Category: Reviews

  • Hansel: Lorentzian Lineshaper CD Release Party Live DVD

    Like the album Lorentzian Lineshaper, this performance dates from 2006 – Hansel’s first live appearance on Canadian soil (or a Torontonian basement bar, if you want to be more precise). The set list delves further back, delivering a (then) eight-year-old acoustic ditty alongside tracks from 2003’s Respond_Violence and some newer material.

  • Gulch: Uphill Both Ways

    Gulch is a salt-of-the-earth metal band. It does not adopt airs. It is not pretentious. It does not experiment. It just plays heavy rock. The guys in Gulch may not win awards for outstanding feats of musicianship, but they do play the kind of music that they would like to hear when they walk into…

  • Luna Mortis: The Absence

    Luna Mortis are predictable but nevertheless have some strong moments on this first Century Media outing.

  • God Dethroned: Passiondale

    The key to decoding the motivations behind God Dethroned’s latest album is its title: Passiondale is a concept album about a small site of tremendous struggle in World War One. Unsurprisingly, the subject matter works with the death metal ferocity running through most of the record

  • Leaves’ Eyes: My Destiny

    My Destiny is the most recent EP release from Leaves Eyes. The sound is symphonic metal with a dash of a Northern European folk sound. The overall feeling is to put on your crushed velvet frocks and watch the misty fog over an icy lake.

  • Dying Fetus: Descend Into Depravity

    The breakdowns are so damn catchy I turned a baseball cap sideways and slammed danced by myself, right into a wall. My cat looked at me funny.

  • Skyclad: In The…All Together

    In The…All Together, although not quite as catchy as Semblance, is much more of a metal album and could have easily fit into their catalog amongst any of their 90’s albums. The majority of Skyclad’s signature sound from its genre defining beginnings is present: speedy, almost thrash riffing, with violin on top leading the way,…

  • Ophthalamia: A Journey in Darkness (reissue)

    A Journey in Darkness is a truly singular work within the realm of Swedish metal. There really is nothing else like it. Recorded in 1993 at Unisound Studios, the pseudonymically-inclined all-star lineup consisted of It (aka. Tony Särkkä of Abruptum and Vondur), Mourning (aka. Robert Ivarsson of Pan Thy Monium), Winter (aka. Benny Larsson of…

  • Pestilence:Resurrection Macabre

    Being a legendary band in brutal/progressive death metal circles, many eyes and ears were at the ready to see what Pestilence were going to come up with 16 years after their last proper full length release.

  • Rotting Christ: Non Serviam: A 20 Year Apocryphal Story DVD/CD

    Rotting Christ’s first DVD (In Domine Sathana) is barely a half decade old but the band’s 20th anniversary seems reason enough for another multimedia release. Non Serviam is a weighty package: two DVDs and two CDs of material arranged around a monumental live centre-piece – a two and a half hour performance in Athens, Greece,…