Category: Reviews

  • Construcdead: Endless Echo

    Endless echo contains a brand of energetic, melodic thrash that is just a complete aggressive metal listen; tracks like “No exit,” “My Haven” and “Spiritual shift” are both very fast and very intense. Rage is the best word to describe the reaction I had after listening to this CD. It got me all fired up.

  • Anaal Nathrakh: In the Constellation of the Black Widow

    It takes just a few seconds for In the Constellation of the Black Widow to erupt into a blistering frenzy, and the bombastic chaos drives through to the end with few interruptions. The U.K. duo has produced a hurricane of sound, with a whole spectrum of throat-wrenching vocal eviscerations, thundering blasts, grinding riffs, and lightning-speed…

  • Anaal Nathrakh: In the Constellation of the Black Widow

    In The Constellation of the Black Widow begins with a head-first charge into the listener’s gut. England-based Anaal Nathrakh’s latest album is just over half an hour of black metal-tinged grindcore that barely stops to take a breather, and it ends just as chaotically as it begins.

  • Howl: Howl

    At barely 15 minutes, it’s an all-too brief preview, but that’s all it takes to instantly establish Howl as a band to watch for in late-’09 and 2010.

  • Book Review: To Live Is To Die: The Life And Death Of Metallica’s Cliff Burton by Joel McIver

    To think that it took 23 years for someone to come up with this brilliant notion of paying respects to Cliff Burton, the true backbone of Metallica, by providing a biography of his life is quite shocking. Seeing as metallians around the world have been mourning his passing—and the requisite downward spiral of the quartet…

  • Black Out: Evil Game

    This classic debut album by Holland’s Black Out was originally released by Roadrunner way back in 1984 and surprised many in the metal world with a few very positive reviews written toward this album back in the day. Needless to say, that this band is almost seamlessly connected with the British metal invasion of the…

  • Asphyx: Death… The Brutal Way

    The appearance of Asphyx at this year’s Maryland Deathfest was more of a treat than probably many of the young ‘uns realized. After finding this out, I silently cursed my financial status for not allowing me to make the trek, because after one listen to their latest full-length Death….The Brutal Way (out August 19th on…

  • Behemoth: Evangelion

    Poland’s Behemoth have returned with their ninth album in nineteen years, and this time around the band sounds as though they are pushing themselves even further. While Evangelion is still recognizably (and perhaps even predictably) Behemoth, there’s a controlled chaos to the sound that gives things a certain energy.

  • Netherbird: The Ghost Collector

    Though drummer Adrian Erlandsson (At The Gates, The Haunted, Cradle of Filth) has been a respected figure in the metal scene for quite some time, Sweden’s Netherbird is just a newer arrival added to his list. Since forming in 2004, the band has released two EPs while attracting followers from around the world through MySpace…

  • Oak: s/t LP

    Oak’s debut 12” rumbles and crumbles like Paul Bunyon piloting a city-sized backhoe. Vocalist Jo Gonzalez mixes and mashes his vocal chords to the tune of skidding tires and large men falling down jagged canyons while the humid oppression of the guitar, bass and drums acts like the soundtrack to slow suffocation and violent digestion.