This is the debut album from Pneuma Hagion, a death metal band from the US.
Ugly and heavy, death metal like this feels like it should be able to swallow stars. You can hear influences from both black and doom metal, but mostly you can hear the sound of brutal nightmares forged into music. Continue reading
This is the fifth album from Czech band Panychida, who play black metal.
I enjoyed 2013’s Grief for an Idol, and especially liked 2016’s Haereticalia – The Night Battles, so when it came once more to partake in a further round of Panychida’s brand of black metal, I couldn’t resist. Continue reading
A sci-fi themed 4-way death metal split release? Hell yes! Sign me up! The class artwork sealed the deal, to be honest, never mind the 19 minutes of quality cosmic metal of death on offer.
UK band Cryptic Shift are the only band here I actually know, (due to Visitations from Enceladus), so was expecting good things; I wasn’t disappointed. Cosmic Dreams is an older Continue reading
This is the latest EP from To Dust, a deathgrind band from the US.
It’s been four long year’s since To Dust’s debut split with Bent Sea, so Nightmare Cycles is one I’ve been anticipating. With only an 11-minute duration in some ways it’s merely a taster to get the appetite whetted, but hopefully we won’t have to wait another 4 years for more material from the band. Continue reading
This is the debut album from Varde, a Norwegian black metal band.
Fedraminne contains 59 minutes of black metal that mixes folk influences into an atmospheric journey. Continue reading
This is the seventh album form US progressive metallers Leviathan.
Having enjoyed 2014’s Beholden to Nothing, Braver Since Then and 2018’s Can’t Be Seen by Looking: Blurring the Lines, Clouding the Truth, I was looking forward to this. Now that it’s here, Words Waging War provides 68 minutes of progressive metal that’s well-written and well-performed. Continue reading
This is the third album from German death metallers Slaughterday.
Slaughterday are reliable and enjoyable. Drop into any of their discography at almost any point, (Nightmare Vortex, Ravenous, Laws of the Occult, Abattoir), and you’ll find timeless death metal, with an authentic, honest, merciless Continue reading
This is the debut album from Bethmoora, a doom/sludge band from Denmark.
It’s good to hear such a malignant slab of filthy doom-fuelled hateful sludge like this now and again. It strips away pretentions and allows you to get a good long hard look at the muck and grime. Continue reading
Farer are a doom band from the Netherlands and this is their debut album.
Monad is a harrowing and uncomfortable 53 minutes that’s made up of components from doom, noise, drone, sludge, and post-metal. The bass is used prominently and well, as you’d expect from a band with two bass Continue reading
Lie in Ruins are a Finnish death metal band and this is their third album.
Six years on from 2014’s monstrous Toward Divine Death, we get follow up Floating in Timeless Streams. Clocking in at a lean 42 minutes, (compared to its predecessor’s 72), this is a more concentrated and focused slab of brutality and aggression. Continue reading
