RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://lnk.to/theaphoticvortex Spawned in Austria nearly twenty years ago and having undergone quite the interesting musical evolution since then, Asphagor recently unleashed their fifth full-length onslaught via Immortal Frost Productions, and it just so happens that The Aphotic Vortex ticks pretty much all the right black/death metal boxes and delivers plenty of chills…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://warbell.bandcamp.com/ The Polish Lower Silesian melodic death metal ensemble Warbell was founded by Paweł “Bloody” Szczypka (bass, vocals), Kamil Ziobro (drums-2008), Patryk Kryński (drums-2013), Marcin “Maroon” Witeska (guitars-2016) and Piotr “Peter” Hasioli (guitars-2019) in 2008 breaking up 2 years later for 3 years without a single recording. Reactivated, the melodeath…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://the-true-deceased.bandcamp.com/ Let me paint you a picture of a bright unscathed new world where mankind would live in joyous peace and cherish his life on Earth, our children would play in safety and real love would own our hearts, true sincerity lives away from greed…Now let me paint you reality’s picture,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://enrapture1.bandcamp.com/ The Norwegian progressive post death metal ensemble Enrapture’s third installment, Drønn²⁰²⁴ EP, independently released last April 5th is, to, again (as I’ve used it before) quote Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho” a curious little dish I was surprisingly presented by our dear chief editor, Andrea, quite a while ago,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://wheresmybible.bandcamp.com/ When a band finds its voice, the result can be transformative — not just for the group itself, but for the genre it inhabits. With Kave²⁰²⁴, released last September 11th via Inverse Records, Finnish melodic death doom metal act weirdly, possibly jokingly named (no, they’re not Christians) Where’s My…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://sepulchralcurse.bandcamp.com/ After my glowing review of Sepulchral Curse’s debut, Only Ashes Remain²⁰²⁰, I anticipated even greater things to come from these Finnish blackened death metallers on their follow up and, sure enough, Abhorrent Dimensions²⁰²³, released on CD on October 27th 2 years ago however, hear me out, on limited edition…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.suidakra.com/ Appearances can be deceiving and many a war has been founded on such deception. Take the name for the band: Suidakra, even typecast weirdly as SuidAkrA. Is that like a fancy name for suicide, such as harakiri (male) or seppuku (female) shame/honor self-killing? Or is it a name of…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.instagram.com/vader_band_official/ Polish death metal legends Vader are not merely one of the foremost purveyors of insanely catchy and pummeling tunes of darkness but also exceptionally consistent with respect to delivering outputs that ooze quality and great songwriting chops. They have been around for what seems like forever, yet they have lost none…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://www.desertedfear.de/ The German melodic death metal trio really impressed me with their 5th long play (remember that ancient euphemism?) Doomsday²⁰²² album (on Century Media Records) so my review reflected that seemingly out-of-the-blue fantastic record but the quality of the recording fit the mold well. What I mean is that not…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://facebook.com/burning.creation5/ My native country of Poland had always been a vibrant heavy metal scene but, with the exception of Acid Drinkers, Kat and Vader there had not been many of renown until the day Adam Michał “Holocausto” “Nergal” Darski recorded the infamous Eternal Damnation¹⁹⁹² demo signalling a new wave of…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.woundcollector.com/ For my second perfect score review this year (yet concerning last year) I’ve chosen the Belgian progressive death metal quintet uniquely named Wound Collector and their 1st EP after 2 full lengths, Begging For Chicxulub²⁰²⁴ independently released last June 15th. What makes this outfit compelling is how they seamlessly…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: www.unboundedterror.com The vibrant Spanish Palma Mallorca scene connected to guitarist/bassist Vicente Payá released three albums recently: Golgotha’s Spreading The Wings Of Hope²⁰²⁴ , Holycide’s Towards Idiocracy²⁰²⁴ and, just in, the death metallers’ Unbounded Terror’s 4th full length, Something Is Rotten In Humanity²⁰²⁵, out since April 1st (April 11th on vinyl)…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://www.archenemy.net/en/ Whenever you consider the band’s name, Arch Enemy (AE) (pronounced “arkenemy” like in “archangel”?), you’re bound to have questions. Who is that arch enemy? Is he or she real, symbolic or both, or, perhaps, the Amott brothers purposely keep it ambiguous so that everyone interprets it how they please?…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.skeletal-remains.com/ Except for my brief church choir stint and occasional singing for and with children as an English teacher, I am not much of a musician, however, even I can still make the claim, as an over 30 year metal fan, that it seems not a complicated thing to make…
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: 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…
– VENUE: OVO Wembley Arena – DATE: 25.02.2025 – ORGANIZER: Live Nation Photo by C.N. The mighty roar of the thunderous Pantera celebration filled the sold-out OVO Wembley Arena last night to the joy and delight of fans both old and new. With a rapturous and highly energetic crowd spanning multiple generations, there was a…
Last year I had the great pleasure of witnessing the hard-hitting Norwegian metal quintet known as Tessia live on stage in Bergen when they were competing in the Wacken Metal Battle semi-finals, and it was a night to remember. Not only was it a hugely memorable performance with the band firing on all cylinders and…
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: 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…
