not saying I’ve personally discovered it, invented it or destroyed the world, created a new one and declared a ban on any extreme metal that… Continue Reading →
Candlemass forever tainted my view of doom metal with a style that was as much bred from powerful (rather than power) 1980s metal as it was classic 70s doom. An ultra-melodic, hyper-doom style all of its own that I now… Continue Reading →
Chill out music for the metal masses was something I alluded to two weeks ago, almost in jest, when I was reviewing a certain high quality and ethereally inclined funeral doom album. But I was surprised to so quickly come… Continue Reading →
Seventies rock, albeit with a proggy edge, and black metal might sound like a vomit inducing combination of supermarket own-brand tinned tuna mixed with Himalayan vodka and coke but, it turns out, there’s a man in Germany that can make… Continue Reading →
There’ve been a lot of rule books torn up in recent years and even power metal hasn’t been immune to the occasional redraft. Taking those essential ingredients and either amplifying them beyond what any common sense would deem rational or… Continue Reading →
If you’re going to flop-flop over as many genres as possible in what is basically an extended EP, then this is a study in how high you can aim. Cave of Swimmers have been attracting no small amount of attention,… Continue Reading →