Reviews Archive

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

Psycroptic

As the Kingdom Drowns

By Chris Gibbs | 12 November, 2018

Psycroptic are swiftly approaching their 20^th 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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Megadeth - Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good - The Final Kill