Tag Archives: metal album reviews

ALBUM REVIEW: Darkthrone – It Beckons Us All

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Darkthrone has been long associated with being “True Norweigan Black Metal” but has not made any attempt to adhere to this expectation of them since 2004’s “Sardonic Wrath”. Instead, the band has circled its wagons around crust punk and wandered off Celtic Frost worship. “It Beckons Us All…” (Peaceville Records) finds the band perfecting the traditional metal path they first embarked on with “The Underground Resistance”. Now 11 years later the duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto are done obsessing over their record collection and have focused on writing headbanging anthems that cold a touch of melody and mystery.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Atræ Bilis – Aumicide

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There are two dead giveaways that Atræ Bilis have something very, very weird in their back pocket.

Released by the continuously boundary-blurring 20 Buck Spin, Aumicide’s cover artwork is something that, let’s just say, probably shouldn’t be focused on too long whilst at work or in a public setting. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Glassing – From the Other Side of the Mirror

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Hailing from Austin, Texas, Glassing is an intriguing band who have released some quality music across the albums Light and Death (2017), Spotted Horse (2019), and Twin Dream (2021). They’ve always shown that they are not one to be musically pigeonholed, as they convey a wide range of sounds from Post Metal to Hardcore, Sludge to Black Metal while often breaking up the chaos with moments of drone atmospherics. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Engulfed – Unearthly Litanies of Despair

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Death metal has always been a very hit-or-miss subgenre for me but most of it I do appreciate it. In good news, I have been listening to the new Engulfed album, Unearthly Litanies of Despair (Me Saco Un Ojo/Dark Descent Records), and it is certainly a hit and not a miss. Just shy of forty minutes, the four-piece from Turkey slams and shreds their way through your cranium. Just the right mixture of grimy OSDM and technical fretwork gives this album some replayability.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Couch Slut – You Could Do It Tonight

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How many times have you heard a band described as genuinely “unsettling” to listen to? In all honesty, this scribe in question has probably described a few in writing as such. Well, more than likely those acts cannot come even close to the nauseating realism, punishing content and sonic barrage of New York’s Couch Slut over the last few years.

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ALBUM REVIEW: BIG|BRAVE – A Chaos Of Flowers

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Hot on the heels of 2023’s excellent Nature Morte, experimental doomgazers BIG|BRAVE release their sixth full-length record, A Chaos Of Flowers (Thrill Jockey Records). Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: High On Fire – Cometh The Storm

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Six years (where did that time go?) after their Grammy award-winning album Electric Messiah, comes High On Fire’s latest effort Cometh The Storm (MNRK heavy). Gone is the ferocious, Thrash-like assault of the last album, replacing it is their trademark sludgy, Stoner Metal, but with a broadened palette. Can this record live up to its revered predecessor? Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: The Ghost Inside – Searching For Solace

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Twenty years into their existence, Metalcore prize fighters The Ghost Inside look, feel, and sound as good as they ever have. Searching For Solace (Epitaph Records) the sixth installment in the band’s catalog, is not only a de facto extension of the emotionally driven self-titled album; it’s purposeful, tight, and as good a case as any that TGI are (still) at the height of their career.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Replicant – Infinite Mortality

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Okay, I openly confess, I may have dropped the ball. But what do you mean, you ask? Well, there’s a long laundry list of brain farts on my part so I should clarify. Apologies to a couple of ex-girlfriends beforehand as said list includes my lack of communication. That out of the way, I’m shocked that it took this long for Replicant to come to my attention. This Garden State unit has been around for 10 years so you would think that my decades-long travels on the heavy music highway would have warranted a listen or two. But thankfully on Infinite Mortality (Transcending Obscurity Records) I’m correcting the oversight.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Imminence – The Black

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Arising from Trelleborg, Sweden, the ambitious quintet Imminence continues to reinvent Metalcore with their new album The Black. The group is known for breaking the genre’s boundaries with their use of violin and combining classical arrangements with breakdowns, blast beats and cataclysmic vocals. While Metal and Classical is one of the last combinations you would ever expect to hear, the band has always blurred the lines seamlessly between the styles. However, with this album, the Classical is more prominent than ever, while somehow making the Metal aspects hit an even deeper part of the soul for an almost spiritual experience. Continue reading →