Author: Justin Allec
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Staff picks & playlists: end of summer edition
Another round of playlists and picks from the Hellbound team. In this edition we look back on our soundtracks for the summer (or, in one case, winter) that was and forward to the new season ahead with some recommendations and anticipation. Justin Allec Summer Listening: Khemmis – Absolution Tau Cross Deceased – Surreal Overdose Amorphis…
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Gruesome – Savage Land
How much do you love Chuck Schuldiner’s legendary band Death? How much do you love that primal, teeth-rattlin’, gut-churning death metal that Chuck helped wretch out of the Florida muck? If there is love, the actual, physical need to listen to Death’s first few albums routinely, then does that love extend to wishing that there…
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Tribulation – Children of the Night
On Tribulation’s third album, The Children of the Night, the Swedish quartet follows metal’s obsession with horror much further than their peers. On their past albums, 2009’s Swedish death explosion The Horror, followed by horse-sized hallucinogen The Formulas of Death in 2013, Tribulation showed they were onto a form of death metal as exciting as…
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Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors
Fair warning: Crooked Doors, the second full-length from Atlanta’s Royal Thunder, contains at least three songs that will burn into your unconsciousness with the ease of candy-coated crack to haunt your waking and un-waking hours. I wish someone would have warned me, but there’s little time – it happens almost instantly. The first song, “Time…
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Gorelust – We are the Undead
Maybe we’re not missing out after all. Twenty years late, Gorelust are following up their debut album with We are the Undead. After struggling to make a go of it in the deepening death metal pool of the mid-90s, the band dissolved for the usual reasons. Nevertheless, the story goes that about half of the…
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Merdarahta – As the Dark Clouds Swept Away We Could See the Sunset
Winter, enough with your frost-bitten black metal. We’ve been hanging out since the fall, but it’s time for some sun. Thankfully, a bit of that desired heat comes from this collaboration between members of Fuck the Facts and The Sun Through a Telescope. Starting at a whisper and building to an earth-swallowing roar before resting in…
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Marduk – Frontschwein
There’s such a thing as a regular Marduk album. Regular Marduk albums fit the template for the frosty second wave of black metal and are usually pretty good. There are twelve previous albums and, even if guitarist Morgan is the sole remaining original member, the band has a sound and a developed quality. They’ve remained…
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Black Khox – AKAB
First impressions, people. This four-piece out of Quebec City have a name that should make them a pornogrind band. That’s unfortunate, because: I hate pornogrind and will avoid it; I totally judge bands based on their chosen moniker; and, I now have to describe what Black Khox sounds like. (Eww.) Once I made it past…
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Sangus – Saevitia EP
In ten minutes, Rhode Island’s five-piece Sangus accomplishes everything I could want from an unholy-blackened crust-core EP. Whirling poisonous clouds of tremolo guitars breaking out into screeching solos? Frantic, blasting drums? A vocalist hell-bent on spewing war-chants instead of words? Yeah, all there, and all tied to the mission statement of “get in, fuckin’ destroy,…
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BEST OF 2014 – our contributors’ top Canadian picks (individual lists)
Here are our contributors’ individual picks for best Canadian metal albums of 2014. Happy new year from Hellbound.ca! Justin Allec Beyond Creation – Earthborn Evolution (Season of Mist) Nuclearhammer – Serpentine Hermetic Lucifer (Nuclear War Now!) Menace Ruine – Venus Armata (Profound Lore) Viathyn – Cynosure (indie) Culted – Oblique to all Paths (Relapse)…