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If you read existing reviews of this album there seems to be a conflict of styles that undoes any possible value in the record before it even gets going. That is true. I am one hundred percent in agreement that sludge and hardcore just do not work together. The clash of tempos is too much conflict to be able to remedy, no matter how much of the heavy lifting the riffs do on the record. Still, I must admire the tenacity of Jamey Jasta. Whilst infamous for the less than desirable Hatebreed, and being one-dimensional in his vocal approach, the guy has wrked with seemingly everyone from Dee Snider to Lamb of God to Devin Townsend and of course his two-album collaboration with Kirk Windstein of Crowbar and Down.

Here, on KoS’ sophomore release he just sounds like an angry child that a sludge band brought to a recording session, and he wouldn’t shut the fuck up the whole time, so they just left his shouting as “vocals”. It is a shame when an album exhibits such potential in the form of those biting riffs, only to be let down by some other central element contending with them. Not that there’s much else going on across the record, the drums are tepid at best (which considering Nick Bellmore was part of Toxic Holocaust at the time is surprising to say the least) and if there’s any bass floating around in here then (Nick’s brother, Charlie) it is lost behind the guitars and vocals.

As a record this is a sorry sounding affair overall. Comments I have read bemoan how quickly this passes by, but for me I could not wait for the record to be over and done with as it was dragging on and on with every song.

The band Ufomammut and I have history, as anyone who has read my review of Idolum knows. Coming into Eve, my circumstances are very different. Gone are the nights away from home in hotels and the endless paperwork of the travelling consultant. Now I have more time to listen to music in the comfort of my own home than possibly at any other point in my life, and as such my dalliances with Eve have been from a much more stable and centered environment. That is not to say that there is a lot in the way that Eve sounds in comparison to Idolum, it is just that the experience of it lands differently, if no less positively than its predecessor.

If you are familiar with the Italians already, you’ll know that 2010 was very much the classic line up of the band. Existing as a trio since their sophomore release, Eve was back when Vita still did the drums (as he did until 2020). With a decade of releases under their belts, Ufomammut’s fifth album sounds like a band really hitting their stride. There is not one hint of hesitation in any of what gets performed here. Likewise, for a record that opens with a fourteen-minute track, Eve manages to hold the attention for the whole experience. Playing as on track split over five different headings that are named simply by numerical, chronological title, this forty-four-minute plus opus showcases the Italian’s brand of spacey, psychedelic rock combined with crushing and sludgy doom.

Driven by heavy bass presence and a mixture of haunting and grinding synths, Eve is an all-encompassing experience. Again, it takes me back to my days of listening to Hawkwind (almost inevitably) but there are plenty of more modern references to the metal in their sound with the likes of Sleep and Yob immediately springing to mind. I would usually find the more instrumental approach over such a decent run time an issue, but if I am honest, more vocals just would not work all that well if the band had decided to take a more lyrically expressive approach. This is music that speaks to me without the need for a lot of words and that my fellow Metal Academy students is a sign of a great record.

Dreams D’Azur is a re-imagining of Novembre’s debut album, Wish I Could Dream it Again… The album is completely re-recorded with new compositions and played in their newer style. Wish I Could Dream it Again… is a Death Doom record through and through, while this one trade some of the Death Doomy sound for a more contemporary Progressive Gothic Metal sound, though still retaining the Doom influence.

The biggest weaknesses with the debut were the rough production and amateur performances. It goes without saying that both issues are completely mended here. Through the years, Novembre have adopted a smooth and lush production style that contrasts and compliments their heavy style, allowing for dense compositions that sound fantastic. The bass is given especially great treatment on this album, being very audible and having plenty of excellent lead parts. The playing as well has improved dramatically, with the band transitioning from a slightly messy, green footed band to masters in their genre. The drumming on this album in particular is the best in the band’s career up to this point. The poor clean vocals from the debut are improved with harmonized, reverby vocal lines that act more like another layer of instrumentation.

What about the compositions? One issue the debut had absolutely no problem with was compositions. Novembre were already crafting amazing songs right from the beginning, and in my opinion the debut still stands on its own as an amazing Death Doom record. Here, the compositions become a bit denser, with scant layers of synths and more atmospheric guitars weaving in and out of the compositions, crafting a much more dreamy and surreal feel than the debut. From a technical standpoint, the compositions are improved quite a bit, and have more going on in each track to add to the density.

However, I will say, it’s a trade off for me. While almost everything has improved in terms of quality, I do find myself… preferring the original style. Progressive Death Doom is, to me, preferable to Progressive Gothic Metal. I loved how heavy and melancholic the original songs were, how they charged forth with energy rare to the genre but carried intense gloom and beauty. As I said before, these compositions lean a bit further to the “dreamy” side of things, and they definitely still sound amazing. But, unlike a lot of people who think this album completely negates the debut, I see different strengths in each, and this far from eclipses the original in my eyes, instead offering a different take on the incredible compositions.

Absolute legends of riff-oriented cavernous Tech-Disso-Death release another masterpiece.

Immolation is such a special band because they are technical and dissonant, yes, but they never let that come before the fact that they are extremely dark, atmospheric and moody. In fact, they utilize technical and dissonant songwriting to further add disorientation and disturbance to the listener, but not so much so as to prevent the songs from being extremely memorable and digestible.

Unholy Cult is a continuation of the band’s previous sound, meaning you can expect some of the heaviest, densest, most well-composed music out there. However, I think the album does manage to stand out from the predecessors in some key ways. Chiefly, the atmosphere on here is crazy. Layers of dissonant guitars create a sublime cacophony of perpetually disturbed darkness that feels like a thousand hands dragging the listener into the depths of an abyss. It’s astounding how much they do with just a traditional Rock ensemble, as even without keys, pads, or symphonic elements of any kind, they construct masterful caverns of sound that feel absolutely massive and crushing. The interplay between guitars, both dissonant and harmonic, is nothing short of genius.

That’s not to say the other members of the cult are outdone. The drumming on here is flawless; incredibly varied, technical, complex, power… yet not overdone. In fact, the drums go about as far as they can without sounding like they are doing too much. The endlessly impressive fills and pummeling blast beats are spaced apart by slower or more conventional sections that last only long enough to ensure the songs are never without clear structure. The drummer also has a wonderful habit of playing technical parts with the sticks while keeping a constant, unbroken stream of double bass to maintain a cast-iron foundation to the chaos.

The bass adds a wall of pressure to the atmospheric and moody density, focusing on filling out the low end with an ominous weight that is not as immediately noticeable, but nevertheless just as important in ensuring the thing sounds denser than tungsten. The guitar leads tend to get quite high and piercing at times, so the 6-feet-under bass does a great job at complimenting and contrasting those. The vocals are also essentially perfect guttural growls, fantastically enunciated so each of the superbly written lyrics shine through. I can actually hear a few moments here and there where the vocalist just barely has time to breath between delivering lines and I love that so much because so many harsh vocalists who deliver fast screams will just do separate vocal takes for each line and throw one next to the other to compensate for the fact that they could not actually do such a feat in reality. I’d rather hear a little bit of natural struggle and know that it’s all real, like I do here.

One more thing that ties into the focus on atmosphere on this album – the band is a bit more inclined to flirt with Death Doom in a few spots. It’s lovely every time they do because they’re essentially Incantation on cocaine when that happens – twisted, cavernous walls of twisting and turning dissonant guitars.

Probably their most consistent album… perhaps my favorite thus far.

Immortal continue their style of riff-driven Black Metal, still heavily influenced by Thrash. And it’s still delicious.

Honestly, there’s not too much to say about the album if you’ve heard the previous few. Perfected Black-Metal shrieks that are low, intelligible and strong – check. Fantastic riffing finding that sweet spot between dissonant and melodic – check. Walls of Black Metal Tremolo picked guitar – check. Rhythm section that is technical and varied far and above the standard for Black Metal – check. Bass that can be FELT – check. Lyrical endeavors that are on-topic yet serious, epic, and triumphant – check. No weaknesses and every strength one could hope to find in the genre.

There was just one thing that stuck out to me about this album, and that’s the fact that the production is so damn HEAVY. Most Black Metal albums have paper thin production, and even better produced stuff usually leans on the treble-heavy side of Metal. Sons of Northern Darkness feels like a sledgehammer of solid ice bashing your head in repeatedly. You can really hear the power of the drums and bass crushing you under their weight. I can’t quite recall whether or not the previous records had such power on the production end, but this is probably the best production I’ve heard on a Black Metal album. Mind you, it’s not overproduced at all. There’s still chilly walls of buzzing guitars, and even the leads have an aspect of messy imperfection to them. It still sounds natural, sounds like Black Metal – but God is it powerful.

Deliverance. Opeth’s last Death Metal record, and one of the heaviest of their entire career. In somewhat uncharacteristic fashion for the band, opening track “Wreath” drops you right into the onslaught of pummeling rhythms, deathly screams, and one of the most ominous riffs the band ever wrote. The increasingly complex and odd-timed songwriting here just makes everything that much more disorienting – “Wreath” is a straight up challenging song that mixes the heaviest and brainiest of Opeth’s compositional prowess into one package that just completely annihilates you.

After that, you’re given a bit of space to breath… kind of. While “Wreath” is definitely the heaviest and most aggressive song on the album, that’s not to say the following tracks are worse in any way. Title track Deliverance focuses on pushing the band’s technicality and complexity to its limit, an over 13-minute epic of masterful musicianship and songwriting. “A Fair Judgement,” not forgetting what makes this band so special, reintegrates deeply melancholic moodiness, a Doomy dirge of Prog that shows the band had not sacrificed their emotional depth when honing their technical abilities and pushing the complexity of their songwriting.

The album is, pretty consistently, dark, ominous, heavy, and complex. More so than any of their previous albums. For that reason, it’s definitely a bit of an all-or-nothing affair; it’s the perfect fix if you’re in the mood for some uncompromisingly dark and brainy Progressive Death Metal – if not, prepare to drown in its unrelentingly ominous waves.

I was quite blown away by Agalloch’s debut album. Despite the music being relatively simple, they were already masters at crafting melancholic guitar leads and somber chord progressions that evoked a dark, emotional atmosphere. The songs were so memorable they sounded like a band that had long since mastered their craft rather than a debut. I had high hopes for their next album.

The Mantle is usually regarded as not only the band’s best, but one of the greatest Metal albums of all time, particularly standing as a monolith of Post-Metal. However, the first thing that stands out about this album is that not only is there a lot less extreme Metal (Black Metal influences here are relegated to secondary) but there’s also just a lot less Metal in general. There is so much Folk (primarily Neofolk and Dark folk) that it competes with Post-Metal as the primary genre for the album.

Thanks to this folkiness, the album is exceptionally pagan and nature-oriented, the whole journey feeling like a lonely camping expedition in the dense Cascadian forest mountains of North America. Constantly stumbling upon native burial grounds and bygone mythology while trying to escape the thoughts and feelings of the girl who just left you. This is all captured in spades, and the shift in sound from their debut creates a far more unique experience that even today remains an enigma.

The songwriting for the most part weaves acoustic passages both between and within the Metal tracks, layering guitars atop one another as they build towards crescendos. Many simple but effective guitar melodies will slowly change and build upon each other in a slightly droning fashion, resulting in a smooth ascension towards harmonic peaks. There ARE still extreme Metal sections left, and such passages with black shrieks and pounding double bass drums provide much needed energy and aggression to the otherwise passive music.

Now for all its praise, I must say, the album was a slight disappointment and step down from the debut for me. Some of the acoustic oriented tracks just sounded a bit too generic – like your average campfire dude with a guitar playing the 6 chords he knows. There is a lot of instrumental stuff here, and while some of it is exceptional (Odal, the second half of The Hawthorne Passage), other tracks just feel a bit pointless (A Celebration for the Death of Man, The Lodge) like they don’t have a strong enough idea to make them their own song, and would have been better worked into a longer track rather than standing on their own. The lyrics and vocals are quite enjoyable for me, so the final track A Desolation Song is quite good thanks to the personal, introspective lyricism despite the exceedingly simple music; the aforementioned instrumental tracks are sorely lacking because they don’t have any poetic lyrics to make up for their uneventful songwriting.

Another thing I will say – the shift away from extreme Metal towards Folk, and much of this album being clean and acoustic, makes it FAR more accessible. I have to wonder if the only reason it’s considered such a masterpiece is because it can be enjoyed by far more people than a Black Metal album can.

Let there be no mistake though; this is a FANTASTIC album. The ONLY reason I have some harsh words for it is because I am coming off of their incredible debut, and had my expectations set to the sky. If I had heard this one first, I think it would have blown me away in a totally different way. Incredibly unique experience in the Metal spectrum. I recommend this one for a nature hike in winter.

Always love to hear Neoclassical acts that are actual bands rather than First Name Last Name guitar (or keyboard) heroes. As you might expect from a Neoclassical band, Time Requiem is filled to the brim with awe-inspiring solos that boggle the mind. But not just from the guitars.

Yes of course, the guitars are majestic. The smooth running up and down scales while essentially tremolo picking is just wild to me. Thankfully, the guitars do much more than that, offering great riffs and more traditional style guitar solos as well that offer more depth than Yngwie-style wankery. Keys are another key component (ha) to this lineup, and yeah, the keyboardist does some insane wizardry that could put any classic pianist to shame. I mean, the keyboardist is the composer, so not only is he an absolute madman at his instrument, but he’s a strong songwriter as well. Keys and Guitars duel here, but they also give each other space to show off without competing for the spotlight depending on the song.

But this album isn’t just a melodic showcase! The RHYTHM section is also flashy as hell. Obviously harder to hear, but the bassist is putting in some crazy work on this thing. It can best be heard in the mind-blowing ending to “Brutal Mentor” (which in itself is just one of the best displays of technical musicianship I’ve ever heard). And the drums! God those drums are great. Speedy, technical, progressive, and doing the perfect amount of showing off insane chops without overplaying. And of course, lets not forget the vocals. Vocalist Apollo was in one of my favorite short-lived Neoclassical bands Majestic, and he helped elevate their accessibility with fantastic choruses. He does the same here.

For anyone who enjoys technical prowess in musicianship and songwriting, a must-listen. For those who don’t, it’s thankfully full of great songs that are well-written and worth much more than their technical prowess alone.

Some nice words that could be used to describe Beyond Abilities would be insanely technical, melodic, and proficient. All the musicians here are experts at playing, and they waste no time showing that off. The keyboards are the focal point, with playing that rivals any masters of the Classical Era. Nods to Mozart are made throughout, so it’s obvious what the influences and aspirations are.

Some less kind words that could be used to describe Beyond Abilities would be sterile, emotionless, and generic. The musicians may be masters at playing, but they can’t evoke an emotion to save their lives. In fact, the only song that evokes any emotion is the cover of Alone. The songwriting is the bare minimum for Neoclassical Power Metal fare, which is quite a demanding genre; this means the band does nothing to stand out from contemporaries. The playing may be perfect, but that only goes so far. As someone else pointed out, everything sounds like it was made in a factory.

If you’re a fan of Neoclassical Power Metal, like I am, it’s a nice, enjoyable album. If you’re a fan of technical prowess exercised through music, this is admirable and probably of great interest to aspiring keyboardists. If you want something new, unique, memorable or moving, move along.

What I like: The lyrics! Especially to the opening track “He Who Accepts All That Is Offered (Feel Bad Hit Of The Winter).” I love how hateful and humbling they are, offering so much vitriol towards the over-glorified, hedonistic lifestyle of drug use that finds itself abundant in rockstar and alternative culture. The filthy, ominous sound of the song and vocals fits how nightmarishly surreal a bad drug hit might feel.

What I don’t like: Essentially everything else. Riffs are EXTREMELY boring, evoking absolutely nothing. Song compositions go nowhere fast…nowhere at all, actually, with the first track featuring no structural builds or crescendos in nearly 30 minutes of runtime. The drumming is better than most Drone drumming, because it’s present and does something. The production is fine, focusing on capturing as much of that wonderful guitar fuzz as it can, and succeeding in that. If you are a super textural person, I can see you enjoying this, as the guitars scratch your brain in a pleasant way, but I need A LOT more than that from a record to consider it “good.”

Still waiting for someone to utilize the potential of Drone Metal to actually build an atmosphere that evokes something other than nothing or nihilism (which is essentially nothing).

Avant-Garde Metal is one of the subgenres in which I am hardest t please. At the time of writing this, I’ve been listening to Metal for over 15 years, and haven’t awarded a single 4.5 star rating to an Avant-Garde Metal album. That is, until I took look into The Sham Mirrors.

First off, the album does something VERY important in ensuring that it’s a GOOD Avant-Garde Metal album – it’s not Circus Metal. While the album sounds bizarre and occasionally playful, it by no means ever falls into goofy territory. The arctic space aesthetic is persistent across tracks, painting a cold, surreal image of a distant future among the stars.

And then we get to the music, which is very very good. It definitely took a few listens for the non-Metal sections to grow on me (this is a very eclectic piece, with genre shifting within almost every track) but there’s a very important reason it did. You see, while each track jumps between multiple genres, they don’t feel fractured or jerky. It never feels like the band is just genre hopping for the sake of being quirky and weird. Even when shifting styles, the band retains their cold, special aesthetic. The evolution of each track feels connected, falling and rising in a fashion that feels earned. Despite the eclecticism here, there isn’t a moment that left me bored.

The Metal, which is still the meat of the album, is fantastic Symphonic Prog Metal, and the vocals, both clean and harsh, fit nicely. Drumming is fantastic, guitar leads are striking, energy is at perfect level, and tempo and intensity rise and fall to suit the music. No weak points, no wasted moments. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy some sections more than others, but wow is that a well put together record, a triumph of one of the hardest genres to do well in my opinion.

For sure one of the most interesting Industrial Metal acts that has been around since very near the beginning of the genre. Red Harvest have undergone a lot of evolution throughout their career, but along the way settled on an extreme style of Industrial Metal with generous Post-Metal influences and a dual focus on atmosphere and aggression.

Sick Transit Gloria Mundi open up with some of the best songs of the band’s entire career. “AEP” is an all-out aggressor that showcases the band’s strong ties to both Death and Black Metal, charging ahead with mechanical apocalypse. “Godflesh” is an extremely doomy and atmospheric track that showcase the opposite spectrum of their skills; crafting dense, building atmosphere into an all-encompassing sound that retains their mechanical edge. “Humanoia” is another shot of aggression and energy, slightly more contained than the overwhelming “AEP” but still packed with power, great drumming and mechanical riffs.

Unfortunately, after these opening songs, the album fails to reach such heights again. The rest of the album ranges from great to decent, constantly shifting gears between aggression and atmosphere, but never quite pulling either off as well as they did in the opening tracks.

The album is not quite a concept album, but contains many references to humanity being overtaken by machines, extending to the point humans themselves begin fusing with technology and computers until their humanity may as well be gone. It’s a fun take on the digital apocalypse and remains consistently grim and gloomy throughout.

Without a doubt, this is a quality album through and through, but the opening had me thinking this was about to be one of the best Industrial Metal albums I’ve ever heard. It’s great, but if they’d maintained such quality throughout, it’d be a masterpiece. At least it displays the band’s potential.

Oceanic is a monstrous record, a storied masterpiece in the genre of Atmospheric Sludge, and the first Isis release to show the band with a fully developed sound and knack for building dense, layered atmospheres.

Or so they say. While listening to Oceanic, I have to confess I found myself underwhelmed. The guitars in particular are very repetitive and simple, almost exclusively power chords changing ever so slightly. They do layer nicely, yes, and the production helps gives them a heavy, dense yet smooth sound. But lead guitarwork is scarce, simple and quiet, almost completely drowned out by the repetitive chords. Similarly, other layers of effects, which usually create the rich atmosphere typical of Atmosludge, are subtle or absent, leaving the compositions surprisingly… shallow.

There are a significant amount of Post-Rock sections here, where the heavy guitars subside to let other instrumental parts have some time to craft quiet, layered soundscapes. I think these parts are done quite well, and they add great diversity to the long, plodding tracks. The contrast between these sections and the droning, repetitive heavy chords elevate both and help eliminate fatigue from the latter.

The saving grace of this album, to me, was the lyrical concept. I was far more interested in the songs once I learned of the concept and paid close attention to the lyrics and how the songs work to evoke the same mood and themes as the out-of-order story. There is a consistent aquatic feel to this album which gives it a unique atmosphere, and the twisted, troubled sexual undercurrents add to the tensity of the dissonant atmospheres.

Some Atmospheric Sludge albums have the issue of having a few really incredible tracks or moments within the tracks surrounded by long stretches of filler. Oceanic is actually quite the opposite; it is extremely consistent throughout, even among stylistic changes, the only exception being the useless untitled interlude. This means as a full album, Oceanic is a much easier listen than many of its contemporaries; however, it also lacks any memorable peaks or crescendos that truly stand out.

It's a strong album with some impressive walls of atmosphere and compelling themes and lyricism. But one of the best Atmospheric Sludge albums ever? Personally I would have to disagree. A VERY solid and consistent example of the genre, but nowhere near my favorite.

Reverend Bizarre are a Doom act that received notoriety for reviving and reintroducing the Metal world to the old-school fuzziness of Traditional 80’s Doom (and of course, their roots in the earliest 70’s Sabbath material).

By the end of the 90’s, true Doom had fully developed, and with it the more extreme iterations of Death Doom and Funeral Doom. Trad Doom had been mostly left behind or adopted by Stoner bands as newer Doom bands focused on the emotion, mood, and atmosphere of the true strain of the genre.

Reverend Bizarre invites listeners back into the fuzzy and occult rituals of the old guard, enveloping the senses with fuzzy, repetitive guitars, plodding rhythms and the voice of a pagan preacher. Most of the music is lethargic and monotonous, but sections of more energetic jamming pop up usually when they are most needed.

For this listener, Reverend Bizarre remind me of everything I dislike about Trad Doom and why I feel it’s better left in the past. I’ve mentioned in multiple reviews before that the reason Doom works so well is because the emotional, moody atmosphere is heightened by the crushing heaviness and funereal speed. So take away all the feeling and mood, and what are you left with? Slow, heavy, and boring. No emotion to fill the empty space left by the plodding, repetitive instruments. And that’s what Trad Doom is. The slowness of Doom without any of the emotion, passion, and melancholy that makes it so special and unique.

As far as Trad Doom itself goes, In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend is… average. Painfully so. Most songs have good ideas, but repeat them far too many times for far too long to the point they become tiring. Songs are not long because they have a lot to say or do, they are just long to fill space. Lazy and lethargic is the best descriptors for these songs.

Opening track Burn in Hell has a damn good riff and nice evil atmosphere, and is definitely one of the stronger tracks. However, the aforementioned issue of the song just being way too long and repetitive ruins its power, making the good riffs tiring because of how simple they are and how often they are repeated. “The Hour of Death” is the best track for sure, holding some genuine grief as it details the loss of a loved one, but even then, the song doesn’t actually sound super emotional, although it is quite good. “Doomsower” is just plain fun misanthropy.

I think timing is part of why this album is revered as it is. Trad Doom had been kind of dead and buried for the better part of a decade by 2002, so these guys were definitely appealing to aging Metalhead’s nostalgia as well as introducing a new era to the old school sound. But throw this album in a basket with the rest of the genre, and there’s nothing special about it. Sounds the same as everything that was already done in the 80’s, and it doesn’t do anything that well or unique to warrant such accolades. If you love the genre, you’ll definitely love this. If you don’t… you won’t.

The first of Bathory’s Nordland duo, which closed out the band’s career. I believe it was supposed to be a saga of 4 before Quarthon tragically passed. At this point in the band’s career, Bathory has had some crazy highs and lows, so how does their penultimate effort pan out?

Of all Bathory’s previous albums, I would say Nordland I sounds closest to Blood on Ice. Unfortunately, that’s not a high compliment from me, as that album is one of my less-favored from the band’s catalogue. Blood Fire Death is fantastic in its dark, evil, and aggressively heavy take on the genre, melding Blackened Thrash with the epic atmospheres and thematics of what became Viking Metal. Hammerheart leaned full-on into the grand, epic atmospheres and passionate storytelling of the genre, and who could forgot the doomy masterpiece One Rode to Asa Bay?

Nordland I doesn’t do any of those things. It’s not dark, angry, or evil. It’s not very passionate nor does it have any masterpiece tracks. The whole thing is entirely reliant on epic descriptions of nature and adventure, although unfortunately it’s an adventure where very little happens aside from looking at the scenery. Now, that would be fine if the music matched up; layers of strings and folky flutes to accentuate the Nordic and mythological imagery of grand nature and high fantasy… but no. We get a very lo-fi, stripped back performance that would sound much more appropriate playing straight Black Metal. There are nature sounds and some Dungeon Synth-y type soundscapes, but unfortunately they are relegated to being placed between Metal tracks rather than accompanying them. The sound and thematics just don’t align, and the music by itself is not very evocative of anything really.

The album does pick up near the end. “Great Hall Awaits a Fallen Brother” is a more captivating track as it mixes Power Metal and Epic Doom influence into the Viking sound and details the tragic loss of a brother in arms. The music and themes come together nicely on this one, a mix of courage, valor and grief captured well by the surprising mix of genres. “Mother Earth Father Thunder” is once again displaying the band’s doomier side and delivering a heavy, triumphant closer (aside from the outro “Heimfard,” which is a decent mix of Dungeon Synth and nature sounds).

The album seems to be well-received by fans, but I was hoping for more in the ways of instrumentation and songwriting. I do hope Nordland II can reach a bit closer to Bathory’s incredible potential and serve as an appropriate send off to one of the most influential bands in all of Extreme Metal.

Lemme say two things right off the bat. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of Stoner Metal. Honestly, I'm not much into any of the styles here. Psychedelic stuff is usually far too lethargic and impersonal, sacrificing any and all emotion and feeling for spacey and drugged out atmosphere. Secondly, I've not really enjoyed any of Boris's albums prior to this one. It should go without saying I didn't expect to love this one.

And, well, I don't love it... but I DO like it, quite a bit at that. Boris force some enjoyable energy into their mish-mash of Psychedelic Metal that makes it far more tolerable than most of the lazy Marijuana-fueled stuff out there. They Jam-pack so many different influences into the songs that despite being tied together by Stoner Metal, they each offer something a bit different, and maintain an identity separate from each other.

Boris also use noise and feedback, more techniques I generally don't enjoy, to great effect here. The songs are dense as hell with guitar fuzz, amp screams, and all kinds of digital chaos. The most important part - it works! Maybe they just got lucky, but the noisier stuff here sounds well composed, fitting into the songs with purpose rather than randomly placed. I found myself enjoying the piercing, fuzzy density of the songs rather than recoiling, the auditorial assault working so well because the band still maintains a sound of normal, actual music most of the time and never lose their way from a conventionally composed song even when getting filthy.

Another thing I typically don't enjoy is fun and happiness in my Metal (another minus against Stoner stuff) but Boris pull it off here flawlessly. I thoroughly enjoy listening to the band jam out, and the impassioned vocals full of raw vitality tie it all together.

Shout out to the magnificent instrumental Rattlesnake, and shout out to Boris for taking all the ingredients I typically dislike in Metal and cooking up an album I actually enjoy with them.

A slightly heavier direction than the last albums, this one features crushing, rhythmic guitars and vocals on the gruffer side of things. Lyrics are also slightly more serious, with a few numbers about war and sombre introspection. The southern Rock tracks here are actually the best, as they force the band to craft some decent melodies and vocal lines when they can’t rely on Stoner-tinged riff and Groove chugging.

Aside from those points, it’s another Black Label Society album. Very, very Southern Metal. Passable riffs, boring drumming, mostly shallow lyrics, and a good backdrop to the type of company I would never enjoy.

Credit to “Battering Ram,” for being their heaviest and most aggressive track so far (and featuring the best riffs and drumming on the album) and to “Bridge to Cross,” for displaying the emotion and contemplation that is so scarce in this genre. Those two highlights definitely make the album worth it among the genre.

Most of the rest is unmemorable filler, a la Black Label Society’s usual fare. Decent album, fun, but lacking depth or staying power, and too long for what it offers.

Mind-numbing. No, I don’t mean in a good way. I mean, by the end of the first track, I had taken just about all I could take of one-note soulless polyrhythmic chugging, and then preceded to suffer through 9 more tracks of the exact same thing with no variation. So repetitive is this album that when the atonal guitar noodling that would be terrible in any other context came up in track 3, I was actually excited because it was SOMETHING different. The little atmospheric reprieve near the end of the 4th track wasn’t anything special, but it was such a welcome break from the mechanical assault that my brain was tricked into enjoying it.

I actually like the guy’s harsh vocal sound, but the issue is… again… there’s absolutely no variation. It sounds like he’s trying as hard as possible to maintain one single tone, one note, one delivery… yeah, it certainly fits the music, and I get that’s what they’re going for. But just as with the rest of the music, I was sick of it after one track. Nine more aren’t going to convince me (or 8 since the last track is an instrumental).

Maybe there’s some grand meaning in those lyrics somewhere. I have no idea. This are some of the most pretentious, abstract lyricism since Tool. “Organic Shadows” has some neat lyrics about becoming mechanical, but most this is ‘I’m too smart for you’ cryptic existentialism.

“Spasm” is the most unique sounding song, and by default the best. It’s the only song to feature a different vocal approach, as well as *gasp* lead guitar work. Yeah, when you add guitar leads that actually hit notes and craft melodies over top the mechanical polyrhythmic chugging, said chugging actually becomes listenable. When used as a backdrop for other music, Djenty chugging is fine. The issue with Meshuggah is they make the Djenty chugging the focus – in fact, it’s usually the ONLY thing going on in most of the songs.

To say something respectful, they WERE doing something different and unique, that is undeniable. But I think giving something credit for being unique is overrated. The only thing that matters to me is if music sounds good – this is a hard pass.

Since the turn of the century Kreator have taken to releasing a new album every four or five years and here we are at the beginning of 2026, with the world turning to shit, and the Teutonic Titans delivering full-length number 16. With Mille and Ventor both turning 60 this year, it would be overly optimistic to expect that they will ever reproduce the bile and venom that they unleashed with their classic period which spanned from "Pleasure to Kill" to "Coma of Souls". Indeed, they haven't really issued anything essential since 2005's "Enemy of God". This does not, however, mean that a new Kreator album deserves to be ignored. No, far from it because, although "Krushers of the World" is inconsistent and patchy, occasionally a brief glimpse of former brilliance does shine through.

There are riffs a-plenty and there is a decent energy to the album, but on the whole this latest is a little too groove-laden for my particular taste with choruses that often seem to have been written with optimum catchiness in mind and, as such, it lacks the biting venom of the band's best work. Some of the best moments come from the guitar solos which are deployed more sparingly than I would like, but when they are used, such as during "Barbarian and "Combatants"," they elevate the tracks with a level of intensity that the riffs and vocals don't quite encapsulate. For my money, the clear highlight of the album is "Psychotic Imperator". It sounds the closest to classic-era Kreator with an added choral section and a searing guitar solo that elevate it to head and shoulders above the rest of the album.

I guess that "Krushers of the World" delivers pretty much what you would expect from a Kreator album at this stage of their career, being cast into shadow by the monumental magnificence of their best and trying a little too hard to capture listeners with sometimes overtly catchy choruses. I am sure there are many who couldn't wait to tear this apart and I have no wish to join them as nothing here is actually poor but, apart from the aforementioned "Psychotic Imperator" I can't hear too much that will keep me returning to this either.

I wasn’t a massive fan of Down’s first album, so the way this one leaves me feeling lukewarm is unsurprising. Down lean towards the sludgier, fuzzier side of Southern Metal, yet maintain the lighthearted Stoner-oriented songwriting, meaning the songs are thick with dense guitars. Groovy rhythms and Stoner riffs are the backbone of the album, of course fronted by Phil Anselmo’s signature tough guy grunt.

Musically, the songs are really groovy and a lot of the riffs are happy-sounding. This clashes with Phil’s pessimistic, self-destructive lyrics and his aggressive delivery. Most of the lyrics here would sound appropriate leading a more dismal Sludge album about drug addiction, but instead they’re placed over some chill drugged out Stoner riffs that just take all seriousness away from the subject matter.

Thanks to this dichotomy, there’s very little in the way of emotion or passion that comes through on these songs, as the music just sounds very fun and unserious. I mean, hand claps on track 4? Ugh.

This is fun, emotionless, unserious Metal for people who wanna chill with some fuzzy grooves. That ain’t me. “Learn From This Mistake” and “New Orleans Is a Dying Whore” are the best songs here because they manage to be more serious, dark and somber. Although the former song is not a Metal track at all but more of a Blues number.

Like I said with my Nailed to Obscurity album review last year, undercard death doom bands have a mountain to climb if they want to retain any sort of relevancy anymore. Ethereal Darkness' debut album, Smoke and Shadows is a mostly pleasant, if a little boring, project that provides no inspiration to a genre that has been fruitful in the last couple of years. Granted, some of my criticisms can be thrown away when you consider when this album was released, but even by those standards, I cannot see this as a good thing. The death doom on display here is predictable and does not do much to separate itself from contemporaries. The standard for this genre has been raised by Fires in the Distance, Red Moon Architect and Aeonian Sorrow of late and I see no attempts to stand out and carve their own path here. Smoke and Shadows feels like the kind of death doom album that you throw on as background noise or as playlist filler. It sounds okay in the moment, but give it anymore of your time and you'll start to regret it.

Best Songs: Forgotten Shadows, The Light That Fades, Time

I like to see death metal grow into different places because it is a genre I sometimes find a bit monotonous and lacking in variety, and I can commend the effort in this record as there are passages I do like and find beautiful and it has a overall melancholic, dare I say gothic vibe that I enjoy. That being said, there is way too much here I don't like at all, so I can pretty much say it is not for me. I find the vocals pretty annoying and the neoclassical influences coupled with the power-metalish composition style give me a very pretentious impression, and a feeling that this is somewhat disconnected from what I feel metal should be. Also, what is up with this clean ass bass? This is the first time a death metal record has a very audible bass and I don't like it. It's also a pretty long endeavor, but fortunately I didn't get tired of it as there is enough variety in interludes and intros and what not.

Well, to summarize, I see this is a classic, but it's a classic in a style I dislike. Can't really see me coming back to this in the near future.

Here's another one that's pretty hard to write something new about. This is nothing short of a perfect old school death metal record: every track has something to say, be it a badass riff, a creative and memorable lead, a stink-face drum groove or some perverse vocal delivery. Production wise, I couldn't ask for anything more. Crystal clear strings with a brutal tone and great vocal mixing. The drum mixing is not really my cup of tea, as I prefer something louder and more impactful, but that doesn't take away any points. Atmosphere is absolutely on point, with a very gorey and dark vibe all around. Actually, I'd say this is one of the most cohesive and conceptually sound death metal records yet for it's release year.

Technicalities apart, what really shines in this release is the composition and the ideas. This has a sort of catchiness to it that I've only seen in Death records, but it sounds way more sinister and brutal in every way. After some few spins, I can recall at least something from every track, even hum along solos, which is something very, very rare for a death metal record. This is what sets it apart to me, the same way Death's Leprosy and At The Gates' Slaughter are set apart: records that are memorable as they are relentless. Not a single drop of brutality traded for poppiness, but still incredibly catchy music nonetheless.

As I said, pretty much every track here is awesome, but I particularly like the first and last tracks, with the last track around 5:00 part being a serious contender for heaviest shit ever, Incarnated Solvent Abuse with some of the best mid tempo death metal I've ever listened to and Carneous Cacoffiny for that groovy stink-face main riff. Awesome stuff I'm pretty sure I'll return to for many years.

This is just Wheel-lite

I did not want to go into this album with dampened expectations. Soen began their musical journey in the mid 2000s out of Stockholm and had a very Opeth-ian sound through their first three albums. After Lykaia however, this band took a more traditional approach and did away with their progressive songwriting, to the point that this album, Reliance, has almost no distinct features that make it sound like early Soen. I think that in some regard, that can be a good thing, because it shows a band not willing to sit still and release the same release endlessly for the rest of time (i.e. Dream Theater). On the contrary, starting off as progressive and leaning into a radio friendly alternative metal is quite the disappointment in relation to musical growth.

And trust me, Reliance is quite lacking in musical growth. I described it as Wheel-lite because all of these sounds and techniques used here are dumbed-down versions of what Wheel was doing on their debut album, Moving Backwards, seven years ago! The album has flow, but it's very monotone; it lacks a truly driving song to balance out all of the piano ballads and medium tempo alternative metal. As a result, the vocals of Joel Ekelöf are painfully lacking as well.

 The instrumentals as a whole are well produced at least. It does make for a mostly enjoyable listen for the forty-three minutes one has to endure. I just wish that there was more done with those instrumental backdrops, since the vocals were so underwhelming. The album lacks a lot of instrumental leads or even solos, which is why "Unbound" is the highlight of the album; it's one of the only tracks that features a technical (but still melodic) guitar solo and even throws in a keyboard solo during the outro. Besides that, nothing inside Reliance ever asks me to come back to it.

And that's why Reliance feels like a homogenous blob. Sure it sounds decent, but how much of it can you point out and truly identify once its finished? The reason my rating isn't any lower is because I see this album/band not as a progressive project anymore. Approaching this album in bad faith as a progressive album will lead you to massive disappointment. And that's okay! It's a lot for audiences to ask these bands to continue being boundary shifters after so many years. But for the love of god, please make something that stands out from the crowd instead of generic radio rock/metal that leaves me feeling more hollow than ever.

Best Songs: Unbound, Primal, Axis

I came to Gojira a little late given that I was well & truly in my electronic dance music hey day when their 2001 debut album "Terra incognita" was released so I didn't end up discovering them until around 2009 when Ben introduced me to the masterful "From Mars To Sirius" which I immediately fell in love with & still regard as a genuine death metal classic today. That awakening would very quickly see me making the effort to explore all of Gojira's other work & there was plenty of quality to get my teeth into too, if not any additional classics to compete with their 2005 pièce de résistance.

"Terra incognita" sees Gojira at their most deathly with their sound being built around a death metal core but still being progressive enough for a progressive death metal tag. There's also a clear groove metal component that ensures that the Frenchmen are kept slightly apart from their peers &, interestingly, I feel that it's this element that sees me being unable to ever really consider a record like this one for my most elite scores, despite the clear talent in the execution. The fairly technical staccato riffs are deadly tight with extreme competence on display in the precision performances & drummer Mario proving himself to already be very competent. I tend to like Joe's vocals more when they veer further towards your classic death grunt rather than a less intimidating groove metal one which is hardly surprising as the extreme metal scene is obviously my comfort zone.

It may not receive the praise that later albums like "The Way Of All Flesh" or "L'enfant sauvage" do but I think "Terra incognita" actually competes very well with them if I'm being honest & it can certainly be mentioned in the same breath as the underrated "Magma" too, although I think I'd probably have it slightly behind all three due to its inability to see me reaching for the classic card with any of the fourteen tracks on offer. Still, it's an underrated & generally overlooked part of the Gojira back catalogue that's well deserving of the attention of our The Horde & The Infinite members.

For fans of Hacride, Trepalium & Decapitated.

The death metal world practically worships this album, and it's so easy to see why that a child could do it.  In stark contrast to the wild and wacky nature of their debut, Slaughter of the Soul is much more simplistic.  This is not to say, however, that the album isn't good.  The reliance on layout and melody is the tradeoff from the unpredictable riffage from the debut, as well as an acidic and pyrrhic production style.  With extra accessibility, their songs are easier to get behind, but there is almost none of the poppiness you'd expect from your average Dark Tranquillity album.  Everything here is brutal in its own way, slamming like hammers on drums, and the band made sure every song was a total jam.  There's nothing too long or too short here, even when the songs are only two minutes.  Everything is packed to the atomic level with death metal extremity untamable anger and an extraordinary sense of melody.  Although the band once again writes an album with very little variation between the songs, they perfected the majority of everything else than a great album needs.  In fact, this is one of the most well-produced albums of any genre than I've ever heard.  It's a little difficult to believe that this was their swansong, considering they've grown in so many more ways than they've digressed.

93

To end my melo-death exploration for the time being, I'm going to tackle At the Gates.  I'm aware that they're a death metal staple that's known for the legendary Slaughter of the Soul, which has largely been revered as a polished piece of pure putrid power.  I also know that their debut has some die-hard defenders, claiming that the writing alone makes this a better album than overly polished works.  Believe it or not, while many online metal communities consider Slaughter of the Soul the band's defining album, some places like Metal Archives and Metal Academy consider this album the better.

The first thing I'm gathering here is SCOPE.  This album shoves a large number of riffs in your face, which largely maintain a high level of accessibility.  Through the Gardens of Grief is just everywhere their debut's style will allow.  I was worried at first that the album would largely sound like that throughout, and that it would be an exercise in style over substance, but Within made a point of bragging about sluggish doom and extreme speeds rather than solos, thankfully.  It changes emotional direction into something quite somber.  The album has very little to say in terms of genre-exploration, but justifies their level of creativity with these numerous skillful riffs and rhythms.

The production here is actually known for being less polished than many albums before, but that doesn't completely bother me as this is a more traditional and early brand of melo-death.  Not exactly fair to expect diamond production on a debut, right?  This production style has a very authentic feel to it.  But this doesn't mean it's perfect.  The album is in serious need of heavier drumming.  It's certainly not bad by any means; in fact, it can be quite impressive.  Claws of Laughter Dead (maybe I'm wrong, but that's kind of a shitty name) will prove this effortlessly.  I'd rather drum like this guy does than Neil Peart.

Overall, this debut was a display of the band's extraordinary powers of riffage, being a single-genre marathon of how to keep an album going on that concept and actually remain consistently intriguing and accessible despite the lack of necessity for consistent layout and proper variety.  It's extra rare to find albums like this that can do such a thing.

95

Spiritbox is one of the most popular bands in modern metal. They made it big with their string of singles throughout the era of the pandemic and the album those songs would appear in, Eternal Blue. I remember listening to that album when it first came out, and I enjoyed the heavy technicality and spacey melody. For some reason though, the appeal didn't last long for me. Must be due to the more mainstream alt-ish sound, but at least it's enough for my brother to enjoy a couple of those songs.

In between that album and their new one Tsunami Sea, the band released two EPs. The one I've chosen to check out is this one, The Fear of Fear. It has definitely sparked up some memories of when I listened to Eternal Blue, being a solid continuation of that album's alt-metalcore sound with a few industrial/cyber/nu metal vibes thrown in...

To open this offering, "Cellar Door" has some of the heaviest I've heard from the band. Glitchy electronics and nu-infused guitar guide you through this violent chaos complete with crushing breakdowns. The second track and fellow single "Jaded" has the technicality and emotion of Architects while blending it with the softer side of Eternal Blue. "Too Close / Too Late" has a gentle drift of beauty, especially in the chorus.

"Angel Eyes" brings back the monstrous destruction. The textured bass by Josh Gilbert (ex-As I Lay Dying) are adjacent to djenty guitar intensity along with the harsh vocal fury of vocalist Courtney LaPlante. In "The Void", the band knows just how to hit with all their power! The beautiful emotion carries on in the closing "Ultraviolet".

To summarize the sound of this band and EP, well...it's all about experimenting with what they are without setting a strict sound. This allows them to break boundaries at ease, and make the band more than just simply alt-metalcore. It's not a direct sequel to Eternal Blue, more like an expansion of that album's sound in a way that makes this EP stand out with its own. So let's ride on for a glimpse of what to hear from this rising band....

Favorites: "Cellar Door", "Angel Eyes", "The Void"

Despite a seemingly bottomless pit of a discography, I haven’t listened to all that many Thou releases in my time.  It is possibly the case that Summit is my first listen through a full length release from them in fact.  Subconsciously at least, I do tend to be wary of bands who constantly release material, acknowledging that whilst the tipping point may vary from band to band, eventually quality eventually is lost at the expense of quantity.  I would not say there is any issue with the quality of the material on Summit however, despite it taking me a few listens to grasp some of what is going on within the five tracks on offer.

I find that this is a release that has successful moments or key elements for me that I enjoy more than others.  For example, the fuzzy droning guitar on ‘By Endurance We Conquer’ is a real treat.  There are also instruments on Summit that I was not expecting the inclusion of.  ‘Grissecon’ starts of like a KEN Mode track with a slow picked intro, but there’s definitely a piano introduced once the track starts proper (which if my memory serves me correctly, was a feature on the last KEN Mode album I heard).  Credit is due to Thou for being able to combine the harsher elements of sludge with a keen ear for melody.  Whilst comparisons can be made to some of my sludge metal favourites such as Primitive Man or Coffinworm, these droning elements, the off-kilter instrument choices and the melodic plod that sits behind the music sets Thou apart from the crowd.

Considering the shortest track is over eight minutes long, disregarding the instrumental that closes the album, there is no sense of Thou kicking their heels during these lengthy offerings.  The band show a high level of patience in their builds to tracks and are unafraid to stick with a level once they find the ceiling of where they want a track to operate from in the main.  The enduring misery of ‘Prometheus’ needs no pace beyond a lurching stagger to make its point for the most part (again, there’s a violin or cello somewhere in the background here too).  A special mention goes to the drummer on this track for making interesting patterns, runs and fills without becoming a distraction from the crushing nature of the song.  The depths of despair that are explored on this track are underlined by tortured guitar melodies that drone across the track brilliantly.

It will no doubt take further listens before I can say that I connect totally with Summit.  There are lingering doubts in my mind that the mixed instrumentation adds a little too much of an “artsy” element to the sound that is necessary for the messaging but at the same time a little off-putting to a sludge fan like myself.  As a starter for ten though, Summit has been a good introduction to Thou and marks a good foundational point for me to explore the discography further in the coming months.  Notwithstanding that I will be selective in my future choices with such a vast quantity of releases to choose from.  The guard it still up in that sense, protecting the chin.

Have I mentioned that Lord of the Lost's current project is a trilogy? Opvs Noir is a series of albums released in just months-long intervals, all that continue their blend of gothic/industrial/symphonic metal. I mean, we won't Vol. 3 until this April, but at least we have the first two volumes. I've already checked out Vol. 1, and now we're gonna explore Vol. 2. Not as varied as their previous album, yet still great...

Frontman Chris "The Lord" Harms, guitarists Pi "π" Stoffers and Benjamin "Benji" Mundigler, bassist Klaas "Class Grenayde" Helmecke, keyboardist Gerrit "Gared Dirge" Heinemann, and drummer Niklas Kahl keep up their talents here. Opvs Noir Vol. 2 is the band's 11th album, and the second part of this ongoing trilogy.

Starting the album is "The Fall From Grace". Unlike the first volume's opener, it starts off gentle in the keys as the rest of the metal instrumentation drifts in smoothly. Chris Harms' vocal sorrow shines especially in the chorus. And in between the second and final choruses is some of the most intense screaming I've heard from him, in perfect contrast with the gothic bliss. "Would You Walk With Me Through Hell?" has the first of several guest vocalists here, Infected Rain vocalist Lena Scissorhands. It's one of the more industrial songs in the album, and the heavier parts are worth moshing to, particularly when there's harsh aggression from both vocalists. After all that massive power, "One Of Us Will Be Next" is a soft ballad with angelic choruses. Then "Walls of Eden" can really get people moving in concerts.

"Raveyard" is an impressive highlight of pure dance-metal fire. I especially enjoy the rapping by Kaarija. Turning up the heaviness is "The Last Star", the verses are soft so that all the energy is used in the chorus. Sadly, some of the vocals don't hit as hard as in other songs. More of the dark fury is covered in "What Have We Become", which includes more experimentation including vocals by IAMX founder Chris Corner. The baritone/growls of Harms and the falsetto of corner make another perfect duet in the sea of industrial darkness. Then we reach the cold melancholy of "Winter's Dying Heart", an epic ballad with the instrumentation and vocals in excellent balance.

"Scarlight" starts off calm in the intro and first verse then explodes into a speedy chorus. Now, "Please Break the Silence"... Is that a more polite take on Beyond the Black's new album Break the Silence? I mean, Chris Harms has guest appeared in a song from that album and the female vocalist sounds like Jennifer Haben. Oh wait, that's Anna Brunner from League of Distortion. Still a beautiful energetic highlight! Finally, "Sharp Edges" is a soft and sweet ending track with some background noise in the climax.

So the second volume of Opvs Noir has a more experimental direction than the first. However, I feel like there should've been more of the variation Vol. 1 had. Maybe more guest vocalists? Well, Vol. 3 apparently has a little more of them, so that's promising. But until then, enjoy Vol. 2....

Favorites: "The Fall of Grace", "Walls of Eden", "Raveyard", "What Have We Become", "Winter's Dying Heart", "Please Break the Silence"

I have a real soft spot for the often-ridiculous fantasy artwork of heavy metal albums from the eighties. Asgard’s one and only album release from 1986 has enough levels of grandiosity on its artwork to make up for a whole career of albums that never where made. A muscular warrior, barely clothed in a loin cloth stands, bow drawn back ready to take down another mountain crocodile that is somehow completely out of its natural habitat and is attacking him and his cleavage proud princess fawns at his feet. Yeah, the eighties weren’t the best for gender equality, were they? That is not to knock the quality of the artwork by any means. Personally, I think it looks fantastic, and I was sad to read of the passing of the artist responsible for this amazing piece, Ken Kelly in 2022. He is of course better known for his excellent work on Manowar covers as well as The Gates of Slumber and even Satanic Warmaster. If this was a review of the album artwork, then it would be a solid four out of five-star rating.

Sadly, despite their best efforts, Asgard’s musical prowess doesn’t quite match the exploits of the cover artist. In short, In the Ancient Days is all over the place. As with most speed metal albums, there is a fine line being walked between traditional heavy metal and speed metal. In the Ancient Days tends to follow this same pattern accordingly. A mixture of Venom sneer creeps into the vocals of Rene Tholen, teetering on the brink of the over-theatrical on tracks such as ‘Witches Brew’ and ‘Hounds of Hell’ (the version on YouTube has either a skip from a vinyl rip or there’s a terrible edit job on the actual record just before the twenty-minute mark). Yet at the same time, the riffs on this record are superb examples of the heyday of thrash/speed metal. Remembering that this record is now forty-years old, there is a heavy element of nostalgia in my feature selection this month in The Pit.

Being more at the extreme end of metal in terms of my listening habits, the more thrashy/speed metal elements are where I find highlights on In the Ancient Days. The drama could easily be left at the door for me, along with the acoustic (flamenco?) guitar of the interlude ‘Granadinas’ which is crudely placed as the penultimate track on the record. Whether this should be considered as some intro to the anthemic sounding album closer ‘Metal Tonight’ I am unsure but the combination of these two tracks at the end of the album does leave a sour taste in my mouth to finish the album on. I am unaware as to why Asgard lasted for only one album. The ability was there on the debut, albeit not terribly well showcased overall and I sense if the talent could have been grown over subsequent albums then we might have heard the name Asgard more over the years.

It's not often for a band to last two decades with most of the members intact since the beginning. 4 of the 7 members of Fear of Domination have stayed together for all of their albums; male vocalist Saku Solin, bassist Lauri Ojanen, and guitarists Jan-Erik Kari and Johannes Niemi. One other longtime member, keyboardist Lasse Raelahti joined the band in 2012. And now there are two new members for a new album in a new era...

Katharsis is their brand-new 7th album released in the beginning of this year 2026. It marks the debut of female vocalist Jessica Salmi and drummer Anton Nisonen. It also continues the trance-filled melodic metalcore sound from their previous album VI: Revolution, while bringing back their earlier industrial/cyber metal side.

"Alone" is a h*ll of a strong energetic start. The verses screamed by both vocalists are in a great contrast with the catchy sung choruses for a well-balanced composition. Then there's the more simplistic "Dead Anyway", having a slow intro before the dancey keyboards enter alongside the metal instrumentation and vocal power. "Monsters" is the first single for the album, released nearly two years prior. Although the intro sounds a bit dull, the riff attacks with headbanging rhythm, encouraging you all to sing and shout along. The soloing between the second and final choruses is filled with shredding fury. Up next is "Imposter" which is more grandiose, thanks to the synthesized orchestrations and choir. It's both dramatic and dynamic!

The groovy "Last Words" is heavy in both the metal and the electronics. I can predict that song being a live staple! There's nothing silly about "Primum Noce Apte" when their earlier cutthroat melodeath riffing makes a comeback. I feel they could've let out their rage longer though. "Rabbit Hole" starts off brutal before resting calm while still catchy.

We're heading into the final third of the album now, starting with another perfect track "All as One". They can do the whole "disco-metal" thing as well as Battle Beast, probably better! The final chorus has the most of their energy. "Endgame" is an epic single from the album seems to emphasize their earlier industrial/trance metal roots further. A hard-hitting masterpiece of a song! The finale "Feel" has similar gentle melancholy to Metanoia's closing track. I probably would've loved it more if not for the abrupt ending.

Fear of Domination still have their strong talent in Katharsis, with energetic songs worth both dancing and headbanging to. Despite a couple slight struggles somewhere, there's hope for their music to make a strong global impact....

Favorites: "Alone", "Imposter", "Last Words", "All as One", "Endgame"

Note: I've decided to try a new thing where for any of the favorites I've listed for a reviewed releases, the ones in bold are the ones I deem not just great, but true perfection.

In an earlier review for Carcass's second album, Symphony of Sickness, I mentioned that there was less of the melodic strength that made the third and fourth albums so beloved.  In this early goregrind release, as well as their debut, there's even less of that.  This is one of those somewhat common examples of early 80's metal albums compensating for lack of creativity with absolute brutality, the way earlier movies by Wes Craven were.  "Mature" content over substance.  Now the funny thing is, like Wes Craven, the band grew as their career progressed, so by the mid-90's this was basically nothing more than a historical example of how much they grew.  Despite a few cute tricks here and there, I predicted how the whole album would go after listening to Symphony of Sickness.  Now there may be some charm to have in the lo-fi production.  It's certainly a heavy piece.  But the production also muddles things that shouldn't be muddled, which cements yet another weak point in comparison to future works.  Basically, this overly "adult" album amounts to little more than an imitation album made by a bunch of children who think all it takes to be the best is to be different and "true to yourself" by "not giving into radio capitalism" or some shit like that.  Fortunately, this was the last time they ever sounded like this.  With 22 short tracks, they found a way to make a 37-minute album way too damn long.

52

I'm not one for goregrind really.  In the long run, then I'd rather not educate myself in an entire genre dedicated to piercing the veil of acceptable gore by turning the most disgusting lyrics of all time into that much of a joke.  I mean, it's one thing to have obviously fake pain splashing when you're cutting down b-movie zombies in an intentional cheese-fest like Braindead, but to keep bragging about it as if getting your fingers in between the very atoms that make up gore is how you get your kicks just isn't the kind of thing I think people should be spending months writing for albums.  I rarely explore these kinds of bands, with a notable exception being the slam band Devourment.

Nevertheless, I occasionally go to classic acts like Carcass because of their melodic prowess and heavy say in the modern development of death metal structures, which isn't so much about the gore factor as it is about the melodies, production, brutality, etc.  But before they were a melodic death metal band, they played around with goregrind, which I find interesting considering that the album before the melodic days would be their second and last album to showcase them partaking in their original genre.

Somehow bordering both death metal and goregrind without steering too far into Napalm Death signature deathgrind genre, this sophomore album is largely about having fun with the metallic sound and setting up a basic structure, so there's not a lot of variety going on.  There's a very dirty, gross sound about the production that makes the album sound like it came directly from the underground, ready for vengeance or some shit.  And in comparison to many a grindcore album, this one makes a point of consistent and enjoyable riffs rather than being random-ass and overly technical like a lot of modern grind does, allowing their sound to be both fun and grounded for the metal fans AND the punk fans.  As well, the production never gets in the way of the band's playing.  No, it expands upon the heaviness, which is exactly what an album like this needs.  Speeds even fluctuate at an even pace, giving us enough time to enjoy what we have rather than just going off into 50 different universes in a single minute the way Doctor Strange does.  Still, this DOES mean that this is a developmental album rather than an attempt at real art, which is still a good thing considering that the practice easily paid off.

Now the internet says that this is slightly worse than the two Carcass albums everyone knows and loves: Heartwork and Necroticism.  However, I'd say this is about on par with Torn Arteries.  It's a good album that proved that the band knew what they wanted at the time, but it's also a reminder that Carcass made the smart move on the next album and expanded their sound away from goregrind.  The thing is, while this is a fun album with a successful vibe, all the riffage is flatout OWNED by Carcass's later work, so I wouldn't put this on the same pedestal others put it on.

75

Unexpectedly coming out on top of the current crop of feature releases is this three track EP from Trivium.  For no reason other than rampant elitism, I have avoided Trivium for most of their career.  Based on this EP, that could have been an even dumber decision than it first appears.  Notwithstanding that this is a very short format to base any long term opinions from, there is still plenty here to have kept me entertained over the six or seven listens I found myself giving Struck Dead in just one day!

It is clear that my view that Trivium are just another annoying metalcore band are incorrect.  Yes, there are elements of that style here, I cannot dispute that.  However, there are some serious grooves going on during the riffing on ‘Bury Me With My Screams’.  The cold, blunt and almost industrial chops of the title track are a bruising experience also.  Add into the mix the fiery leads and anthemic vocals and there is a lot to be pleased with.  Whilst I expected high energy levels to be on show, the EP goes much further, possessing an almost hardcore ferocity at times.

It is not an annoying overactive energy that I feared might haunt the release, there is a lot of maturity in these three tracks.  ‘Six Walls’ might be the weaker of the tracks on offer but it is by no means terrible.  After the intensity of the two first tracks I guess some balance was needed, even if those acoustic strings on the final track do mislead the listener into believing we will be needing on a power ballad.  Suffering a little in the arrangement stakes, ‘Six Walls’ feels like a b-side at best but still keeps those energy levels well primed for the whole EP duration.

Despite not being a fan of melodic death metal or progressive metal, here I am writing a review for an album that is tagged as Progressive Melodic Death Metal.  My interest in (trying to) check out all the feature releases each month has certainly paid dividends with The Infinite feature release having enjoyed a fair old amount of plays this past week.  If I was pressed to sum up why I have enjoyed The Immortal so much, I would call out the rich and full sound that is on display.  The album is by no means a perfect, or even complete package, yet it carries enough positive markers as it plays for me to continue to come back to it.

One of the unexpected positives for me are the clean vocals.  A fan of the more aggressive style of vocals that occupy the more extreme ends of the metal spectrum, on this occasion the clean vocals work better than the more traditional growls.  I have to agree with Saxy in that the harsh vocals are lacking somewhat.  The opening track manages to hit this vocal sweet spot early on in the album and as it continues to play it almost becomes a contest between the two styles, with the cleaner elements a clear victor.  If I then factor in other moments such as the groovy riff of ‘The Sojourner’ and the post-metal palate-cleanser that follows on ‘Moonless Sky’ as well as the excellent strutting of ‘The Hounding’, I soon have multiple positives to talk to.

I would however like the lead work to have more direction.  What often starts off as luscious sounding injections of melody, never quite seem to expand into any established endpoints.  This sense of going nowhere is frustrating, notwithstanding that there is plenty of melody still over the album as a whole.  I do feel however that the standout moments as a result are limited and that more interesting lead work, as well as perhaps less harsh vocals would have helped here.

Initially, I dismissed this album when pulling together my list of bm releases for last year. In hindsight, I think I was having a bad black metal day and was far too dismissive of this album, basing my distaste solely on the clean vocals that are at best occasional across the track listing. Having spent much more time with Existenialismus over the past week, there have been times when I have considered whether I missed a hidden gem in my haste to expunge the album from my listing. That is not to say that I don’t still have challenges with the cleaner elements that can appear quite amateurish (‘Truth is as Sharp a Sword as Vengeance’ being the main bug bear I have), however whilst they do peg the rating back somewhat, it is more than a little dramatic of me to dismiss the album outright on the basis of their existence alone.

The fact remains that Abduction are a fantastic modern sounding black metal band. The record strays well into territory already occupied by the likes of Mgla, Gaerea and even the chaotic black/death of Grave Miasma. With all these acts being brought to mind whilst listening to Existentialismus. The Derby outfit (appears to be one main member and some guest/session musicians on this album) put in an accomplished performance, sounding like a band who have been at it for a decade or so who have used that time to hone the listeners experience of them. I could not go as far as to call Existentialismus perfect, but it is still a treat of black metal extremity.

Able to apply melody and at times subtle groove (‘Blau ist di Farbe der Ewigkeit’) to the riffs on the album alongside wonderfully squally tremolos shows versatility in the kit bag. Whilst the cleaner sounding aspects do still alienate me, their appeal to fans of the lighter sounds of the genre is not lost on me either. With tracks like ‘Razors of Occam’ leaning into BAN territory, Abduction keep stretching their legs right until the album’s final, and best track, ‘Vomiting at Baalbek’. If more of the tracks sounded like this one the rating here would be even higher.

How do you follow an album like At the Heart of Winter? Widely praised as Immortal’s best album as well as being considered a pinnacle black metal album, AtHoW was always going to be a tough record to follow up. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that Damned in Black does not live up to the standard of AtHoW by any means, I would challenge the notion that this is a bad Immortal album. Its placement in the discography almost gave it a 50/50 shot by proxy. Either this was going to be the best Immortal album ever or it was just going to be another Immortal album.

We most certainly got the latter option. Like Battles in the North, Blizzard Beasts and even Pure Holocaust, Immortal’s 2000 album suffers from the common affliction of lacking much in the way of standout tracks. Memorability of all those albums is low for me and Damned in Black falls into the same category. It has had around seven or eight plays this past week alone and I still feel no closer to being able to run through a track in my head, in its entirety. The familiar smash ‘n bash sound of Immortal is sort of why I love them though, so it is hard to be too disgruntled with DiB.

Whilst individuality of tracks is nowhere near anything on AtHoW, Immortal still were trying on DiB. The razor edge riffage, battering ram drums, grim vocals and even audible bass are all on display. In terms of the energy being applied here, you’d be pushed to call any of the tracks as being half-arsed in terms of effort of delivery. It is obvious however that the bar was just set too high coming into this record. Tracks such as ‘My Dimension’ are completely guilty of exhibiting the blatant hallmarks of filler here and that is a shame given the noted effort behind even the less influential tracks.

There is a flip side to this though that can be found in the structures of tracks like ‘Wrath from Above’ as well as the title track. Still, the promise of ‘The Darkness That Embraces Me’ is ruined by some cringey lyrics that manage to make the evil croak of Abbath seem silly sadly. Whether by proxy or not, the riffs here are the closest to those on AtHoW and as such you are never too far away from a brief memory of that huge record. If there was more of this nostalgia for the previous record then maybe that would have helped the rating here.

Omnium Gatherum are one of those Scandinavian melodic death metal bands that formed out of the second wave during the early 2000s and I've always found them to be one of the standout groups of that time. The music was slightly more progressive than its mainstream contemporaries like Arch Enemy, but still very accessible to that same crowd. Well in 2025, May the Bridge We Burn Light the Way sees this band fully embracing the cheesy side of the genre to its full potential. To me, I don't view this as much of a deterrent because Omnium Gatherum have been able to make solid music for just over two decades and now, not having to worry about being ostracized by the old guard, the synth leads and the strings and choir are more pronounced than ever before. Make no mistake, this record sounds cheesy as hell!

That being said, I can also see May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way as having a very solid base with strong choruses and excellent flow. The songwriting has become more streamlined and far less wasteful than on earlier albums. However, this can also be viewed as a downgrade since as a whole, the record feels quite safe; this album does not have a "White Palace" or "Deep Cold" on it. Now I can give Omnium Gatherum some leeway here; they are entering their third decade and innovation becomes less of a requirement after that much time. This feels like the "let it ride" album where Omnium Gatherum are contempt to stay from now until they eventually call it quits. I hope that isn't the case because I know that this band are capable of so much more, but as a single record, it's very good. 

To me, May the Bridge We Burn Light the Way is AOR metal...and that is as much of a compliment as it can be.

Best Songs: The Last Hero, The Darkest City, Ignite the Flame, Road Closed Ahead

Fuath was originally conceived as a one-off project by Saor's Andy Marshall when he released "I" back in 2016 as an outlet for an album of atmospheric black metal compositions that were more traditionally frostbitten and aggressive than the sweeping, celtic-themed, cinematic paeons to his Scottish homeland that was the usual output of Saor. He obviously felt he had more to say within that sub-sub-genre though because here at the dawning of 2026 the project is onto its third album, predictably entitled "III".

The first Fuath album was a raw-sounding sort of affair compared to his Saor material, with a fairly sparse and frosty production job, but the second had a much fuller sound and some symphonic touched which gave it a more epic feel, but at the cost of the icy edge feeling somewhat blunted. "III" sits nicely somewhere between the two with a frostier feel than the previous album, but with a sweeping, wintry majesty that reaches beyond the scope of "I", like an icier version of Saor.

With only four lengthy tracks featuring in its 43 minutes runtime, it is an album that is inevitably built on a certain degree of repetition. Marshall is such a great writer of black metal riffs and expansive, atmospheric flourishes, though, that the tracks never become boring, but fill the mind's eye with epic wintry scenes that leave the listener feeling awed and inspired, like a musical David Lean. For me, this has always been Marshall's strength, his ability to successfully convey his own obvious love of, and respect for, the natural world through his music to even the most jaded listener. That the man is also an eminently gifted musician as well as songwriter is proved by the fact that he plays all the instruments himself, including real, rather than programmed, drums.

This is probably my favourite of the three Fuath albums as it is a perfect blend of raw and frosty black metal and cinematic imagery, making deft use of synths to round out the sound with a little more subtlety than was employed on "II", yet when at its rawest it is a match even for the likes of Paysage d'Hiver (try "The Sluagh" for proof). Andy Marshall has, over the course of six Saor and three Fuath albums, earned the right to similar acclaim afforded to US atmo-black giants like Panopticon and Wolves in the Throne Room. Whilst Fuath has yet to provide an album quite as breathtaking as Saor's "Aura" or "Forgotten Paths", "III" has left me with the certainty that this is merely a matter of time.

I came into this record with only a very vague outline knowledge of Astarte having rated their Demonized album from 2007. As far as I am aware, tragedy struck the band when founding member Tristessa passed away in 2014 following complications from leukaemia. The band changed their name because of this back to Lloth which was their original name back in 1995. This once all-female band is now all male but dedicated to the memory of Tristessa. A decidedly much colder of black metal awaited me here than I was perhaps expecting from a Greek black metal band. Devoid of the Hellenic ‘warmth’ normally associated with that country, I soon found myself in the colder climes of Scandinavia instead.

Herein lies one of the problems with Rise from Within, it does very little to stand out from the crowd in its sound. It is all well played, if not that well-arranged at times, perfectly listenable black metal with a symphonic edge. However, it does lack memorability because of its chosen niche being already well-populated with other bands doing very similar things. My second issue is opening the album with an instrumental track that is so damn long! Those four-and-a-half-minutes need some vocals to keep me interested. The random switch to synth driven passages just adds to my confusion really.

The rest of the album has a couple of instrumentals littered throughout the track listing, but they are much shorter in duration and much more strategically placed in the middle and end of the record. What occurs in between shines much brighter, albeit in that coldest of lights, by way of comparison. It is almost as if there was a different band altogether recording tracks two through nine. Limited though the scope of the music may be, it is still well enough performed to give the rating a respectable mark overall. Kinthia’s vocals are suitably deranged for the style of music and the riffs and synths work well together, only the programmed drums get lost a bit in the mix but oddly I don’t notice this as much as I feared. I should probably go back to Demonized given I cannot believe they became so bad over seven years that they ended up at 2.5 rating after five albums.

Reading various reviews of Mercenary online, I soon found myself looking at two factions of opinion. Group one, believe that this is a perfectly respectable Bolt Thrower record. Group two, believe the production job killed this one entirely. Although I would also add that most of either camp seem to acknowledge that this is the weakest album in the discography. As I have listened through over the weekend, I can see both camps arguments as being valid. The production on Mercenary is muffled, although I have heard much worse, and it is unclear even after multiple listens whether the album lacks power in the performance or whether it is robbed by the production job. I am finding myself in the production camp at this stage of my experience of the record, based on the belief that there is enough classic Bolt Thrower in the sound still, all with some prowess and heft behind it too, but there is an obvious dulling of the absolutely unstoppable force that came across on the previous two albums.

Therein lies another topic of contention of course. After two absolute bangers in The IVth Crusade and …For Victory, could anything match the standard set by those two records? I suspect not, certainly given that of the three albums that followed …For Victory, only the final Bolt Thrower album, Those Once Loyal stands out as being a highlight. When all is said and done, 1994 was very much the band’s peak. Much is also made of the fact that Karl Willets left the band after Mercenary, citing a lack of commitment and financial pressures. I cannot say that there’s anything about Willet’s performance on Mercenary that makes me think his heart was not in it though. My belief is in fact that he was just as potent as ever, the production job for me is the guilty party in any perceived shortfall in this aspect of Mercenary.

If I had to pick the weakest album from the Bolt Thrower back catalogue, it would not be Mercenary. Yes, there are better albums in the band’s kitbag, but it is my fundamental belief that Mercenary suffers from poor (not terrible) production. I prefer it to Realm of Chaos which if I recall correctly suffers from the same affliction. My choice for the worst Bolt Thrower album would be Honour Valour Pride, notwithstanding that Bolt Thrower on a bad day could still produce death metal that most other bands still could never hold a candle too. I have increased my rating of Mercenary based on this revisit by a whole half a mark, albeit the performance I suspect is at least a further half a mark on top that gets robbed back by the production.

My interest in progressive melodeath has boosted up ever since encountering the perfect discography of An Abstract Illusion. It was a sign for me to revisit some earlier progressive melodeath bands that I enjoyed yet abandoned a few years ago. In Mourning might just be the place for me to start in my journey of redemption, since that was probably the band An Abstract Illusion reminded me the most of. And I'm glad that the first Infinite feature release of 2026 is their splendid new album, The Immortal!

The album was recorded throughout the late months of 2024 and the early months of 2025, following up from The Bleeding Veil released 4 years prior. The Immortal may just have the best sound from the band in many years, sounding so sonic and organic. I can already tell how well-written the album is, in big levels. Slight touches of black metal are added to enhance the cold darkness. It finally saw the light of day at that year's Summer end, released via Supreme Chaos Records. As emotional as their earlier material was, the emotion has reached its greatest height in their quarter-century tenure in this offering.

Of the 9 tracks in this album, the title opener is a moody one-minute intro. "Silver Crescent" blasts off with crushing progressive riffing. Then the vocals enter, as aggressive power is blended with melodic harmonies. "Song of the Cranes" is more progressive while keeping the structure in control. The heavy verses with harsh vocals and melodic chorus with clean singing are a mix that has been used by many bands before yet still sounding unique.

"As Long as the Twilight Stays" is more emotional. Clean sorrow comes in first before more of the intense distortion and vocals. "The Sojourner" is the album's first single. It's the perfect song for anyone up for a lot of aggression with some melody here and there. "Moonless Sky" is an ethereal ballad/interlude, a gentle calm in between storms.

"Staghorn" bites down with pure heaviness, all in the guitars and vocals. "North Star" is an aptly titled song for a somber night trek in the northern lands. The melody and heaviness appear where they need to be. I also like the catchy clean chorus. The 8-minute closing epic "The Hounding" starts slow and doomy then speeds up with all its emotional power. The growls and screams touch my metal heart, and the different riffs and twists keep me up for more. Fantastic!

Emotion reigns supreme in the brand-new In Mourning album. The Immortal hits hard with its aggression and lightening this up with its melody. It's likely the most powerful the band has sounded in years, and with that, let's hope their music stays immortal!

Favorites: "Silver Crescent", "Song of the Cranes", "The Sojourner", "Staghorn", "The Hounding"

Having established a more pagan and then viking metal sound since their 1997 album, Following the Voice of Blood, Graveland had fully established this style as their signature sound by the turn of the century and their fifth full length album, Creed of Iron. With Capricornus no longer on drums, Rob Darken truly was the sole creator of this record. Originally a five-track album, there exists a remastered version from 2009 that added two tracks to the end of the album making it over an hour long and it is this version that seems to be widely available on streaming services. Whichever version you find in front of yourself, it is not just the length of the record that makes it an epic experience. The tracks themselves are grandiose testimonies to the toils of war and the legendary battles of old, expansive and aggressive in equal parts.

The balance of the instrumentation is well maintained over the course of the album. It feels like each instrument gets a fair crack at the limelight with none being allowed to steal the show outright. As such there is a real sense of depth to Creed of Iron. It is not just about medieval sounding keys and the flourishes they are allowed to make; the riffs get just as much presence against the swell of these Middle Age atmospheres. Care sounds like it has been given in mixing these elements together to create an experience never feels artificial, simply put it is a very complementary record in terms of its composition.

Now, the artwork leaves a lot to be desired I will grant you. It certainly fits the battlefield billing of the record, but I would encourage anyone to not be too put off by the artwork in thinking that this represents a primitive album as this is clearly not the case within a few minutes of clicking/pressing play. Having listened to the extended version of the album also now, I do not think that the two additional tracks add anything remarkable to the album. In its original format, Creed of Iron is a perfectly solid viking/pagan bm record.

Like its predecessor, Lead and Aether has proven a great accompaniment on winter walks this weekend as the northwest of England sees its first snow of the season. That is not to say that this is a cold sounding record by any means, in fact I find the exact opposite experience to the record. To me this is the sickening warmth of a hug from the arms of death itself. It is comforting to witness, how I imagine the release of all worry, stress and adversity of life would feel at the very moment of conscious expiry of one’s existence. Far from finding the funereal keys and monolithic melodies oppressive, I take a great solace from this album, therefore.

This record plays as an instrumental in my head, the vocals are so low in the mix, consciously so I would guess, that I am almost ignorant them for much of the album. Normally I would find this as a negative point, a key missing feature almost, but here I think it works perfectly. Good funeral doom to me is about letting the music build the aesthetic and atmospheres, the vocals are just a complementary element in comparison. Equally, I think Skepticism got the placement of the drums correct here. Whilst not as absent from my mind as the vocals are, the drums provide the very definition of a subtle supporting role here. How many bands can say that they have successfully used drums o create space and atmosphere on a record?

There is always a danger that with such a minimalist approach to music, particularly extreme genres like this, that the recording can end up sounding amateur. I would argue that the opposite is in fact true here. This sounds like a thoroughly professional album, composed with care and thought for overall arrangement. Maintaining that gloomy warmth for me over the entire album duration is a real win here, but there are a couple of moments where tracks seem to end up a little disjointed (album closer, ‘Aether’ stands out for this) which just takes the perfect score aware from an otherwise brilliant release.

I'd say this is one of my favorite releases from the Florida death metal scene. It has pretty intricate, interesting sound, a somewhat cosmic vibe and a technical tinge that makes it standout from your Morbid Angels and Deaths. The album also has some creative decisions like duet vocals and non-metal interludes which makes the record as a whole distinguishable. The production is pretty much top tier for it's time and the composition/riffage is great, but a bit lacking in memorability. This is one of those releases that I remember liking a lot, but can't really recall any song in particular, and that is what really keeps me from giving an extra half-star.

Andrew Jay Harris cuts a lonely figure in the already isolative world of black metal. In 2002 when he confirmed that Judas Iscariot was no more, he had already given the band’s albums back to the labels who released them and took no money in return, asking that any money be put back into the underground. When he played his last show with the band in 2000, he dedicated "The Black Clouds Roll Under the Parapet of the Sky" (from the “Distant in Solitary Night” album from 1999) to "the destruction of the capitalist scum who tried to destroy black metal." This EP from the same year as that final performance (released just 3 months later) is once again largely performed by Akhenaten himself, except for the drums that Cryptic Winter (Duane Timlin) is credited with delivering.

Anyone familiar with Judas Iscariot will find similar fare over these five tracks when compared with the rest of the discography. Judas Iscariot’s sound is cold, ice cold, with cymbals that sound like discs of frozen water being shattered each time they are struck. The drums on their own are a vicious assault to contend with, even before we get to the scathing attack of the guitar and harsh, abrasive and gloriously grim vocals. However, take time dear listener to marvel at the slowly decaying pace of the instrumental track, ‘March Upon a Mighty Throne’ that revels in drab and dank majesty before the chaos of a “Special Blitzkrieg” version of ‘Spill the Blood of the Lamb’ from the “Heaven in Flames” album (1999) rounds off what feels like a really short twenty-one-minutes.

Legendary death doom outfit, Cianide are one of my criminally underrated bands with them rarely getting anywhere near as much spin time as they deserve. This EP coming up in the feature release section this month has been a timely kick up the arse to remedy that for a few hours at least. Unhumanized is only a shade under twenty-six-minutes long and perhaps is not the Chicago trio at their absolute best, yet it is still a bruising and entertaining affair to listen to.

Coming out thirty-one-years after the band first got together, Unhumanized has the hallmarks of an established and mature band. The riffing sounds perfectly crafted and richly performed to accentuate the crunch and groove of the guitar of Scott Carroll. For a band with only one guitarist, he is clearly more than enough, and the mix lets him sit front and centre in proceedings alongside the barking of vocalist Mike Perun. The percussion is less prominent than the guitar and vocals but still does a fantastic job in the background. Check out the punky vibes on the title track for an example of how this is not just a standard death metal release.

Offering some of the best in extreme metal that the underground has to offer, Cianide give a decent enough acquittal of themselves on this release to pique the interest of any fan wanting to go and look at their earlier work. With a discography going all the way back to 1992 when their debut record dropped, this taster of the modern Cianide has enough of their familiar sound to tie it back to their earlier releases. Love me a short EP every now and again to whet the appetite for some further death metal listening afterwards.

Italian speed metallers Bulldozer have never featured very highly in my listening within the realms of The Pit clan. Whilst I would not put their limited airplay down to any problem they present to me, at the same time, I cannot pretend to have ever been overwhelmingly entertained by any of the stuff I have listened to from them. The Final Separation doesn’t put a foot wrong as such, yet nor does it tread anywhere particularly new or even influential either. At times reminiscent of Venom (‘The Cave’) whilst on other occasion being just as close to Motörhead, the album lacks any of the rhythmic riffs that would steer it in the direction of thrash metal and as a result I would suggest the thrash metal tag is irrelevant for this album.

If you a connoisseur of eighties speed metal, then The Final Separation probably holds more sway for you than it does with me after over three decades of listening to metal; I left this sound behind a long while ago I feel. Whilst I am not alien to humour in my metal music, tracks like ‘Don Andras’ are just juvenile to my ears these days. Serving only to break up the otherwise very similar tempos of tracks to this point, this song has little value and stinks of filler.

With, ‘Never Relax’ at least offering some hope of variety for the second half of the album, I could have been forgiven for thinking I was being a little too harsh on the first few tracks. It is cumbersome though and feels pieced together as opposed to a free-flowing track. ‘Don’t Trust the Saint’ is the nearest to thrash metal we get to on the album, but it bounces more than it chops and my interest soon wanes. Final track ‘The Death of Gods’ grumbles some promise of an epic closure to the album, however this is soon lost in an overly grandiose soundscape that pushes my interest onto other things in the room.

The new Lychgate album is likely the last new release in metal that we'll ever get before the new year dawns. And with only over 24 hours before it becomes 2026 in my country, I thought this would be the right album to check out as the clock is ticking down. It's probably the most experimental album of the year, and one that further shows how well I can keep up in The North despite that clan being the least likely for me to ever join.

You want extreme progressive metal more twisting than a supermassive black hole? It's all in this album Precipice! What we have here is the deathly progressive metal of Opeth blended with the avant-garde black metal of Dodheimsgard. Rhythm and melody are covered within heavy riffing, clean leads, and classical keys. The vocals are pretty much what to expect in extreme metal, including chaotic growls and screams. It is also lyrically based on the philosophical works of Forster, Wells, and Eliot, specifically the dark bleakness of humanity's dependence on machines.

The intro of this 9-track album, "The Sleeper Awaits" sets everything up in a haunting fashion, as heard in the piano and orchestration. "Mausoleum of Steel" crashes in with dark aggression balanced out with progressiveness. The devilish harsh vocals in front of the orchestration and metal is so strange yet tempting. "Renunciation" is even darker, further into the center of the world. Leads and vocals unite for a dissonant sound alongside the bass and drums. It's truly a beast lurking in the shadows!

"The Meeting of Orion and Scorpio" turns into clean light tainted by eeriness. Seems like the beast is having its rest. "Hive of Parasites" is a spooky progressive 10-minute epic. It may take some time for listeners to get used to what's going on, but when you do, you can fully embrace it as it embraces you. The vocals stay harsh throughout this cavernous quest. "Death's Twilight Kingdom" has some piano and bass in the intro before the metal beast moves again. Everything keeps changing before you can get a sense of what's happening, like something appears, disappears, and reappears.

"Terror Silence" has a more straight structure that's easy to understandable. Still they have the Opeth-like aspect of shapeshifting riffing. "Anagnorisis" adds to the album's lyrical focus of discovering the true existence of someone else rather than your own. Everything's so dark and deadly, and for me, it's my sweet dessert. Doom is impending... And it comes in "Pangaea". For just 3 short minutes, you feel the black hole engulf you in darkness and death. Then before long, your journey ends on a satisfying note.

Like the edge of a cliff that the album title means, Precipice will give you the feeling of hanging on to your life. It's an experience so unsettling yet pleasant. And in the end, it's all worth leveling up your metal soul!

Favorites: "Mausoleum of Steel", "Renunciation", "Hive of Parasites", "Death's Twilight Kingdom", "Anagnorisis"