Category: Features

Diamonds & Rust: 40 Years Of Metallica’s No Life Til Leather

The year is 1981: The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal is cresting, its full force crashing across the globe. The wave’s godfathers, Judas Priest, are the biggest heavy metal band in the world, having …

Knoll – Metempiric Review

Fast Rites: because sometimes brevity is fundamental. The human brain likes familiarity and therefore it’s only natural to try to draw comparisons between bands when hearing a new one for the first time. Upon a …

Staff Infections – July 2022

It’s time once again, dear readers, to gape in awe at the Last Rites staff’s sublime taste in music. Don’t gape too long, though. Instead, take notes, so that one day, with the right amount …

Missing Pieces: The Best Of What We Missed In 2022 So Far, Vol. 3

This is the final installment of our annual mid-year wrap-up, compiling our hand-selected best of the records we somehow neglected to cover during the first half of 2022. You should’ve already read Parts 1 and …

Missing Pieces: The Best Of What We Missed In 2022 So Far, Vol. 2

This is Vol. 2 of our annual mid-year wrap-up, compiling our hand-selected best of the records we somehow neglected to cover during the first half of 2022. You should’ve already read Part 1, but if …

Missing Pieces: The Best Of What We Missed In 2022 So Far, Vol. 1

Once upon a time in the MetalReview Dot Com Days Ov Yore, this crew of particularly persnickety prickly pears would review everything sent to the email inbox (or PO box). It’s unfathomable to think of …

Track Premiere: Exaltation – “Ascension”

New Zealand’s Exaltation have been smoldering in reclusion since releasing their first demo back in 2017.  A promising slab of putrid death that falls somewhere between the demonic symphonies of Incantation and the punchier attack …

Diamonds & Rust: Sepultura – Beneath The Remains

[Cover artwork: Nightmare in Red, by the incomparable Michael Whelan] It’s a wild and wonderful world that accommodates a single band that not only finds great success playing contrasting styles of heavy music, but they …