Do you remember the scene in Ridley Scott’s Alien in which Harry Dean Stanton’s (RIP) Brett gets offed by the titular space invader? Our younger readers may want to pull that up on YouTube, but the reason I ask is because the grimy, damp and claustrophobic set design on display matches the aesthetic that Ossuarium is serving up on Living Tomb (20 Buck Spin). Brief, almost acoustic passages come in here and there, but for most of its run time, Living Tomb lives up to its moniker.Continue reading
Featuring, at various times past and present, former members of Opeth, Testament, Death, Willowtree, and Sadus, Swedish Progressive Metallers Soen are one of that rare breed of ‘supergroup’ that actually makes good music and isn’t just a disappointing ego trip. Soen have spent their career balancing Tool atmospherics and Opeth’s staccato shredding and clean moments to create a style all of their own that is full of light and shade and a back catalogue filled with quality. With their fourth album, Lotus (Silver Lining) the band have crafted their most enjoyable record yet.Continue reading
For the better part of the past six years, Hull’s Mastiff has been slowly festering in the underbelly of the UK’s underground scene. A handful of demos and 2016’s Wrank set expectations for the band to become mainstays of any grotty pub or club gig you’d care to attend, and Plague (APF Records) continues their trend of spreading as much abject misery as musically possible.Continue reading
Suffering from writers’ block after an exhausting touring cycle, Within Temptation singer Sharon den Adel found herself devoid of inspiration and worrying that she might not be able to write again. Eventually, she did begin composing once more, but on a smaller scale and for a more personal solo project released earlier this year.Continue reading
Those of you with a keen ear to the underground Metal scene will doubtless already be familiar with Metallic Hardcore outfit Ithaca. Whilst it has been several years in its genesis, The Language Of Injury (Holy Roar) is the band’s full-length debut and, if the cliché that good things come to those who wait still has any relevance and cache at the start of 2019, then it most assuredly can be used here to welcome this record of brutal, uncompromising beauty.Continue reading
Four and a half years ago Svart Records released a saucy devil of an EP named Ritual Rites, the first offering from US/Europe hybrid The Sabbathian. Heavy anticipation followed: in fact, everything was expected apart from the resounding silence that followed.Continue reading
wars, unbeknownst to me, are from my own stomping ground of Rugby in the Midlands area of England. Their debut album, 2017’s We Are Islands After All (Spinefarm), offered up a lot of promise and it’s time to see if their new EP, As Within /// So Without (Wolf At Your Door), can build and then expand on the debut.Continue reading
My guess is that Altarage just aren’t fans of people in general. Not in the way I claim to dislike people when I’m hungover on an early Monday morning, but in the I-wouldn’t-mind-if-humanity-just-totally-ceased-existing kind of way. One listen to their third LP The Approaching Roar(Season of Mist) is all I needed to feel convinced that Altarage doesn’t care for me or my eardrums.Continue reading
It came as quite a shock when legendary Danish frontman King Diamond had to step away from music in 2010 to undergo triple heart-bypass surgery. Thankfully, just a couple of short years later, the rejuvenated frontman returned to the stage in all his corpse-painted, theatrical grandeur, choosing to keep his focus on touring rather than making an immediate return to the studio.Continue reading
In a sense, this review finds itself in an onerous position. Recorded in the wake of Finnish singer Aleah Stanbridge’s death, its subject marks the return to the music of her partner, Juha Raivio, and his Epic Goth Metal band, Swallow The Sun. In fact, the press release goes so far as to describe the new album, When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light (Century Media), as being “fuelled by personal loss and powered by the will to continue.”Continue reading