Category: Reviews
Saille – Ritu Review
As a style, symphonic black metal is generally theatrical, grandiose, and (without necessarily implying fault) often quite pompous. It isn’t exactly a sub-genre known for scaling it back. That made Irreversible Decay, the debut from …
Valborg – Nekrodepression Review
German (and Central European) metal has always contained a notable strain of off-kilter innovators. Sure, the careers of Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom have been staked on aggressive but mostly straightforward thrash, but one also must …
Suffocation – Pinnacle Of Bedlam Review
Let’s get one thing clear: Suffocation is, without a doubt, one of the greatest death metal bands in the history of our rotten, festering world. This is, as the Dothraki say, known. But consistent and wholly …
Atriarch – Ritual Of Passing Review
Portland’s harrowing, blackened, gloomy deathrock outfit Atriarch announced itself quite suddenly with 2011’s debut Forever the End. As good as that first album was, though, it finds itself happily eclipsed in all respects by the …
Voivod – Target Earth Review
Originally written by Matt Longo Every Voivod album is a career-defining event — each with its own aura of life and death, tribulations and triumph, exploration and evolution. Considering my penchant for the weird, I …
Destruction – Spiritual Genocide Review
The Butcher’s back once more… Spiritual Genocide is album number thirteen for these German thrashers, and its release coincides with their thirtieth anniversary. Though they may be getting a bit long in them, when they …
Attic – The Invocation Review
Birth in a cemetery or GTFO. One of the key factors any long-time fan of King Diamond will quickly highlight when attempting to explain their indestructible enthusiasm for the man’s varied works is the inherent …
Kowloon Walled City – Container Ships Review
Originally written by Jordan Campbell Sludge is one of the laziest, most stagnant subgenres in heavy metal today. Plagued by predictable compositions and gormless bellowing, it’s been mired in an amateurish rut for years. Sure, …