Horror and death metal is just as much comfort food for me as peanut butter and jelly is for others. It just goes so well together, that it’s impossible not to do the brutal combination. Heads For The Dead have crept back out from their catacombs to deliver their blood and a venom-soaked third full-length album, The Great Conjuration (Transcending Obscurity).Continue reading
In the two (plus!) decades since their inception, it seems that Tasmanian death metallers Psycroptic have simultaneously had their plaudits and yet also feel like an underrated act, especially considering their ascent in their recent albums. Whilst 2003’s The Scepter of the Ancients was an early career high point, it wasn’t until 2015’s self titled effort (and first on current label Prosthetic) where they began to show themselves again amongst the upper echelon of bands in their field. If this was an arguable statement previously, Divine Council is the album that makes it a certainty.
The contradictions of crafting an album using the very technologies and processes the band had previously railed against are but one small element of the complicated and interesting layers that make up Artificial Devices, the self-released second full-length composition of London duo Andrei Alan (guitars/bass/programming) and Chris Bevan Lee (keys/vocals/programming) collectively known as The Ever Living (I promised myself no Mumm-ra comments, but here I am in the intro… I can’t help it, every time I see the band name…).
Trying to crack the shell that is Greylotus is like the struggle of explaining the inner workings of the Holy Roman Empire in three sentences.Continue reading
Strap yourselves in, folks.
Exocrine, the progressive technical death metal goliaths hailing from France have penned an absolutely earth-shattering colossus that redefines the term “heavy” and wholeheartedly challenged this author to find enough synonyms to accurately depict the sheer destructive chaos The Hybrid Suns (Unique Leader) leaves in its wake.
Australians know a thing or two about Pop Punk, and DeathFuckingCunt are no strangers to the scene, with their hummable hooks and heart-warming verses.
Of course not.
Carcass is closing the books on their Spring tour with Immolation and Creeping Death this week. Starting out in Austin, Texas and culminating at what might be the final Maryland Deathfest, I caught up to them at The Vogue in Indianapolis.
Tómarúm is a band tailor-made for extensive, elaborate compositions, overflowing with equal parts technicality and atmospherics. The Georgia-based progressive black metal group put the general public on notice with their scintillating debut full-length, Ash In Realms Of Stone Icons (Prosthetic). Just as each glance at the album cover (courtesy of Mariusz Lewandowski) presents new findings, so to does each listen trigger new emotions.Continue reading
A night of heavy metal descended upon the intimate Brooklyn venue, Sovereign Smokehouse, as technical death metal five-piece Cognitive kicked off their tour, rolling into town with fellow New Jersey death metallers Hath and two New York City bands, Moniasin, and Torturous Inception.
This is the most New York show I’ve been to in a long while. It felt like one big local show. That’s what happens when all five bands come from here. That being said, this show started earlier, doors at the renovated Irving Plaza were at 6 pm. or 1800 for non-Americans. Every few steps you ran into someone you knew. I saw a lot of faces that this was their first show since you know what. It’s rare to see in metal shows nowadays but this show had a host! Bassist extraordinaire, Dan Lilker from Nuclear Assault and Brutal Truth fame. MCed the whole night.