canada

by Cosmo Lee Speaking of collaborations, Atavist‘s first one with Nadja, last year’s 12012291920/1414101, was copacetic, with spooked melodies yielding to menacing death rattles. But it begged the question: would two of the heaviest bands around get together to drop the hammer? II: Points at Infinity (Profound Lore/Invada, 2008) answers with a doomingly resounding yes. […]

by Jess Blumensheid Messy with electronic undertones, Stratification (Profound Lore, 2008) voyages far from conventional black metal. Metal should open itself to expansion, however, allowing Wold’s third release for consideration as the black metal album of 2008. Stratification narrates wintertime misery with few “riffs,” diffusing rhythms with harsh noise. Like Gnaw Their Tongues and Ildjarn, […]

by Cosmo Lee Menace Ruine is a shadowy male-female duo from Montreal. Their full-length debut, Cult of Ruins (Alien8, 2008), proffers a vision of hell that isn’t dark and foreboding like its grayscale artwork. Nor is it red and orange like the Christian Crayola invention. Instead, it’s a blinding flash of light. The full color […]

by Cosmo Lee Pagan Hellfire is a one-man black metal act that avoids the usual depressive connotations of that M.O. Robust, mid-paced marches dominate, in keeping with black metal’s recent trend. Mastermind Incarnatus is competent at screeches and drums, but he’s incredibly fluent with guitars. His forte is stacking upper-register dyads on top of lower-register […]

by Cosmo Lee This might be the year that death metal came back. Actually, it’s been coming back for years, just with incessant mediocrity. But in 2008, geezers like Decrepit Birth, Hate Eternal, and Origin have stepped up with very “mature” records. They’re not innovating, but they’re probing corners, pushing themselves, and most importantly, writing […]

by Cosmo Lee The above title is an actual Google search leading to this site. I thought I’d take it and run with it. The most entertaining aspect of the new Cryptopsy record, The Unspoken King, is not how bad it is, but the reactions to it. At metal-archives.com, the mean score is currently 11%, […]

by Cosmo Lee Last weekend marked the 20th anniversary of Voivod’s Dimension Hatröss. The core of Voivod’s golden era trilogy, it bridged Killing Technology‘s departure from prior Motörhead worship and Nothingface‘s prog polish. The record remains revelatory today. That’s because it’s elusive; it hits you and runs away at the same time. So much metal […]

by Jess Blumensheid The day The Endless Blockade aren’t pissed, there will be no god. (Ed. note: Or there might be one.) They live up to their name by instilling extreme wrath for human trash, wasteful lifestyles, and the fear of god in every release. Such hostility allows The Endless Blockade to enclose themselves with […]

Bad news from Canada’s Cursed. Say it ain’t so, Joe. Yeah, you heard. Apparently, it gets even worse. That’s all I know or even want to know for now. We got robbed at the very end of tour in a totally unreal, extremely sketchy series of events that still makes no sense at all, only […]

Howl In the current issue of Decibel (#44, Iron Maiden cover), I’ve done the “Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone!” column, which reviews demos and unsigned records. Some of them are actually good. The two of note this time are by Howl and Mendozza. Both are hairy and sound like it. (One of my non-metalhead friends […]