Category: Reviews

  • Jay Gorania’s SXSW 2010 – Part 1

    Austin’s 6th Street area is the performance location for much of the musical side of South by Southwest—a massive interactive, film and music conference and festival. Historically, unsigned bands came to get noticed by suit ’n tie record label reps; however as it has evolved, signed underground and mainstream bands have dominated showcases, and schmoozin’…

  • DoomDogs – s/t

    DoomDogs is a fair solid slab of thud-rock. I’d go so far as to say that, from the opening bombardier riff of “Fight the Greed”, DoomDogs is a notch or two above a lot of doom records I’ve subjected myself to lately.

  • Impetuous Ritual – Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence

    Despite the fact that the album title reads as if Impetuous Ritual chose it using Death Metal Mad Libs, this album is anything but random in concept and performance. No, this soul-rending slab of doom-laced death metal is a calculated carnage machine of the first order. Tate Bengston reviews the new album by Portal side-project…

  • Helix @ Legendary Red Rooster, Burlington ON, March 27, 2010

    Helix has been known in the metal scene since the mid 80’s and has over the years made some incredible tracks. They played a good chunk of them Saturday night and it made for one hell a perfect night. Checking out this band live is a must for any metal fan into the 80’s scene.…

  • Ratt – Infestation

    I wasn’t expecting much from this album but am mildly impressed with a lot of the songwriting – full of huge hooks, great guitar work and of course Pearcy’s voice. Ratt brings back the classic sound of the 80s with great songwriting and great guitar solos but still for the most part inject some modern…

  • Tjolgtjar – Ikarikitomidun, Lord Of The Forest

    Do not expect anything hi-fi from this Illinois based one man band of a rare breed of music that barely reaches the tolerable low-fi standard due to production that is more raw than that of early records from Satyricon and Darkthrone.

  • Scorpions – Sting In The Tail

    Regardless of whatever commercial success this final album brings for them, the band’s attempted to recapture their past glories and I’ll give them their due propers for it. Put it this way: If you cut your teeth on albums like Blackout or Love At First Sting, I’d hazard a guess that you’ll dig this record…

  • Ludicra – The Tenant

    I’m new to Ludicra. Bad timing kept me from even checking out their live show opening for Hammers of Misfortune last summer. The Tenant has convinced me I’ve got some catching up to do.

  • Immortal / Eclipse Eternal / Panzerfaust @ The Opera House, Toronto, ON, March 27, 2010

    Immortal never failed to acknowledge the momentous occasion that their appearance was for the diehards in the crowd. From their frequent praising of the crowd to Abbath’s invocation of fan worship during “Tyrants,” the band’s antics never failed to garner overly-excited cheers from fans who had obviously been long bursting a gut to see their…

  • Postcards From Natalie Zed, Part 2

    Hellbound readers, remember Natalie Zed? Natalie was our big grand prize winner back in January, taking home more than 50 CDs + and shortly after she received her huge box ‘o CDs, Ms. Zed asked us over at Hellbound HQ if we’d be interested in running reviews of her winnings if she did postcard sized…