Reviews by Simon Milburn

It only seems like yesterday that I was pleasantly surprised by Ohhms’ debut two track release titled Bloom. There were a lot of styles coming together on that release and it worked very, very well. They way that this Kent (U.K.) qu...

Kronos

Arisen New Era

By Simon Milburn | 26 August, 2015

French extreme metallers Kronos certainly team up with labels as underground and as extreme as the noise they create. Since forming in 1994 as teenagers, after a handful of demos, it wouldn’t be until 2001 that they released their debut long...

Entrails

Obliteration

By Simon Milburn | 26 July, 2015

“I like my modern old school Swedish death metal sound with just the tiniest bit of old school Entombed worship,” said no one ever. That’s right because it wouldn’t be modern old school Swedish death metal if it only ...

Dew-Scented

Intermination

By Simon Milburn | 25 July, 2015

Some bands just persist don’t they? I mean, think about it. Some bands come and go, some bands make it, and some bands never make it out of their garage or rehearsal space. Then there are some bands that just persist at doing their thing, ra...

Feared

Synder

By Simon Milburn | 21 July, 2015

Swedish death thrash act Feared is very productive indeed. Since forming in 2007, the band as averaged almost a release per year. They’ve just released their sixth long player, Synder, but before that, they have five long players an...

Gruesome

Savage Land

By Simon Milburn | 21 July, 2015

Whenever it comes to death metal and I mean pure, old school death metal, you cannot go past the band with the name that defines the genre, Death. Chuck Schuldiner and Co. have quite the untouchable discography to their name. Sure things changed a...

Faith No More

Sol Invictus

By Simon Milburn | 25 May, 2015

Keeping the Faith!

Faith No More are one of those bands that, to me, any kind of reformation would have to be done right in every conceivable way. It’s a classic case of the planets aligning for it to be everything everyone i...

Coal Chamber

Rivals

By Simon Milburn | 17 May, 2015

Why? Why is this even happening?

Nu-metal was an interesting era, wasn’t it? Think about it - spiky hair, oversized jumpsuits, and an abundance of jumpdafuckup (JDFU) grooves. Some bands thrived - mostly the pioneers of the m...

Corrosion

By Simon Milburn | 11 May, 2015

Ex Trivium drummer swift return with mixed results

Whenever a band member is fired, it’s never usually pretty. It can devolve into a messy, cringe worthy war of words between parties that often leaves fans feeling as though t...

Morgoth

Ungod

By Simon Milburn | 11 May, 2015

Reunited old school death metallers deliver the goods

German death metallers Morgoth really were Europe’s answer to Death. Their earliest EPs - 1989’s Resurrection Absurd and 1990’s The Eternal Fall

Judas Priest

Defenders of the Faith (30th Anniversary Reissue)

By Simon Milburn | 08 May, 2015

Still defending the faith after all these years

Now, before we get into the meat of this review, I’m not going to enter into a debate as to whether or not Defenders of the Faith is the best or worst or somewhere in b...

Evil Invaders

Pulses of Pleasure

By Simon Milburn | 08 May, 2015

Caveat emptor!

Belgium isn’t really the hot bed of metal acts, is it? I mean, really, go on... name some metal bands that hail from Belgium. If you put your Google-fu to work, sure, there’s quite a lengthy list. But in ...

Unleashed

Dawn of the Nine

By Simon Milburn | 07 May, 2015

Swedeath legends ride into battle again

When I first heard Unleashed’s debut album upon its release, I was blown away by the overall ferocity of it as well as the songs themselves. Memorable riffs, excellent compositions and ...

Gorefest

Soul Survivor & Chapter 13 (Reissue)

By Simon Milburn | 14 April, 2015

Two disc reissue gets some nice added bonuses

It’s interesting to see how much a band can change in a short amount of time. I’m not talking about visual appearances and short hair cuts and the like. No. I mean musically...

Gorefest

La Muerte (Reissue)

By Simon Milburn | 14 April, 2015

The return of the gore!

When Dutch death metal masters Gorefest reunited in 2004 after their nine year run ended in 1998, they returned truer to their roots more so than their incarnation towards the latter part of their first run....

Gorefest

Mindloss (Reissue)

By Simon Milburn | 13 April, 2015

An oldie but a goodie sees the light of day again

We all know that in the history of death metal, the focus was always around Florida (U.S.A.) and Sweden more so than any other part of the world. That’s basic death metal hist...

All That Remains

The Order of Things

By Simon Milburn | 08 April, 2015

The first song title sums it up

Without going into a full on history lesson for All That Remains, I must admit it surprised me that The Order of Things is album number seven for the group. As someone that first heard them ...

Halshug

Blodets Bånd

By Simon Milburn | 08 April, 2015

Brutal is as brutal does

Halshug, hailing from Copenhagen Denmark pull no fucking punches at all. If the band’s name, which translates as “to decapitate”, isn’t enough to give you some insight into the fury ...

Ur Draugr

The Wretched Ascetic

By Simon Milburn | 24 March, 2015

Short and sweet and leaves you wanting more

Australia’s west coast is a long way from having the population of its opposing shoreline but there seems to be a reasonable number of acts metal popping up over there. From the day...

Johansson and Speckmann

Mask of the Treacherous

By Simon Milburn | 20 March, 2015

Nothing but raw death metal

Paul Speckmann is a name that should not be foreign to death metal fans. Whilst he’s dabbled in the likes of Abomination, Death Strike, and Speckmann Project amongst many others, there’s litt...