U.S.P.M. Doctor We here at Metal-Rules.com have always admired the hard-working and creative fans in the Metal community who take the time and energy write and create. Blogs, Web-sites, Youtube channels, podcasts and radio shows and more, we know from decades of first hand experience how much time and energy and…
Review
Vokonis – Odyssey
Reviewed: April 2021 Released: 2021, The Sign Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Lee Carter There’s somewhat of an expectation with modern progressive metal music that it needs to sound somewhat introspective. Whether that is in harder, heavier subgenres such as death metal, or lighter examples, there’s a certain level of brood that…
Band of Spice – By The Corner of Tomorrow
Reviewed: April 2021 Released: 2021, Scarlet Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Jack Merry Beginning his time in the music industry as the vocalist and bass player for 90s’ stoner metal band Spiritual Beggars, Swedish musician and songwriter Christian “Spice” Sjöstrand has a fondness for 1970s’ hard rock and has incorporated elements…
Stormtide – A Throne of Hollow Fire
Reviewed: March, 2021 Released: 2021, Metal Hell Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Graeme Smith There is a lot of symphonic death metal around these days, and I mean a lot. In fact if you Google exactly that you get a hit with a page of ‘Top symphonic death metal artists’ which…
Stortregn – Impermanence
Reviewed: March 2021 Released: 2021, The Artisan Era Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Svetlana Likhacheva Newbies of The Artisan Era, Geneva-Switzerland-based act Stortregn are ready to show us the next level of their skill with a new record – Impermanence. This 8-track album is real space journey, exploring unorthodox ways and style…
Meuchelmord – Mordmelodien
Reviewed: March, 2021 Released: 2021, Purity Through Fire Rating: 2.5/5 Reviewer: Jack Merry For a decade now, Meuchelmord has been holding high the banner of traditional German black metal. The sole work of one Cernunnos AKA Kriegstreiber, the band have quietly built a body of work that is deeply reverent…
The Noctambulant – Hellrazor EP
Reviewed: March 2021 Released: 19th March 2021, self-released Rating: 3/5 Reviewer: Graeme Smith I never understood why bands select dodgy covers for albums which don’t reflect the music contained. Well known examples of this are Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranioid’ and Anthrax’s ‘Fistful of Metal’, which the bands admit themselves are ropey…
Drift Into Black – Patterns Of Light
Reviewed: March 2021 Released: 2021, self-released Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Lee Carter Whilst one-man projects can be a godsend for creativity, they do tread a very fine line between that and overwrought extravagance. With no one to say “no”, who’s to say whether a particular idea for a song is too…
Aborym – Hostile
Reviewed: February 2021 Released: 2021, Dead Seed Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Lee Carter It can never be easy reinventing oneself, and far less so in the world of art. Establishing oneself in one frame of light, only to transform into another can be an example in both bold autonomy, and…
Endezzma – The Archer, Fjord & The Thunder
Reviewed: January 2021 Released: 2020, Dark Essence Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Lee Carter Ask anyone with even a passing interest in metal to offer a description of black metal and you’ll likely get at least one person mention the word “dark”. And you would usually expect most black metal records…
Utbyrd – Varskrik
Reviewed: January 2021 Released: 2021, Petrichor Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Svetlana Likhacheva Norwegian black metal band Utbyrd, through Petrichor, are about to give their album Varskrik (which translates into English as Warning) a chance to see the world with the physical release. The digital version was released in the far 2017,…
Empyrean Fire – Deliverance
Reviewed: January 2021 Released: 2020, independent Rating: 4.5/5 Reviewer: Lee Carter In some circles, there is a school of thought to keep music genres pure. By drawing influence from other genres, the one that forms the core of a band’s sound becomes diluted. For some, this makes it worse: a…
When Frames Collide – Quattro (EP)
Reviewed: December 2020 Released: 2020, X-Ray Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Jack Merry WHEN FRAMES COLLIDE is a short-lived Melbourne rock band featuring Andy McLean from AUSTRALIAN ROCK ROYALTY on vocals who graced the stages of a number of intimate venues in 2019, playing to loving crowds before disappearing to record, never to…
Keiser – Our Wretched Demise
Reviewed: December 2020 Released: 2020, Non Serviam Records Rating: 4/5 Reviewer: Kira Levine Norwegian black metal outfit Keiser released their sophomore full-length Our Wretched Demise on November 27th, through their label Non Serviam Records. The record’s lyrics deal with the concept of being at war (with one’s self as well…
Protokult – Transcending The Ruins
Reviewed: November 2020 Released: 2020 Rating: 3.5/5 Reviewer: Lee Carter It’s not often that you come across a band that neatly encapsulates the more po-faced nature of supposedly “traditional” or straight-forward metal with the boozy fun times of a party band, but here we are with PROTOKULT. It’s a bit…