RELEASE YEAR: 2026BAND URL: https://www.relapse.com/pages/left-to-die-initium-mortis What we have here is akin to a wet dream for any fan of old-school death metal performed by veterans of the genre. As the title of the album, the splendid artwork, and the line-up itself all indicate, this is a homage to the early catalog of the legendary Death and…
RELEASE YEAR: 2026BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/album/3PsAZFXqy2Sb94LbMEApbJ?si=xAbw8ytbQ4mtUktAzz9Ryw The hard-hitting and musically excellent metal constellation known as Tessia hails from the flourishing underground scene in Bergen and has made quite the name for itself these past few years thanks to some killer outputs and impressive live performances. The Cataclysm is essentially two EPS along with brand-new material combined into…
RELEASE YEAR: 2026BAND URL: https://centurymedia.bandcamp.com/album/the-ghost-of-a-future-dead-24-bit-hd-audio The renowned and legendary Swedish constellation known as At the Gates surely need no introduction as they have been at the vanguard of melodic death metal for decades now and helped shape and pioneer the very genre. Admired and cherished by both fans and critics alike, their unique take on the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2026BAND URL: https://linktr.ee/drawnintodescent The Belgian black metal squadron Drawn Into Descent (whose harrowing musical resume is rather impressive in terms of quality, I might add) have returned and unleashed a punishing new opus entitled Onrust, which sees the outfit exploring even darker and more unnerving territory than previously. From the epic howl of suffering…
RELEASE YEAR: 2026BAND URL: https://edgedcircleproductions.bandcamp.com/album/psychodelic-darkness What we have here is a most interesting musical proposition. Hailing from Chile and nursed in oppressive gloom by mastermind (and multi-instrumentalist) Witchfucker and drummer Thoth, this short and concise slab of hellish black metal infused with speed metal influences titled Psychodelic Darkness is nothing short of a perverted musical feast…
Photo: Ross Sewage The long-running and legendary death metal hounds known as Exhumed are about to unleash their brand-new onslaught titled Red Asphalt via Relapse Records on February 20, and it is an inspired and utterly stimulating piece of work that sees the veteran act on fine form and as musically potent, vile, and entertaining…
RELEASE YEAR: 2026BAND URL: https://exhumed.bandcamp.com/album/red-asphalt The purveyors of all things gory and unpleasant, namely US death/grind metal freaks Exhumed, are back with a punishing new record titled Red Asphalt, which essentially refers to all manner of horrors and terrors associated with the “American roadway” to borrow a phrase from vocalist/guitarist Matt Harvey. The ten bone-crushing…
Release year: 2026Band URL: https://www.facebook.com/1986uk/ The first album I listened to in 2026 was the debut album from Manchester based 1986. I went in cold with the somewhat vague description that they combine death, sludge and hardcore. It’s one of those musical combinations that can easily devolve into generic guttural growls and unidentifiable riffs, however…
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…
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…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/the-monolithic-cult-of-death Leave it to Godz ov War to unearth some of the most captivating underground acts and releases and bring them to light – a case in point being this incredibly dynamic and consistently interesting 35-minute output by Deamonolith, which is as unearthly and disquieting as they come. Blackened death metal…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://replicant.band/ Most of the time a reviewer generally agrees with others on the quality of reviewed material, differing but in a slightly lower or higher score or a few subjective details, but, every once in a while, one has to stand out from the pack and call an album average…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/the-glorious-persecution The Turkish casket removers known as Persecutory are back with a stellar new output, namely this 3-track EP titled The Glorious Persecution, and it marks their finest hour yet in terms of songwriting and atmosphere. Raw and slime-soaked black metal coupled with pulverizing death metal is the name of the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://motherofallofficial.bandcamp.com/ Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s@#t we don’t need…We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.ulcerate-officia.com/ Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? – Epicurus As soon…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/ Ever since I received and reviewed the Temple of Decay album titled Rigor Mortis (2022), which also came out via the awe-inspiring Godz ov War Productions, I have eagerly awaited a follow- up to that excellent piece of work, and the time has finally come to sink one’s teeth into…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/BloodRedThroneOfficial https://bloodredthrone.bandcamp.com/music I’m going to go on the record and say something this review will prove beyond reasonable doubt: if you don’t like Blood Red Throne you don’t like death metal. Blood Red Throne (BRT) is a band whose music I know intimately thanks to their main founder and one…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://antagonyzemetal.bandcamp.com/ Old school death metal is going through a Renaissance. There are countless labels signing bands influenced by old Death, Obituary and the first two Kreator records. Additionally, some labels specifically promote just old school death metal, which also doesn’t hurt. However, there are few bands who can pull off…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/descendants-of-evil You can never really go wrong with an inhumanely brutal barrage of blackened death metal from Poland when it is released by the long-running Godz ov War Productions, and this eight-track juggernaut by Upon the Altar is a perfect example of a solid and perversely enjoyable listening experience. The pure,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/close-to-complete-darkness I found the previous offering by these French sickos titled Lowest Depths of Misery (2022) an utterly amazing and well-crafted piece of work that appealed to all manner of morbid instincts, and the great news is that their latest album, which is fittingly called Close to Complete Darkness, is even…
BAND URL: https://housecorerecords.bandcamp.com/music The massive joy of seeing the legendary name that is Pantera pop up on various festival posters and tour itineraries and whatnot these past few years cannot be overstated. The two icons and legends that are Philip H. Anselmo (vocals) and Rex Brown (bass) teamed up with the inimitable Zakk Wylde (guitar)…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/extinction-protocol From across the pond comes the malevolent duo known as Primitive Warfare, and this relentlessly aggressive and inhumanly brutal American onslaught is very much the aural embodiment of all-out war, global death, human disaster, and even more death! Comprised of Pu239 (drums/vocals) and U235 (guitars/vocals), these guys essentially offer a…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/death-darkness-decay This is so frigging great and wicked! It is also grimy and loathsome as fuck, but yeah, this six-song output by the Swedish death metal mongers known as Putrified truly does the trick for me and ticks nearly all the right and nasty boxes. Although rooted in old-school death metal…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://christbane.bandcamp.com/album/psalm-i Bestial and relentlessly aggressive black metal madness is occasionally what the mood calls for and when that happens it is nice to know that the abhorrent musical entity known as Christbane is out there and ready to serve one’s needs, right? I got turned on to the band via Regimental…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://www.cavaleraconspiracy.net/ Brothers Igor and Max Cavalera hardly need any introduction, so let us merely skip the formalities and briefly discuss the music instead, shall we? Having the two talented souls reunite and launch the Cavalera (or Cavalera Conspiracy, if you will) project some years back has resulted in us being treated…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/incineration-victory Incineration Victory by the maniacal Swedish bastards collectively known as Grave Heresy is a bone-pulverizing, face-melting delight that merges chaotic black metal and grimy death metal to stunning effect. All the usual quality death metal-related adjectives such as pummeling, aggressive, infinitely dark, oppressive, and utterly malevolent apply to the nine…
RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://www.ironaltarband.com/ One of the albums I’ve been meaning to get to reviewing in 2023 but something always got in the way was the 2nd (after the independently released Pillars Of Blood²⁰¹⁸) full length by the Scottish progressive metalcorers Iron Altar, Promethean²⁰²³ released on September 29th via Trepanation Recordings. Despite it’s…
RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://martyrdoom.bandcamp.com/ It’s been awhile since I reviewed something from my native Poland, let alone something good, so the 2nd (after Grevious Psychosis²⁰¹⁷) full length from the death metal doomsters Martyrdoom (the most brilliant name since Cryptopsy?), As Torment Prevails²⁰²³ released on October 23rd via Memento Mori, is a great opportunity…
RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://alkaloid-band.com/ As in my review of the second Alkaloid’s album, Liquid Anatomy²⁰¹⁸ (5/6) I again refer to the debut The Malcuth Grimmoire²⁰¹⁵ as one of the greatest most complete progressive death metal works in the genre one I sincerely believe it will one day will be mentioned in one breath…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/enthrone-death The latest death metal bombardment by the Polish tormentors Soulcarrion picks up where last year’s self-titled EP left off. What we have here is savage and vile death metal that is surprisingly catchy given the raw, chaotic, and oftentimes dissonant nature of the material, and “morbid metal” seems like a…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/wi-ta-krew A brutal and relentlessly aggressive barrage of pulverizing death metal awaits all who dare enter the twisted sphere of this unholy act. The ugly beauty of this ten-track is that Sacrofuck deliver enough jackhammer riffs and spiteful vocals to turn your face into oatmeal, and there is no let up…
