RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.gymnocal.com/blogs/news/patriarchy-suffer-with-me-live-in-london How to even describe the US-based Patriarchy without doing them an injustice? Weaving various musical genres and influences such as post-punk, electro rock, industrial music, harsh ambient, and a demented brand of synth pop together to great effect only gets us halfway there, which is merely another way of saying that…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.wordsoffarewell.com/ Sometimes it’s interesting to watch a band evolve from a genre typical act through being a lot of things at once with mixed results to, finally, come full circle and come up with something hard to define. A good example is German progressive melodic death metal sextet, Words Of…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://nightrage.com/ Although one of the Gothenburg melodic death metal three, In Flames, had stopped making music with the “wow” effect (to borrow from a commercial) after the fantastic Clayman²⁰⁰⁰, arguably they haven’t stopped making melodeath until after Reroute To Remain²⁰⁰², Soundtrack To Your Escape²⁰⁰⁴ where they started Kornizing their sound. It…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://scourofficial.bandcamp.com/album/gold Following a string of impressive EPs titled Grey, Red, and Black respectively, the immensely talented quintet known as Scour recently graced us with a proper full-length assault on the senses intriguingly titled Gold. It is a rather fitting name for this LP in that there are plenty of meaty bits and evocative passages to whet your…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://painband.bandcamp.com/ My head is empty and I need a break. I have to be hungry again to breathe and create – Pain “Coming Home” When Hypocrisy’s Swedish mainman, Peter Tägtgren sang the above words in the title track of Pain’s painfully mediocre Coming Home²⁰¹⁶, an album I panned in my review,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: http://www.rage-official.com/ I tell you Jesus Christ was just an ordinary man, but he was wise, much wiser than the rest, the few to see wrote tales about him but time perverted it all – Rage “Echoes Of Evil” One of the bands which had had a very long history, tons of…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://nyktophobia.bandcamp.com/ As much as I appreciate complex and progressive direction in melodic death metal, sometimes I want my melodeath to be just a deluge of luscious melody as in Hypocrisy¹⁹⁹⁹, Insomnium’s Across The Dark²⁰⁰⁹ or Omnium Gatherum’s The Burning Cold²⁰¹⁸, and I am always happy to discover another fantastic album of…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://rwake.bandcamp.com/album/the-return-of-magik It has been a long and occasionally torturous wait for a new album by the Arkansas mystics known as Rwake, but March this year will see the release of a vigorous new opus via Relapse Records titled The Return of Magik. More evocative and beautifully haunting than past exploits, these six…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://omnivide.ca/ When Opeth gave up (thankfully, temporarily) on the “death” part in their progressive death metal stylings after Watershed²⁰⁰⁸ (now we know why so called) there came what usually comes after a legendary metal force mellows down: an onslaught of would be successors, some whom had started while Opeth was…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://enforced.bandcamp.com/ Thrash metal and crossover (with a little death metal for good measure) can make great bedfellows when handled with passion, talent and caution. Such is the case with the Richmond Virginian trio (yes, the same as Lamb Of God) founded in 2016 by Knox Colby (vocals), Will Wagstaff (guitars)…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://suicidalangels.net/ Once again, I must admit that I have never heard any of the Greek thrash metallers’ previous albums, but, if their 8th album, Profane Prayer²⁰²⁴, released on March 1st via the mighty Nuclear Blast Records, is any indication, to quote “Pretty Woman’s” Vivien Ward, big mistake, huge! Frankly, I have…
RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://sadusofficial.bandcamp.com/ Before the universally regarded as one of the most brilliant bassists in heavy metal, Steven “you can hear my bass louder than any other instrument in the mix” Di Giorgio, appeared in Death’s seminal Human¹⁹⁹¹ (by many regarded as their magnum opus) he had begun in the Californian technical…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://sykofantband.bandcamp.com/ The previous effort by the musically devious Norwegian prog rockers Sykofant, namely the self-titled album from last year, inhabited and exuded so many wonderful traits and positives that it became one of the highlights of 2024 to this scribe. The ferventness and vigor of said record also permeates this delightfully…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: http://www.golgothaofficial.com/ Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are destructive, greedy wolves. You will recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every healthy tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://chaosdoctrine.bandcamp.com/ Review by: Raynier Swiegers This new triad of mayhem from Chaos Doctrine packs a punch, delivering three new tracks and videos in a single day that are very, very interesting … 1) ‘The SA-bbath Doctrine Chapter III: SA Tribute Mix’ Chaos Doctrine perfectly delivers a bold homage to Black…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: http://swallowthesun.net/ We’ve last left the Finnish melodic doom death ensemble Swallow The Sun (STS) on their second album dedicated to, and in mourning of, the tragically and too early departed South African singer, Julia Liane “Aleah Starbridge” Stanbridge and her thus brutally ended romantic relationship with Swallow The Sun’s founding…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/what-lies-ahead A relatively young band in some respects, Frightful came into being in 2016 in Gdansk and have released a couple of demos and EPs since then, but the thing is that they churn out skull-rattling and tightly executed death metal as if they were veterans of the genre. Such is…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: http://www.meltedbodies.com/ Who’s to say it’s impossible to make both original and catchy heavy music these days? The Californian avantgarde experimental eclectic metal quartet Melted Bodies is proof positive that it’s possible, especially with their 2nd album (after People Watching²⁰¹⁹ EP and Enjoy Yourself²⁰²⁰ debut full length), The Inevitable Fork²⁰²⁴ self-released…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/hideousdivinity/ Adveniens²⁰¹⁷ (Unique Leader Records), the Italian death metallers’ Hideous Divinity’s third album (after Obeisance Rising²⁰¹² and Cobra Verde²⁰¹⁴, both on Unique Leader Records) which I awarded a perfect score here, was universally acclaimed as their finest work. I had missed the subsequent Simulacrum²⁰¹⁹ (which brought a change of the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://linktr.ee/officialshrike Shrike, who hail from the city of Preston in the UK, turned out to be a bit of a musical curve ball in the positive sense of the word. An intense listen in so many ways, this richly textured long-player of theirs defies any attempt at pigeonholing and can perhaps…
