Category: Reviews

  • Drudkh – Autumn Aurora

    [Autumn Aurora] is an album that, listening to it now in retrospect, both continued and solidified the group’s pagan and nature themes and thick, heavy sound.

  • Village of Dead Roads – Desolation Will Destroy You

    Village of Dead Roads are well versed in the sludge of Crowbar and EHG, along with “post-sludge” bands like Neurosis, while mixing elements of death doom and the atmospheric black metal stuff that’s all the rage these days.

  • Aenaon – Phenomenon

    Phenomenon is bound to please fans of all things Emperor, including Ihsahn and Zyklon, a very well-executed blackened death metal hybrid that’s in and out in less than half an hour.

  • Vampire Mooose – The Reel

    This is one of those bands where the record label really had to work on their press release. There was a bit of anticipation when The Reel is described as ‘unrelenting’ and ‘unique’ when it is actually a pretty bland collection of death / metal core tunes in which there is nothing that really stands…

  • Shining – VI Klagopsalmer

    Klagopsalmer is a surprisingly warm production in spite of its black metal core. That also means that, despite the band’s dark, depressive, even suicidal reputation, the record is not nearly as nihilistic or grim as you might expect.

  • Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe 2 – Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls And The Systematic Dehumanization Of Cool

    For the first time in years, Hellbilly Deluxe 2 sees Rob Zombie playing and interacting with other musicians on tracks that actually sound like new songs rather than a set of reconstituted remixes. After the tone gets set by “Jesus Frankenstein” – which sounds a bit like an overture for the proceedings and echoes “Sawdust…

  • Orphaned Land – The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR

    It has been a long six years since the release of Orphaned Land’s landmark album, Mabool, an album that continues to amaze me with its beautiful combination of Middle Eastern instrumentation combined with the familiarity of metal. Ever since word of their follow up album was out, I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of…

  • Annotations Of An Autopsy – The Reign Of Darkness

    The Reign Of Darkness incorporates all of death metal’s signature and staple elements: pummeling drums, guttural vocals and riff mayhem. What it doesn’t have is emotion or feeling that sticks out like a sore thumb.

  • Fozzy – Chasing the Grail

    With Stuck Mojo still churning out the nu-metal and Chris Jericho enjoying a second wind with the wrestling gig, it took Fozzy five years to put a proper follow-up together, but the resulting Chasing the Grail doesn’t miss a beat whatsoever. In fact, it turns out to be a surprisingly good record that should prove…

  • KEVI METAL’S RIMSHOTS v.2 #2

    Welcome to the second installment of the snarky, irreverent world of Rimshots, reconstituted for the online world that is Hellbound.ca. Enjoy them, because I know I didn’t. After suffering through this crop of crap, all I have to ask is: Sean, dude, what did I ever do to you?!