DARK TRANQUILLITY – Endtime Signals

RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.darktranquillity.com/ You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death – Agent Smith in “Matrix” As we inevitably approach the end times (with hindsight 2020!) we need and receive more warnings, especially in music, and, where else can we find it…

ANGELUS APATRIDA – Aftermath

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://facebook.com/angelusapatrida Angelus Apatrida’s eponymous²⁰²¹, which I reviewed here (5.5/6) was a fantastic slab of modern thrash metal with hints of groove and metalcore so, when I saw the Century Media Records alert for the brand new video “Cold” I could hardly wait to sink my ears into it. Indeed, “Cold”…

OMNIUM GATHERUM – Slasher

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://facebook.com/omniumgatherumband While most bands either break or make it by their third album, few drop a debut near masterpiece (Spirits And August Light²⁰⁰³), remain puzzingly average and underdeveloped for the next three albums (Years In Waste²⁰⁰⁴, Stuck Here On Snakes Way²⁰⁰⁷, The Red Shift²⁰⁰⁸)and just when you’re about to give…

TRIBULATION – Hamartia

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://www.tribulation.se/ I remember once listening to The Formulas Of Death²⁰¹³ and later The Children Of The Night²⁰¹⁵ (which came out after The Horror²⁰⁰⁹, the debut after 5 years from Tribulation’s conception) and praising the melodic death metal the founders Johannes Andersson (bass, vocals) and Paul Adam “Zaars” Zars (guitars) then…

UNEARTH – The Wretched; The Ruinous

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://unearthofficial.com/ When the official Century Media Records release calls the Boston, Massachusetts quintet Unearth “nothing short of standard-bearers and keepers of the faith for American metalcore” it’s not just a suave public relations rhetoric. As metal was largely losing its raison d’etre at the dawn of the XX Century, Unearth…

ENFORCED – War Remains

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://enforced.bandcamp.com/ When I reviewed At The Walls²⁰¹⁹ (5/6), the debut album from the Virginian thrash crossover metallers I called it a mix of co-precipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic San Francisco Bay Area thrash acids with crossover hardcore petrol of Cro-Mags, Biohazard and Hatebreed for the most volitile devastation…

INSOMNIUM – Anno 1696

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://www.insomnium.net/ The”Argent Moon”²⁰²¹ EP was such a fantastic release that, as I remarked in my review (5.5/6) I could hardly wait for the full length and it turned out I had been so right about my predictions. The 9th full length from the Finnish purveyors of progressive melodic death metal…