Tag: AFM Records
Pyramaze – Bloodlines Review
Bloodlines is modern Pyramaze distilled—catchy and frequently poppy melodic metal, with faint hints of the band’s proggier early years. Granted, that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, particularly those whose affinity for the band begins …
Saint Deamon – League Of The Serpent Review
By comparison, the four-year gap between this, Saint Deamon’s fourth album, and the band’s last album, Ghost, pales in comparison to the ten-year gap between recordings from 2009 to 2019. Yet it still feels far …
Brainstorm – Wall Of Skulls Review
A familiar voice is sometimes just enough pick-me-up. Now having Brainstormed for 22 years, Andy B. Franck is that familiar voice to many. More importantly, he’s that familiar voice to me. Franck was the voice …
Missing Pieces: The Best Of What We Missed In 2021 So Far, Volume 3
This is Part 3 of our 2021 Missing Pieces series, in which we offer praise to some great stuff we missed during the initial press cycles. Have a gander at Part 1 and Part 2 …
Bloodbound – Creatures Of The Dark Realm Review
Bloodbound have quietly amassed a good but not great discography. So while Creatures of the Dark Realm is the band’s ninth full-length album, experience speaks less to quality than to commitment to craft. That isn’t …
Firewind – Firewind Review
Few would argue against the point that the true heart of power metal is fun. Powerful fun. Triumphant fun. Escapist fun. Uplifting, unbridled fun. The fun, even when delivered in half-baked and stock songs, is …
Missing Pieces 2019: The Best Of What We’ve Missed So Far, Part 2
Here at Last Rites, we listen to a metric shit-ton of heavy metal—it’s just what we do. But every year there’s so much great metal that we simply don’t have time to cover it all… …