Reviewed: November 2020 Released: 2020, Nuclear Blast Records Rating: 4.5/5 Reviewer: Jack Merry Swedish cinematic electro-metallers Amaranthe return with their sixth full-length studio album Manifest, after spending the best part of the last decade establishing themselves as a formidable, positive, and feverishly melodic force for sweeping heavy metal goodness. Now more than ever,…
album reviews
Entartung – Maleficae Artes
Reviewed: August 2020 Released: August 7th 2020, Dunkelheit Produktionen Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Annalisa Orlando This German black metal trio deliver a classic record. The combination of high-pitched vocals and extraordinarily long tracks all hark back to the 90’s heyday of black metal. Having said that, the clean and tidy production…
Strykjärn – En Jävla Massa Lidande
Reviewed: January 2020 Released: November 2019, Big Balls Productions Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Beandog Twelve years into their career, and this five piece from Sweden are keen to emphasise the potency of their newest release. To be honest, you can probably draw your own conclusions from the 23 minute running time…
Firespawn – Abominate
Reviewed: July 2019 Released: 2019, Century Media Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Beandog “We’re not a Satanic band. Not in the normal way you’d define Satanism anyway. Like a devil with a tail, wings, and a giant fork. That’s not what I’m about. That’s not what we’re about. But I do…
Tronos – Celestial Mechanics
Reviewed: May 2019 Released: 2019, Century Media Records Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Beandog “For years, whenever we were together on the road, or in the studio, we often had late night conversations about making music that was dark and apocalyptic but also contrastingly fragile and ambient, encompassing the different moods of…
Comatose Vigil A.K. – Evangelium Nihil
Reviewed: March 2019 Released: 2018 – Non Serviam Records Rating: 3/5 Reviewer: Beandog Evangelium Nihil represents something of a triumph over adversity for Russian doom band, Comatose Vigil A.K. Recorded with the help of David Unsaved from Ennui and John Devos of Mesmur, this current version of the band has taken the…
Pounder – Uncivilized
Reviewed: March 2019 Released: 2019 – Hells Headbangers Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Beandog Spearheaded by Matt Harvey (of Exhumed, Gruesome and Expulsion), Pounder is the result of three passionate musicians coming together to celebrate their love of classic rock and heavy metal. Harvey takes on both guitar and vocals, and is…
Blood Feast – Chopped, Diced And Sliced
Reviewed: March 2019 Released: 2018 – Hells Headbangers Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Beandog The press release accompanying Chopped, Sliced And Diced describes it as a four track mini album (six if you buy the CD or cassette release) intended to maintain the “fast and furious” momentum between Blood Feast‘s 2017 comeback record…
Basilysk – Emergence
Reviewed: February 2019 Released: 2019, Self-Released Rating: 4.5/5 Reviewer: Courtney Solloway These guys know how to rock and they know how to rock hard. Especially with a death metal anthem spanning nearly sixteen minutes. This band is completely insane and I’m here for it but you need to buckle in…
Slow – IV – Mythologiae
Reviewed: February 2019 Released: 2019, www.code666.net/ Rating: 5/5 Reviewer: Courtney Solloway This album is hauntingly beautiful. It’s completely unlike anything I have ever heard before. I’ve done a doom metal album this month and unfortunately it wasn’t to my taste, however, this is something entirely different. From the very start, the…
Wolf Counsel – Destination Void
Reviewed: February 2019 Released: 2019, endless-winter.org/ Rating: 2.5/5 Reviewer: Courtney Solloway
Deathhammer – Chained In Hell
Reviewed: October 2018 Released: 2018 Rating 3.5/5 Reviewer: Beandog When an album starts with a song called Rabid Maniac Force, you had better hope it has more than enough thrust to live up to the levels of demented chaos the title suggests. It bodes well that Deathhammer have a 13…
Insignium – Infamie und Urgewalt – Wenn Altes sich erhebt
Reviewed: September, 2018 Released: 2018, Apostasy Records Rating: 3/5 Reviewer: Owen Thompson Thirteen years is certainly a long time between releases, but German miscreants Insignium have seen fit to unleash their second malevolent opus of Teutonic Schwarze Metal upon us. It’s dripping with frigid darkness, and so far into the…
Overdrivers – Rockin’ Hell
Reviewed: June 2018 Released: June 2018 – Self Released Rating: 3.5 – Very Good Reviewer: Alice Chant I always check out the website and Facebook page of a band before I review them to get a better understanding of what and who I am listening to, their fan base and…
Apocrophex – AEternalis
Reviewed: June, 2018 Released: 2018, Independent Rating: 4.5/5 Reviewer: Andrew Cook Technically this is the sophomore release by our good friends here at Apocrophex; I say technically because they released an EP first, but as far as LP’s go I suppose it is true. Labelled primarily back in the…