Heruvim – Battle For Cimmeria Review
Ukraine’s Heruvim burst into the scene ‒ and our 2022 EP list ‒ with last year’s beastly Shadowheart. They showed a massive affinity towards Edge of Sanity (the melody, the gargantuan riffs, the deep growls) …
Garoted – Bewitchment Of The Dark Ages Review
[Cover art by Misanthropic-Art] The quickest way to find out if you’re likely to enjoy the third full length from Nebraska’s Garoted, Bewitchment Of The Dark Ages, is to answer some very simple questions. Those …
Spinebreaker – Cavern Of Inoculated Cognition Review
[Cover art by Brad Moore] We’re now coming up on about 40 years since the earliest, most primitive forms of extreme metal sprouted up from the soil of metal’s first decade-plus, and in all those …
Pestifer – Defeat Of The Nemesis Review
[Cover art by David Caryn] Nothing quite reminds you of the vastness of the musical universe like finding a new-to-you band that is decidedly not new. My initial spin of Pestifer’s new EP Defeat of …
Altari – Kröflueldar Review
[Cover art by Altari guitarist K.R.Guðmundsson] In the press materials for Kröflueldar, the full length debut from Iceland’s Altari, the band jokes that because the record took nine years to make, they named it after …
Enslaved – Heimdal Review
Greetings and god Fredag. This is a journey into sound. And sounds. And time, and shifting perceptions, and journeys (journeys of journeys), and our relationship to all of these things, but mostly to sounds. And …
Majesties – Vast Reaches Unclaimed Review
[Cover art by Juanjo Castellano] The short version: If you’re a melodeath fan, don’t buy the supposed return-to-form new record from In Flames, which is really a Korny-chorus-heavy Sounds of a Playground Fading wolf in …
Frozen Dawn – The Decline Of The Enlightened Gods Review
With all due respect to the late Mariusz Lewandowski and the art chosen to adorn the cover of Frozen Dawn’s fourth record, The Decline of the Enlightened Gods, it’s a mite off for this sound. …