
Album Review | The Smashing Pumpkins | Cyr
A long but rewarding climb up a mountain of synthesizers.
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Album Review | Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle | May Our Chambers Be Full
Momentarily glorious yet underwhelming in entirety.
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Album Review | Goratory | Sour Grapes
The Borat of death metal has returned to spew sixteen years’ worth of darkness.
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Album Review | Hymn | Breach Us
Marching towards horizons more terrifying and otherworldly.
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Album Review | Ego Death | My War
Remember shows? The new Ego Death record smashes their live energy right between your ears.
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Album Review | Drouth | Excerpts from a Dread Liturgy
A vortex, chaotic yet tinged with longing.
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Album Review | Dropdead | S/t 2020
Racists better get to running, because Dropdead’s back and banging the war drums.
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An Interview with Therapy Sunday (Experimental Electronic from CT)
Their self-titled record is like getting a brain massage from a warbling synth and a trap snare.
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EP REVIEW | Ox Hunger | Gloss on the Blood
This is a fearful record for sure, but it is a fear that cannot ebb away simply because you are not in control of it. In other words, paranoia.
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Album Review | MSW | Obliviosus
Taking the concept of catharsis to an unspoken place few dare to venture by infusing something rarely used in extreme metal: beautiful carnage.
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Album Review | Clairvoyance | Demo ’20
With the state of the world as it is, it’s really no surprise that so many new death metal bands are erupting onto the scene. 2020 has been bludgeoning us over the head since late February, so what better soundtrack to that metaphysical beating than some dank and disturbing death? The latest record to whip my ears into submission is the debut demo by Polish old-school death metal outfit Clairvoyance, whose belligerent riffing could very well be the background music to Satan’s torture pits. Demo ’20 is Clairvoyance’s opening salvo, their introduction to the world, and good god is it beastly. The vocals live at the very bottom of the throat, like Cthulhu itself is wrangling the microphone. From blastbeats to booming kick patterns, the drums are tight, technical, and terrifying. The bass fills the low end with sludgy fuzz while running up and down the neck. The guitars feel almost like percussive instruments with how aggressively they are played, yet there is no lack of finesse in those frenzied leads and crushing palm mutes. Clairvoyance clearly wear their heroes on their sleeves, but rather than simply emulating them, they’ve synthesized their old school idols into something fresh and fearsome.
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Album Review | Dunwich | Tail-Tied Hearts
Russia’s Dunwich remind us how even little brush strokes can shape a wholly haunting landscape.
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Album Review | lamb | theories on decay
Excellent experimental ep from Lamb. A consolidation of anguish and growth.
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Album Review | Protest The Hero | Palimpsest
A well put together album that just didn’t hook me in.
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Album Review | 156/Silence | Irrational Pull
40 minutes of hardcore edging, but for your ears.
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Album Review | Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin | Stygian Bough Volume I
Seeping atmosphere. A dirge for an undeserved death.
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Album Review | Behold… The Arctopus | Hapeleptic Overtrove
The universe collapses. This is the soundtrack.
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EP Review | Almyrkvi / The Ruins of Beverast Split | Self-titled
Event horizon in music form.
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Album Review | Esoctrilihum | Eternity of Shaog
Accursed black metal, the sound of anathema.
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Album Review | Without Light | All The Kings Must Burn
Transcendental sludge that grooves you into the floor.
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Album Review | Cirith Ungol | Forever Black
Well, it seems that there is an 80s metal revival party going on right now so I may as well jump on and enjoy the ride.
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Album Review | Under the Pier | Puff Pieces
Under the Pier are stoking the coals of the mathcore funeral pyre into a new and hungry inferno with their debut LP.
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Album Review | Infant Island | Beneath
Infant Island paint ugly truths with vibrant colors on their latest LP.
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Album Review | Witches Hammer | Damnation Is My Salvation
A thoroughly fresh and original thrash band and should be listened to on merit alone and not on any musicological or nostalgic whims.
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Album Review | Umbra Vitae | Shadow of Life
I like the part with the guitar and the drums and the yelling.
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Album Review | Oranssi Pazuzu | Mestarin kynsi
An open, relaxed, space-y, sound; very seventies, combined with deity-crushing, maddened, black metal. There is no band out there that sounds like Oranssi Pazuzu.
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Album Review | FLUISTERAARS | Bloem
Join me as we take a walk through haunted woods in album form.
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Album Review | WVRM | Colony Collapse
WVRM’s riffs got me leaning into the crowbar right as it connects with my skull.
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EP/Split Review | Mourning Beloveth & The Ruins of Beverast | Don’t Walk On The Mass Graves
Pure bliss and despondency.
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Album Review | IDES | Hikikomori
IDES break every single rule of punk and hardcore on their new LP, and it’s damn magnificent.
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Album Review | Sentient Divide | Haunted by Cruelty
Haunted by Cruelty sounds like the soundtrack to an army of demons marching towards heaven, ready to pull the angels down into the abyss.
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Album Review | Asgrauw | IJsval
The embodiment of a bitter winter. Although it might be my open window, I feel a slight wind coming from the speakers.
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Album Review | Mulla | مَوْلَى
Viscerally raw yet dripping with mood, this new album from the Iraqi band Mulla hits hard and fast with all the glory of classic second wave black metal, but with something unique added to the mix.
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Album Review | Sightless Pit | Grave of a Dog
Members of The Body, Full of Hell, and Lingua Ignota combine to give us a lesson in restraint and trust on their debut LP.
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Album Review | Obsequiae | The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings
An austere and majestic journey through the world of folk-inspired black metal.
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Album Review | snag | s/t LP
Midwest screamo outfit Snag shine a harsh but passionate light on climate change with their latest release.
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Four-way Split Review | Serpents Athirst, Genocide Shrines, Trepanation, Heresiarch | Scorn Coalescence
Bearing down upon your being like some looming catastrophe that lingers in the back of your brain, this split takes the shape of an oppressive, recurring nightmare that subconsciously gnaws through your sanity without you even realising.
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Album Review | Alcest | Spiritual Instinct
Although I have always been a fan of ‘shoe-gaze’ and ‘post’ styles of black metal, Alcest’s recent release leaves me thoroughly wanting.
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Album Review | eumourner | TRAKL TRAUMA TRACKS
A cold yet bewitching adventure. Do not expect to come out of it unscathed.
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Album Review | Have A Nice Life | Sea of Worry
Have A Nice Life drag us down through murky and metaphysical depths on their latest LP.
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EP Review | Evening Machine | S/T
The layerings of melodic delays, reverbs, and filters blend together into a musical cocktail that is undeniably beautiful and lulls the listener into a dream-like state.
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Album Review | To Be Gentle | L’autre Côté de la Peur
To Be Gentle shine a bright beacon of light in the face of a dark year with their latest EP.
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Album Review | No One Knows What the Dead Think | S/T
But we can definitively say what the dead listen to—freight train blastbeats, distorted guitar melodies, and vicious vocals.
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Album Review | Cloud Rat | Pollinator
Cloud Rat yank out the guts of grind to build a golem of new sound on their latest album.
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Album Review | Teitanblood | The Baneful Choir
Frenetically visceral, unrelenting, and full of atmosphere.
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Album Review | Crypt Sermon | The Ruins of Fading Light
Following in the footsteps of giants.
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Album Review | The Number Twelve Looks Like You | Wild Gods
The Number Twelve Looks Like You incite elemental gods to war on their first release in a decade.
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Album Review | Tool | Fear Inoculum
Tool seems less interested in “pushing the envelope” and more concerned with creating a musical journey.
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Album Review | foxtails | querida hija
Foxtails reshape the very concept of skramz on their latest release.
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Album Review | meth. | Mother of Red Light
Meth explore the potency of darkness and thematic tension on their new LP.
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Album Review | Lingua Ignota | CALIGULA
Lingua Ignota uses sharp sound and expansive composition to carve an emotionally-grueling odyssey on their latest LP.
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Album Review | Full of Hell | Weeping Choir
Full of Hell point microphones into the bleak forgotten corners of existence on their new record, giving voice to a deep and frightening darkness.
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Album Review | Falls of Rauros | Patterns in Mythology
Patterns in Mythology outlines grand dips and swells, the balance always shifting between light and dark; a maelstrom of dissonance and harmony.
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Album Review | Fleshgod Apocalypse | Veleno
What starts off sounding unique ends up melding into a memory of every melodic death metal album I’ve ever heard.
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Album Review | Jeromes Dream | LP
After almost two decades of silence, skramz-kings Jeromes Dream kick open their tomb with a brand-new full-length of brutal and beautiful tunes.
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Album Review | GRYLLE | Les Grandes Compagnies
What sets Les Grandes Compagnies apart is its timbre. The sonic quality of the music, its overall texture, is so much more welcoming than the slicing distortion and overpowering drums (and sometimes terrible mixing) that are generally indicative of a traditional black metal album.
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Album Review | Advent Varic | Tumulus Part I & II
Advent Varic is the soundscape to catastrophe; gloom, an ever-present and sobering effect.
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Album Review | The Callous Daoboys | Die on Mars
The Callous Daoboys wield heavy riffs and chaotic compositions on their new full-length, and absolutely demolish my former hatred of the violin.
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Album Review | Spotlights | Love & Decay
Spotlights use tone and layering to carve sonic mountains on their latest EP.
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Album Review | Intercourse | Bum Wine
The latest Intercourse EP personifies the bleak desperation at the bottom of every bottle, making “outlook not so good” the understatement of the century.
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Album Review | Murg | Strävan
The murky and washy texture of the music, the clean interludes, and the dismal tropospheric layering of blast beats and vocals competing for the title of the least clear sound in the mix lend to this positive and generally empowering aura Strävan exudes.
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Album Review | IDLE HANDS | Mana
When I first watched a video of Idle Hands that was recommended me on Youtube my first impressions were average. The video looked pretty cheesy and low budget, the music seemed dramatic and fairly simple but for some reason I was intrigued enough to check out the EP, Don’t Waste Your Time. I listened to it once through and wasn’t blown away but when it finished I had the urge to listen to the album again. Over the next week I probably listened to that short twenty minute EP about twenty times and was absolutely hooked on this band. It’s odd how music can work like that, often the music that catches your attention sooner seems to wear sooner whereas the bands you didn’t always seem to like initially are some of those that grow on and even stay with you. The songs planted a seed in my brain and before I knew it I couldn’t get enough. Mana is the first full-length from this Portland, Oregon based trio turned quartet that are now doing big tours around Europe to commemorate their debut album. The music of this band sounds both so familiar yet has an interesting edge that make
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Album Review | Helms Alee | Noctiluca
Helms Alee find their groove in aggression on their latest full-length.
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Album Review | Ruff Majik | Tårn
Tårn delivers on so many fronts: it’s groovy, it’s heavy, and it’s catchy, a winning combo. Though Ruff Majik has never been as heavy as to be labeled a doom metal act, with each album they grow darker and more brooding and their sound here is a far cry from the stoner rock sounds heard on their debut, The Bear.
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Album Review | LATITUDES | Part Island
Where some music reflects on loss, Part Island embodies it and causes nostalgia to well up in your throat
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Album Review | Malignant Altar | Retribution of Jealous Gods
Malignant Altar breathe unholy life into the exhumed corpse of OSDM with their debut demo.
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Track Premier | Apostle’s “Taketh”
A glimpse into the new LP, Sufferer, from Georgia-based chaotic hardcore trio, Apostle.
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Album Review | Venom Prison | Samsara
Death metal with thrash, slam, and hardcore influences, Samsara harbors an affinity for progressive writing that is both technical while also being engaging.
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Artist Profile | Ryosuke Kiyasu
Abstract expression? Innovative art? Or absolute shit? Drummer Ryosuke Kiyasu’s experimental live performances are pushing the very concept of percussion beyond definition.
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EP Review | Panopticon | The Crescendo of Dusk
We reach a lull as the abrasive yet alluring wall of sound is broken by swirling keyboards and reverb-drenched guitar. This respite is accompanied by visions of lush, green, cold forests that seems to pass by as if in some sort of fevered dream.
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Album Review | Magic Circle | Departed Souls
Magic Circle invoke the gods of doom metal on their latest release.
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Album Review | Frozen Soul | Encased in Ice
Brutal, crushing death metal, riffs that you can’t help nodding your head to… Though Frozen Soul might not be redefining the death metal genre, they definitely know how to do it right.
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Album Review | Violet Cold | kOsmik
The saying goes: “In his house in R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” After listening to “kOsmik,” I’m pretty sure Cthulhu’s writing vicious atmospheric metal.
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Album Review | Pissgrave | Posthumous Humiliation
This sense of being pounded with a brick in your face does not end until you either put off the album or manage to make it to the final track.
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Album Review | Candlemass | The Door To Doom
This album is just filled with so many great moments and while the writing manages to respect the time-honoured tradition of Candlemass’s well-known sound, the band really brings something new to the table with this release.
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Album Review | Astronoid | Astronoid
Astronoid mixes aggression with ambience to make metal you can breathe.
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Album Review | Children of Bodom | Hexed
Blue Öyster Cult was wrong; you should fear the reaper.
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Album Review | Rotting Christ | The Heretics
When listening to Heretics a few key words came to mind, those being: heroic, brooding, reverend and dare I say, heavenly at times.
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Album Review | Melvins | Lysol
Everything you ever wanted to know about the album Lysol by the Melvins.
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