Reviewed: [June 2021] Released [2021 Nuclear Blast Records] Rating [4/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Alluvial has morphed from something of a solo project by ex-The Faceless/Black Crown Initiate guitarist Wes Hauch into an extreme metal super group that has brought together current The Merciless Concept/former Suffocation touring vocalist Kevin Muller, Entheos…
Mother Of All – Age of the Solipsist
Reviewed: [June 2021] Released [2021 Black Lion Records] Rating [3/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Though Mother of All is described as a one-man band fronted by Danish multi-instrumentalist Martin Haumann, it’s really more of all-star project – even if the “stars” he has teamed with aren’t that well known. His first…
Eternal Struggle – Year Of The Gun
Reviewed: [May 2021] Released [2021 Upstate Records] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Slayer probably wins the prize for horrifically ironic/eerily prescient timing with God Hates Us All, which was hitting record store shelves on the same Sept. 11, 2001, morning that planes were being crashed by terrorists into the World…
Pestilence – Exitivm
Reviewed: [June 2021] Released [2021 Agonia Records] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson I pretty much lost the thread on these guys a long time ago – like in the early ‘90s, to date myself – when the jazz odysseys began to enter Pestilence’s death/thrash metal picture and the band split…
Hideous Divinity – LV-426
Reviewed: [May 2021] Released [2021 Century Media Records] Rating [4.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson No strangers to grand thematic works, Italian tech deathsters Hideous Divinity do something more along the lines of a conceptual short story with their latest effort, the LV-426 EP. The band spin an “Aliens”-inspired yarn chronicling the…
Obsolete Theory – Dawnfall
Reviewed: [May 2021] Released [2021 My Kingdom Music] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson There are dynamics aplenty in the epic bluster of Italy’s Obsolete Theory. The band go from zero to 60 and back again as they trudge and sprint through stretches of doom/Goth metal punctuated by fits of death…
Devoured – The Curse Of Sabda Palon
Reviewed: [May 2021] Released [2021 Vrykoblast Productions] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Indonesian death metallers Devoured have a long history with not a whole lot to show for it. The band formed in 1998, but didn’t release their debut full length The Lost Kingdom until 2012, after a series of…
VALDAUDR – Drapsdalen
Reviewed [April 2021] Released [2021 Soulseller Records] Rating [4/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Norway’s Valdaudr pick up the reins from the long-running black metal project Cobolt 60 that issued albums in 2002 and 2012, but couldn’t quite make it to its third decade. Guitarist Daniel “Død” Olaisen from Blood Red Throne…
Throne – Pestilent Dawn
Reviewed [April 2021] Released [2021 Redefining Darkness Records] Rating [4/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Michigan’s Throne set the bar pretty high for themselves with their debut EP Altar of The Dying in 2018, a savage bit of blackened tech-death that seemingly came out of nowhere but definitely left its mark. Two…
Bonecarver – Evil
Reviewed [April 2021] Released [2021 Unique Leader Records] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Much as I applaud the notion of a band that would call themselves Cannibal Grandpa, if you want to be taken seriously in brutal death metal circles – if indeed one can be taken seriously in brutal…
Unflesh – Inhumation
Reviewed [April 2021] Released [2021 Self-Released] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson My appetite for technical metal of just about any ilk has waned considerably over time. And sorry to get all Grandpa Simpson “old man yells at cloud”-like, but it’s become way too much wank and not nearly enough substance.…
The Crown – Royal Destroyer
Reviewed: [March 2021] Released [2021 Metal Blade Records] Rating [4/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Swedish melodic death metallers The Crown have been rolling right along since reforming a decade ago after a five-year hiatus, even if they tend to get a bit lost in the mix as acts like the similarly…
Abstrakt – Uncreation
Reviewed: [March 2021] Released [2021 Inverse Records] Rating [2.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson The second album from Finland’s Abstrakt offers up a symphonic black metal grandiosity to match that of Norwegian contemporaries Dimmu Borgir – even without the orchestras and choirs Dimmu now have their wherewithal to employ. But thanks to…
Stortregn – Impermanence
Reviewed: [March 2021] Released [2021 The Artisan Era] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson While “technical black metal” is often used to describe more esoteric, sometimes impenetrable acts like Deathspell Omega, Imperial Triumphant, Krallice or even Batushka, Switzerland’s Stortregn would certain fit the general tag while offering something with genuine teeth.…
Cult Of Luna – The Raging River
Reviewed: [March 2021] Released [2021 Red Creek Recordings] Rating [4.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Though categorized as an EP, the latest outing from Swedish post-metal/doom/prog sextet Cult Of Luna – and first for their own Red Creek Recordings – delivers a full album’s worth of material by most bands’ standards. With…