3486 results for "1"
Opeth - Pale Communion
It’s a good thing so many of the reviews I read piss me off so much, otherwise I’d have a significantly harder time getting half of my own off the ground. It’s just infuriating when some douchebag moron tries to write off the opinion of a large number of people…
Moloch - Verwustung
If my count is correct, this is full length LP number twelve for Moloch. I may be off, mostly because this band’s discography is the length of a small novel. This band has a huge number of demo recordings and split releases out there, some of which are reissues of…
In Flames - Siren Charms
You’re inevitably going to see a mega-fuckton of bad reviews when it comes to In Flames’ 11th studio LP. That’s because Siren Charms is unequivocally piss-dripping clown dick. But this bad review in particular comes from a different perspective than most others you’ll read. Most of these people gave up…
Whitechapel - Our Endless War
Much like a car after a few nasty fender benders, once a band covers the unspeakably horrible Pantera (as traumatically witnessed on 2011’s digital-only Recorrupted EP), it’s never really the same again. But in the case of Knoxville bruisers Whitechapel —a band whose first three albums featured some of the…
Battleaxe - Heavy Metal Sanctuary
It’s been ages since I’ve heard Battleaxe. They were a band that had cult status here in the US, but they never got beyond that point before they broke up. Most Metal fans here never heard of them. I had some knowledge of them because I loved obscure Metal releases…
Fallujah - The Flesh Prevails
This is my first encounter with Fallujah, so I attempted a fair amount of research going in. Unfortunately not much of it was helpful. The online critics seem to be split right down the middle. People either worship the ground this quintet shreds on, or despise them with a passion…
Xaos Oblivion - Black Mountains Spirits
This is the solo band of Demonic Slaughter and Abusiveness member Xaos Oblivion and, of all of his projects, this is probably the most experimental. It still falls firmly within the realms of Black Metal, but it goes a lot of places that his other bands don’t, incorporating weirder song…
Hour of Penance - Regicide
It pains me to bestow any negative criticism upon my dago Death Metal brethren, but this just isn’t my Hour of Penance anymore. I mean that both figuratively and literally, as the only remaining member from the era when I worshipped at this band’s altar —2003’s Disturbance and 2005’s Pageantry…
Burial Hordes - Incendium
When describing a band like Burial Hordes, I almost always get into an argument regarding their musical style. It all comes down, in most cases, to whether one considers the term “Black/Death Metal” to mean “a mixture of Black and Death Metal” or “Death Metal influenced by Black Metal.” For…
Judas Priest - Redeemer of Souls
I think for most Judas Priest fans, 2005’s Angel of Retribution was the band’s long-awaited return to form, and sonically speaking it’s hard to argue. But how much of that was just pure relief and joy that Rob Halford was back and Mark Wahlberg was finally gone? It also seems,…
Frozen Ocean - The Dyson Swarm
Frozen Ocean is kind of an oddball, existing somewhere in the gray area between Atmospheric Black Metal and Dark Ambient. I’m not familiar with the band’s back catalog, but from the sound of things, sole member Vaarwel started out playing Black Metal but gradually began incorporating more and more Dark…
AlNamrood - Heen Yadhar Al Ghasq
This is my first time hearing AlNamrood, and like other bands from the Middle East, I was curious to see what these guys brought to the table when it came to Black Metal. I’ve heard others from the region and most of them have been good. I was cautiously optimistic…
Harakiri for the Sky - Aokigahara
Turn not to those Black Metal bands who have factitious spirits, or to white wizards; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. She is Negativity our Goddess. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against positivity, against happiness, against the oppressors of the darkness of…
Kriegsmaschine - Prism: Archive 2002 - 2004
To coincide with Enemy of Man, the new full-length LP from Poland’s Kriegsmaschine, the band has also unleashed a compilation of demo and unreleased songs that they recorded over the period between 2002 and 2004. Naturally, the sound quality on these tracks isn’t the same as their new LP, but…
Throes of Ire - Funeral for a Witch
Funeral for a Witch is a concept LP about the life of Margaret Aitken, a woman who was forced to confess to witchcraft under torture but was spared when she agreed to help the witch hunters by outing other witches. The story goes that she sent many innocents to their…
Entombed A.D. - Back to the Front
Silliness. Pure fucking silliness. Not this album itself, but the bullshit surrounding it. For those unfamiliar with the situation, essentially LG Petrov says that Miller Lite “tastes great,” while Alex Hellid is convinced that the American beer’s #1 attribute is that it’s “less filling.” Bandmates of nearly 30 years, the…
Lantlos - Melting Sun
Out of pure embarrassment and shame, I almost passed on reviewing this record. I just never seem to get Lantlos right. If I were writing a review of my 2011 Agape review, I’d most likely give it the lowest possible score after chastising myself in haiku fashion. Stupid cokehead. Get…
Lord Dahthar - The Tower
Lord Dahthar started out as a side project by Dahthar when he was the keyboard player for a now-defunct band called Vision of Mara. So, quite naturally, this band has a very keyboard-centric sound. In fact, a third of this EP is just straight keyboard playing without any other instruments.…
Incantation - Dirges of Elysium
When I thumb through issues of my old fanzine [Portrait of Defiance -Editor], so many things piss me off. Poor grammar, typos, errors, bad interview questions, bad jokes, half-assed reviews, my constant misuse of the Power Metal genre tag… I could keep going but it’s too painful. In my defense,…
Primal Fear - Delivering the Black
Some people lump Primal Fear in with the Power Metal bands and that’s really a mischaracterization of their music. While the band shares many qualities with Power Metal, Gamma Ray in particular, they’re really more of a Traditional Metal band. If you really get down to it, their claim to…
Wrong - Pessimistic Outcomes
“In a world consumed by ashes, where there’s only misery and despair, pessimism has seized the human race… Hate has aroused, accompanied by a general delirium, only survival and immediate satisfaction is looked for. There’s no judgment, no punishment, no sensibleness… neither sanity. Humanity has become an aberration, tainted and…
Ea - A Etilla
When I see an album come into my queue that’s one track and just a hair under fifty minutes in length, I think one of two things: “Oh fuck, the label decided to combine all of the tracks together so you can’t listen to each song individually” (this happens more…
Pact - The Infernal Hierarchies, Penetrating the Threshold of Night
Pennsylvanian Black Metal horde, Pact returns with their second strike, The Infernal Hierarchies, Penetrating the Threshold of Night, and it was definitely worth the wait. I liked their debut LP, The Dragon Lineage of Satan, but that was marred by a sub-par production (particularly the drum tone). The music on…
Doom:VS - Earthless
If you only hunt down one Doom Metal album this year, make it Earthless. Holy fuck! This record is excellent. For those unfamiliar with this oddly-monikered act (if memory serves, it’s pronounced “doomus,” with a trve kvlt “v” instead of a “u,” just don’t ask me about that colon or…
Hatriot - Dawn of the New Centurion
Less than a year after Steve “Zetro” Souza unleashed his return to Thrash Metal onto an unsuspecting world, Hatriot is back for a second strike. Much like Heroes of Origin, Dawn of the New Centurion is a solid piece of venomous Thrash that draws heavily on Zetro’s previous bands (Exodus,…
Three Sixes - Know God, No Peace…
I don’t get a lot of physical CDs to review anymore. These days essentially everything arrives in the form of an emailed download link, either from the record label, a PR company, or the band itself. So, it’s always a pleasant surprise to see the yellow card in my PO…
Sinister - The Post-Apocalyptic Servant
Let me apologize in advance for sounding like a broken record when it comes to Sinister. I haven’t checked the archives, but I’d be willing to wager that any review I’ve done on them in the last decade hits the same spots more often than Tom Glavine in his prime.…
Cradle of Filth - Total Fucking Darkness
Wow. Time travel is possible through compact disc, people. Believe it. The year was 1994 (technically Total Fucking Darkness came out in late ‘93, but shit took a while to circulate in the good ol’ pre-internet days). I had been into extreme music (i.e. stuff heavier than Slayer and Sepultura)…
Garden of Hesperides - The Frozen Garden of the Hesperides
According to the information that I have on this band, the sole member of Garden of Hesperides, Vasara, wants to remain anonymous and doesn’t tell anyone his real name or his physical location. Deliberate obscurity has some appeal to it, I suppose, but it isn’t like he’s gonna get mobbed…
Death - Leprosy
It seems absurdly academic for an absolute nobody such as myself to spew out posthumous critique of the legend that is Chuck Schuldiner’s body of work, but the fine folks at Relapse have given me the opportunity to talk about a Death record in 2014, so I’m jumping all over…
Embryonic Devourment - Reptilian Agenda
I’ve seen Embryonic Devourment play live several times since the early 2000s, so I’m quite familiar with this band. While I’m not a huge fan of Technical Brutal Death Metal, these guys know how to kick some serious ass on stage and I appreciate that. When it comes to Death…
Mayhem - Esoteric Warfare
You’ve got to get a tickle out of it when, inevitably, any cumstain that writes a Mayhem review takes that same juvenile cheap shot at all Mayhem detractors. Apparently, we’re all just stuck in the past. We don’t like Mayhem anymore because it isn’t true (almost always read “trve” or…
Murmur - Murmur
While this band’s previous LP, 2010’s Mainlining the Lugubrious, had some tenuous connections to Black Metal, the self-titled follow-up goes off into the deep end almost immediately. This is Progressive Post-Black Metal at its worst (or best, perhaps, depending on your musical preferences). Murmur might have started out as a…
Agalloch - The Serpent & the Sphere
Is it just me, or has 2014 been a year completely barren of essential Black Metal releases? Seriously… where’s the Black? There hasn’t been a single heavy-hitter from any of the scene giants so far. (I haven’t heard the new Mayhem yet, but I’m sure it’ll suck as every Mayhem…
My Useless Life - Negative Memories
When I see a band with a name like My Useless Life, I hope and pray to our lord and master, Satan, that it’s dark and bleak Black Metal with suicidal/depressive lyrics. All too often, I’ve been burned and the band turns out to be one of those Emo/Angst-ridden Mallcore…
Ghost Bath - Funeral
In Chinese, a “Ghost Bath” is when you kill yourself by drowning. With a name like that, you’re not going to get happy music by any means. I’d heard that this band was Depressive Black Metal, so I kind of expected them to be more like Burzum, incorporating grim and…
Impaled Nazarene - Vigorous and Liberating Death
In the most shocking turn of events this decade has seen to date, Finnish goat-worshippers Impaled Nazarene have completely changed their style on album #12. It’s true, folks. Their first record in four years finds them swapping their trademark Blackened Punk Metal for a contemporary fusion of Occult Rock, Shoegaze,…
Demilich - 20th Adversary of Emptiness
Some people say that I look back upon the short-lived career of Demilich with rose-colored lenses. I’ve heard people tell me that the band was more hype than ability, and that Nespithe wasn’t even that good of an LP to begin with. Of course, these are the same people who…
Vallenfyre - Splinters
Few Death Metal supergroups short of the almighty Bloodbath —inarguably responsible for the greatest Death Metal songs written in the last decade and a half— impress on the level of Gregor Mackintosh’s Vallenfyre. Anyone who still hasn’t tracked down their spectacular 2011 debut, A Fragile King, needs to get the…
Blood Stain Child - Last Stardust
A lot of Metal fans see the discography of a Japanese band and wonder why they have an extensive number of singles to their credit. In Japan, things are a bit backwards compared to the rest of the world. In most anywhere else, a band will record a full-length LP…
Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
A complex beast of a record, I had to sit on Melana Chasmata for well over a month and I’m still not sure if I’m completely ready to review it. I spent a couple weeks on the genre tags alone, deciding to settle on Gothic Metal —because those really aren’t…
Mechina - Xenon
Picking up where last year’s Empyrean LP left off, Mechina is back again, delivering more of their patented brand of Industrial Death Metal. If you’ve never heard Mechina’s music before, they sound a lot like what would happen if Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth were digitized a-la Tron and forced to…
Caliban - Ghost Empire
I’m not sure if the guys in Caliban have lost their identity, or if they’ve ever truly had one of their own to begin with. All I know is that I used to highly anticipate their new releases, and lately I’ve come to dread them. Looking back at their respectable…
Innsmouth - Consumed by Elder Sign
There exists a place that music critics dread. It exists somewhere in between “absolute crap” and “could be better.” It’s where bands like Innsmouth dwell, and is a place of abject boredom and painful tedium. Everyone is familiar with it but there are no words to describe it. It just…
Emmure - Eternal Enemies
Despite harsh ridicule from geezers and the poseur elite, I’ve unashamedly remained a diehard Emmure fan for the better part of a decade now. After all, one can’t help what one likes, and if one lies about what one likes, well… then that one is posing. However, Eternal Enemies might…
Lvcifyre - Svn Eater
The UK is home to a large number of bands that are almost criminally underrated. Though many have heard of English Heritage Black Metal stalwarts, Winterfylleth, there are quite a number of others out there that deserve a listen or two, or twelve. One such band is London-based Black/Death Metal…
Drudkh - Eastern Frontier in Flames
Eastern Frontier in Flames is a compilation of the band’s long out of print Anti-Urban (2007) and Slavonic Chronicles (2010) EPs and their “half” (more like three-quarters) of the recent vinyl-only Thousands of Moons Ago / The Gates split with Winterfylleth. My feelings on a release like this are mixed.…
Morbus Chron - Sweven
This is not the type of Death Metal record one would expect from a band whose moniker is a tongue-in-cheek nod to a bowel disorder. These Stockholm upstarts owe more to the likes of Opeth and Dissection than they do to Entombed or Grave on album #2. The title of…
Indian - From All Purity
When it comes to the band I’ve never heard before on Relapse, these days there isn’t much middle ground for me to speak of. It’s either going to be surprisingly fantastic (ASG’s Blood Drive was a top ten list penetrator for yours truly last year, and perhaps only Bloodbath and/or…
Kriegsmaschine - Enemy of Man
Originally called Death Frost, Poland’s Kriegsmaschine has been around for a while. Though this is only their second full-length LP, they have an extensive back catalog that includes three split releases, three demos and an EP (A Thousand Voices, 2004). There is also a compilation CD that features rare and…