Reviewed: [August 2021] Released [2021 Self Released] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson British death metallers Anakim step up their game considerably with the second album, and first in four years. With volatile new singer Matt Small in tow, and a more evolved, technically adept and professional approach, the band build…
Wormwood – Arkivet
Reviewed: [August 2021] Released [2021 Sound Pollution] Rating [4/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Funny – or at least very odd – thing happened as Swedish black metallers Wormwood worked toward the release of their third full-length. Originally titled Vita Arkivet – which translates as “The White Archive,” an official document detailing…
Hexenklad – Heathenheart
Reviewed: [August 2021] Released [2021 CDN Records] Rating [3/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson Hexenklad deliver Northern European inspired black/folk/pagan metal by way of North America. Yet the Ontarians do with an authentic and inspired vigor and aesthetic that recalls Ensiferum, Moonsorrow and vintage Amon Amarth, with an element of Korpiklaani’s cheese…
Bossk – Migration
Reviewed: [July 2021] Released [2021 Deathwish Inc.] Rating [4/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson If you’re looking for some light, good-time party anthems to rock out to this summer after being stuck in relative isolation for the last fucking year, you should probably steer clear of the second full length from English…
Eonian – The Nomad
Reviewed: [July 2021] Released [2021 Self Released] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson A whole mess of ingredients go into the five-track debut EP from symphonic metallers Eonian, which is essentially a solo project of Spanish guitarist Jaume Antuñano that quite literally spans the globe. Thanks to the Internets, he is…
Coiled Around Thy Spine – From The Ashes
Reviewed: [July 2021] Released [2021 Self Released] Rating [3.5/5] Reviewer: Peter Atkinson For a duo, the Italian combo Coiled Around Thy Spine – very cool band name that unfortunately, for our purposes here, abbreviates as “CATS” – kick up quite a racket on their second album. From The Ashes is…
Alluvial – Sarcoma
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…