Category: Reviews

Suffering Hour ‒ Dwell Review

Suffering Hour’s full length debut, 2017’s In Passing Ascension, was a dark but often entrancingly melodic collection of blackened death metal that bared no small resemblance to The Chasm. That is, The Chasm if they …

Smoulder – Times Of Obscene Evil And Wild Daring Review

Heavy metal cover art has an occasional tendency to overbill the music it represents. Take, for instance, the spectacularly phantasmagorical cover of the last Bell Witch album, Mirror Reaper. That cover promises an otherworldly mind-fuck, …

Dark Horse – Ideation EP Premiere And Review

You can sum up the music of Australian punk band Dark Horse in seven simple words: pure intensity, distilled to its rawest essence. To be honest, I’m going to say a few more words than …

Grey Aura – 2: De Bezwijkende Deugd Review

There’s no shortage of crabby old-school black metal fans who would like you to believe that the scene as a whole has strayed so far from the original recipe that it’s hardly worth acknowledging enthusiasm …

Deafkids – Metaprogramação Review

Let’s begin with a pair of tentative maxims: 1) If you only ever look for the new—the cutting edge, the bold, the progressive, the iconoclastic—in music, you are likely a sad-hearted doofus who has never …

Inter Arma – Sulphur English Review

Straight to the point: Sulphur English is the darkest and most brutal record that Inter Arma has made yet. It is also far less immediate than albums like Sky Burial and Paradise Gallows. Immediacy is …

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Isotope – Self-Titled Review

[Cover Illustration by Adam Kindred] There is plenty of great metal starting to seep through the cracks here in 2019, and a bunch of it is getting reviewed right here at Last Rites. But for …

NIXA – Opus Tierra Review

Metal is made up of certain characteristics, just like life itself. A bird is not just a flying dinosaur—it is a specific kind of animal defined by a LOT of characteristics. Same with a snake …