reviews

Over the course of its three albums, Insomnium‘s sound hasn’t changed so much as matured. This Finnish band sounds like Paradise Lost doing Swedish melodic death metal, combining the majesty of the former with the pace of the latter. 2004’s Since the Day It All Came Down was pretty much perfect; Above the Weeping World […]

Note to black metal bands: when playing live, turn down your damn kicks! We know you can play blastbeats. We came to hear some cold atmosphere, not a never-ending barrage of kick drums. If we wanted that, we’d go hear techno. I recently saw Keep of Kalessin open for Satyricon, and though the performance was […]

Pretty much everything Blackmarket puts out now is buy-on-sight, and Delenda is no exception. On its first album, From A Second Story Window greatly expands on the chaotic, dissonant metalcore of its Not One Word Has Been Omitted EP. The degree of maturation is shocking; it’s almost like a new band. This is due, perhaps, […]

Good band, good label, solid album, rising buzz… then the band breaks up. I hate it when that happens. I’m talking about Fall River, a Pennsylvania band that put out an EP and an album, Lights Out (on Thorp). Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Isis, etc.) mixed the album, which had a vocal cameo by Sean Ingram […]

My review of the new Suffocation album is now up at Stylus.

Defiance was a band from Oakland, CA that came up in the Bay Area thrash heyday. The band put out three albums on Roadrunner subsidiary Roadracer, then morphed into groups called Inner Threshold and Under before disbanding in 1999. Interviews with the band (available at its well-kept website) offer a great inside look at the […]

My dual review of Norma Jean’s Redeemer and War of Ages’ Pride of the Wicked is now up at Stylus. You can read it here.

Rarely will I post about an album I don’t recommend. However, Jesus Killing Machine has enough historical value to deserve a mention, if not a warning to stay away. The sticker on the front says, “featuring Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer), Gabby Abularach (ex-Cro-Mags), Phillip Boa, Waldemar Sorychta (Despair, Tiamat), Dave “Taif” Ball (ex-Killing Joke) + special […]

Gorod‘s debut, Neurotripsicks, was absolutely shredding, sounding like if Joe Satriani played lead guitar in Symbolic-era Death, with low death growls for the vocals. However, thin production hobbled the album somewhat. That’s definitely not the case with Leading Vision (on Willowtip), which has a deeper and beefier sound while retaining the clarity typical of Willowtip […]

Another Napalm Death album??? These guys have been ridiculously productive since they left Earache after 1999’s Words from the Exit Wound. Since then, they’ve had a release of some sort each year, including four albums, two Leaders Not Followers covers collections, and the awesome Noise for Music’s Sake compilation. This is almost oversaturation, but Smear […]