Reviews Archive
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Death Angel
Humanicide
By Simon Milburn | 30 May, 2019
There’s a lot of bands from the old guard who are thriving in today’s diverse and often challenging metal landscape. Since reforming in 2001 for the Thrash of the Titans benefit for both Testament vocalist Chuck Billy and Death vocalis...
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Entombed
Clandestine - Live
By Simon Milburn | 28 May, 2019
If there’s one thing that can be really cool for bands to do these days for their fans, it’s play an album in its entirety live in concert. For a few years now, it’s been a bit of a thing. All of “The Big 4” have done...
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Lice
Woe Betide You
By Michael O'Brien | 13 May, 2019
After taking a six-month break from reviewing, I was looking to pick up something relatively easy to break myself back into the routine. A new band, described in the promotional material as being avant-garde black metal featuring members of Swedis...
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Tronos
Celestial Mechanics
By Simon Crawley | 29 April, 2019
The enigmatic UK bassist Shane Embury is part of yet another new project. The Napalm Death man is already involved in the likes of Lock Up, Brujeria, Venomous Concept, and Born to Murder the World, and now he’s added Tronos (the Spanish for ...
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Opprobrium
The Fallen Entities
By Simon Milburn | 23 April, 2019
Who remembers Incubus? Anyone who instantly named that limp wristed funk-nu-metal-alt-rock ‘90’s band from California behind pap such as “Drive” and “Wish You Were Here”, hand in your metal card now. I’m t...
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Overkill
The Wings of War
By Simon Milburn | 18 April, 2019
New Jersey’s finest thrashers Overkill are just about as regular as clockwork when it comes to album releases. After 2017’s excellent The Grinding Wheel, the band churned out their third live album Live in Overhausen ...
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Pulchra Morte
Divina Autem Et Aniles
By Simon Crawley | 16 April, 2019
There's nothing like a ferociously morbid start to the year and especially when there's a mass of riffs and dark melody partial to such a beginning. My first contribution of 2019, in the way of heavy metal ramblings here, is my take on the first f...
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Psycroptic
As the Kingdom Drowns
By Chris Gibbs | 12 November, 2018
Psycroptic are swiftly approaching their 20th anniversary. In that time they’ve consistently proven they run a relatively tight ship, with six full length records under their belt and only a couple of line-up changes. The most sig...
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Evoken
Hypnagogia
By Michael O'Brien | 08 November, 2018
Amongst the litany of bands playing within the margins of the funeral doom space, few have cultivated a sound that is as instantly recognisable as that of New Jersey’s Evoken. Over the course of their rather lengthy career, they have managed...
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Revocation
The Outer Ones
By Simon Crawley | 05 November, 2018
Full-length studio album number seven from Boston, Massachusetts’ Revocation is a significant one. Its release coincides with the band’s career at a juncture in its trajectory. That perhaps sounds too dramatic, but Revocation has, in t...
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Infera Bruo
Cerement
By Simon Crawley | 11 October, 2018
I will admit that what initially drew my attention to this release was learning of the link to Trap Them (also signed to Prosthetic Records) through the band’s bassist, Galen Baudhuin. He is Infera Bruo’s vocalist and guitarist and he ...
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Behemoth
I Loved You at Your Darkest
By Michael O'Brien | 05 October, 2018
As far back as 2004’s Demigod (if not 1999’s Satanica), Poland’s Behemoth has been on a steep upward trajectory both with respect to the quality of their albums and the recognition they have rightly earned becau...
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Pig Destroyer
Head Cage
By Simon Crawley | 03 October, 2018
Significant foundations were laid earlier by the likes of Napalm Death and Repulsion, but grindcore never quite saw Pig Destroyer coming. This was in 1997 when vocalist J.R. Hayes and Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Scott Hull formed the band, which...
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Deicide
Overtures of Blasphemy
By Simon Milburn | 09 September, 2018
As one of the pioneering bands from the flourishing Florida (U.S.A.) death metal scene in the very early '90s, it was somewhere after their move to Earache Records that my attention waned. There’s no doubt their first three albums are certif...
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Gulch
Burning Desire to Draw Last Breath
By Simon Crawley | 05 September, 2018
Hardcore certainly has, in my opinion, a lot more room for the warped and avant-garde. Originality and a good ol’ fashioned pair of balls are also qualities all too often lacking with hardcore acts. California's Gulch is a five-piece force o...
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Iskald
Innhøstinga
By Michael O'Brien | 30 August, 2018
By just about any rationale I can summon, I should be all over Norway’s Iskald and their blend of thrashy, melodic black metal, but the reality has proven to be a little more complicated than that.
My introduction to the band came by...
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Megadeth
Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good - The Final Kill
By Simon Milburn | 21 August, 2018
Megadeth reissues. Just those two words alone can be a sore point for any Megadeth fan. Hell, these days any kind of reissue can be a point of contention. Extra tracks, 180gram, bonus DVD, deluxe 28 disc, 5LP plus bonus cassette recorded in the or...
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Immortal
Northern Chaos Gods
By Michael O'Brien | 05 July, 2018
Though I have absolutely no reservations in saying that Immortal has long been a favourite of mine, I’d also have to be honest and say that their place of prominence hasn’t been earned by anything they’ve done in the past 20-odd ...
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Ghost
Prequelle
By Simon Milburn | 08 June, 2018
Ghost is a band that divides the metal community. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, whatever they do manages to stir up both parties. Since the release of the band’s excellent third long player Meliora almost three years ago, they&r...
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Skeletal Remains
Devouring Mortality
By Simon Milburn | 08 June, 2018
Goddamnit. Somehow I missed 2015’s Condemned To Misery by Skeletal Remains. The 2012 release by this California (U.S.A.) group, titled Beyond the Flesh, was excellent. So, I’ve no idea how I missed their sophomore eff...
