Cryptorium – Descent Into Lunacy Review
We’re nearing the end of 2024. Minds collectively swimming. Gasping for air. The 50-odd records we’re still getting to know in one hand. The few records we’ve decided are our anchor this year in the …
Ensiferum – Winter Storm Review
Maybe you’re one of those unfortunate souls whose attention was drawn elsewhere when Ensiferum’s Thalassic redrew the folk metal band’s boundaries ever so slightly in 2020 – unfortunate because that slight boundary push reinvigorated a …
Oxygen Destroyer – Guardian Of The Universe Review
One of the many admirable qualities of the PNW-based METAL (all caps purposeful) band Oxygen Destroyer is its near equal adherence to both aesthetic and evolution. The band sounded every bit like graduates of the …
200 Stab Wounds – Manual Manic Procedures Review
From Maggot Stamp to Metal Blade in four short years, 200 Stab Wounds are – like Sanguisugabogg, Frozen Soul, and Undeath – riding a wave of seemingly renewed interest in simple slabs. Or perhaps the …
Lucifer’s Hammer – Be And Exist Review
Maiden-inspired bands are a dime a dozen. Rarer are the more directly inspired Maiden bands – you know, the ones that actually sound like Maiden – playing at a level as high as Chile’s Lucifer’s …
Achelous – Tower Of High Sorcery Review
Achelous’s The Icewind Chronicles seemingly came from nowhere. Charming, I called it, back in the yesteryear that was 2022. Icewind was a strikingly confident and engaging collection of songs that felt, if nothing else, lovingly …
Witch Vomit – Funeral Sanctum Review
From the bookend EPs Poisoned Blood in 2017 to Abhorrent Rapture in 2021, Witch Vomit has been a good and sometimes great band. I don’t own a ton of death metal on vinyl, but I …
Ecclesia – Ecclesia Militans Review
As Ecclesia would tell it, their sound recalls Candlemass, Solstice, and Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath. And, yes—all of that is true. But there’s also something more going on here. It’s that something more that sold …