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Weekly rundown November 07 – 2025
Reviews of metal albums released November 01 – November 07
A week that’s out to test your sanity, pulling you up, down, inwards and into several pieces.
Astronoid – Stargod
Genre: Progressive/avant-garde metal/shoegaze
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Let’s go on an adventure skipping through a selection of pleasant dimensions to the uplifting tones of 80s rock and heavy metal. There are notes of sadness involved, and a good deal of dreamy contemplation, but for the most part it’s cushioned by gentle-yet-expressive vocal work and warm melodies. The guitars are clearly present, offering gallops and chugs that draw from prog, hard rock and even a slight bit from black metal. But they rarely get to outshine the synth based atmosphere, which strongly sets the tone for the entire experience. There are a few too many mellow and un-challenging tracks on here for my taste, but it’s elegantly and cohesively crafted as a result of a very clear and well executed vision.
Highlights: “Love Weapon” and “Dream Protocol ’88”
Cold Steel – Discipline & Punish
Genre: Thrash metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Dropping their debut full-length like an artillery-fired nail bomb, Florida’s Cold Steel are making sure it’s obvious they mean business. Their trade is crossover thrash of the harsh, percussive kind, in the shape of mid-tempo, chugging punishment rather than a blistering riff fest. It’s dirty, angry, heavy and slightly unhinged, bursting with character and delivering an awesome collection of opening tracks. The middle section of the album is a slight letdown comparatively, as it slows down and takes on very similar rhythms, but they bring back the intensity towards the end. It’s tight, purposeful and decently varied, promising great things for the future.
Highlight: “Blacksmith of Damnation”
Ildaruni – Divinum Sanguinem
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: This is Armenian black metal that emerges like an army of the dead from ancient and forgotten halls carved into the heart of the mountain. That’s not saying it’s locked in rigor mortis. On the contrary, it bristles with grim energy and strikes with both blade-edged fierceness and towering force. There is a definite epic quality to it, with a melodic approach that brings to mind solemn melodic death metal, but the snarling vocals and shivering tone keeps it rooted in the blackness. Its folk elements provide clear distinction, while it remains quite traditional in its instrumentation otherwise. There’s not a weak track on the album, and one or two more truly outstanding songs might have elevated it into undeniable greatness.
Highlights: “Forged With Glaive and Blood” and “Zurvan Akrane”
Norilsk – Gigantes Mortui
Genre: Doom/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: While certainly heavy and boasting harsh elements straight out of bloodthirsty death metal, the temperament of this album feels mostly lifted from classic doom. Some of the rhythms are surprisingly light on their feet, bringing to mind stoner and even a hint of punk. But the tone remains mostly bleak and crushing, with only faded hints of levity present in the restrained melodies. At times it sounds massive and ancient, at times impatient and quite mobile. It stands out in the death doom subgenre as something that offers more than just crushing bulk, and while slightly uneven in structure and sense of purpose, it’s well worth your attention.
Highlight: “La liberté aux ailes brisées”
Omnium Gatherum – May The Bridges We Burn Light The Way
Genre: Melodic death/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Finnish veterans Omnium Gatherum are now on their 10th full-length, but playing with the energy of a band half their age. What we get on this latest release is a vibrant, fairly accessible form of melodeath with undeniable Finnish traits and accompanying charm, and a good deal of swagger from classic heavy metal to go with it. There’s a lot to like, but pushing the envelope it most certainly is not, and that album cover does not do it any favors.
Oromet – The Sinking Isle
Genre: Doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: If you’re looking for funeral doom with the same kind of all-enveloping, seemingly endless scope as Bell Witch, then this is likely to sate your hunger. It keeps rising, and rising, and rising, and pulls you along with it to unseen domains of the skies. The bass is a constant, steady companion, and the patient drumming, like the footsteps of a titan, carry you effortlessly along. While, as expected, moving at a glacial pace, it’s a truly dynamic listen, bringing you the unstoppable force of a tsunami as well as serene calms of near-silence.
Highlights: “Hollow Dominion” and “Foresaken Tarn”
Pupil Slicer – Fleshwork
Genre: Mathcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: This is not your average, fiendishly complicated, rubbing-alcohol-flavored piece of mathcore. It’s aggressive, for sure, and certainly not straightforward. But there are layers to the harshness, and the band deftly maneuvers between them in a way that is both satisfyingly unpredictable and which produces a rich level of variation. There is noise and dissonance, but also groove, melody and experimenting with genre influences. It’s a band flexing its capabilities and expanding its repertoire, doing so confidently and fully committed to making it work within the flexible framework of their base style. The effort is there all the way, as it claws, snaps and roars at you in rhythmic outbursts.
Highlights: “Heather” and “Gordian”
Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World
Genre: Atmospheric death/black metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5Review: This will dissolve the ground underneath your feet and send you hurtling into a realm of shifting shadows, unsettling shapes and pure madness. In essence it is a strain of terrifying death metal, feeding on your fear and causing light itself to wither and die. An orchestra of beautiful malevolence plays in the background, while the vocals hiss like serpentine demons and the guitars thrash and writhe in blind rage and agony. Given the depth, it feels a lot like doom, and it bites with a blackened bitterness, but when the intensity builds there is no denying the rumbling, musty savagery. It keeps morphing and evolving, alive with corrupting potency. It’s a lot to take in, but never really becomes overwhelming, and the nightmare comes to an end after a little over 50 minutes, which is no more or less than it needs to leave you broken down yet in complete awe.
Highlights: “The Womb of the World” and “Slithering Serendipity”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown October 31 – 2025
Reviews of metal albums released October 25 – October 31
This is a wild week, pulling from all kind of influences and taking you to weird, wonderful and terrifying places.
Aephanemer – Utopie
Genre: Symphonic/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Mash up Children of Bodom, Finntroll, Arch Enemy, Yngwie Malmsteen, and perhaps a bit of An Abstract Illusion for a touch of that towering solemnity, and you should at least be approaching an accurate impression of what to expect from this band. It’s the lofty yet playful neoclassical style that the shred monsters of the 80s championed, and bands like COB took into the realm of extreme metal, now revived with aggressive melodeath fervor and a flair of prog death complexity. Added some distinctly Finnish-sounding folk melody and a touch of thrash riffing, this scores sky high on both distinction, vibrancy and richness, without sacrificing too much heaviness. The two-parter title track finish is a bit on the slow side, and tonally I think they could have aimed for even greater contrasts, but it’s plenty dramatic, and good for dozens of repeat listens.
Highlights: “La Règle du Jeu” and “Le Cimetière Marin”
Avatar – Don’t Go In The Forest
Genre: Alternative/groove metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Still doing their thing, rarely repeating tricks and never playing it predictable or safe, Avatar steadily forges on, and kindly allows us a slice of their current state. And it’s as entertaining and baffling as ever. Pulling from freaky alternative, stadium rock, industrial, classic heavy and aggressive groove with traces of Slipknot, among many others, the number of traits and influences is too long to keep listing. It’s got punchy tracks, but overall aggression has been scaled back for the sake of variation and an interesting album progression. Not as conceptual as “Feathers & Flesh” or “Avatar Country”, it still has a fairly coherent mood that’s distinct enough to clearly differentiate it from earlier releases. Not landing with quite the same impact as last time around on 2023’s “Dance Devil Dance”, it’s more endearingly weird, and feels like stronger storytelling. Like all Avatar albums it grows on you, and finishes about as strong as it starts.
Highlights: “In The Airwaves” and “Abduction Song”
Believe In Nothing – Rot
Genre: Blackened sludge/noise metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Get ready to go to a bad place, where no amount of happy thoughts can shake the steadily increasing discomfort. It creeps, it lunges, it scratches, screams and cowers, like a wounded animal slowly dying. It’s got the coarse, aggressive bulk of sludge with a blackened, doomy mood and an inclination for unpleasant noise. A bit uneven in production, and feeling a bit static in parts, it builds to chilling highs of violence that will leave you craving the warm embrace of the sun.
Highlight: “Fist Full Of Worms”
Burned In Effigy – Tyrannus Aeternum
Genre: Melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: These guys had an excellent debut in 2022 with “Rex Mortem”, laying the foundations for a melodeath sound mixing Black Dahlia Murder with At the Gates, and taking it in a tastefully restrained neoclassical direction. This latest album picks up where the last one left off, and keeps pushing the instrumentation in a slightly more technical and progressive direction. It’s a delight to listen to for a melodic extreme metal fan, although not quite as memorable as its predecessor.
Highlights: “Befouled Benefaction” and “Wage of Exile”
Cemican – U k ‘u’ uk’ankil Mayakaaj
Genre: Folk/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: An explosion of Aztec folk flavor riding on massive groove- and melodic death metal, somewhat in the vein of Sepultura. There are traces of thrash and power metal as well, and they’ve got some light prog tendencies. It’s really cool as a concept and delivers plenty of ear candy, although technically it’s a bit messy, and the songwriting and production somewhat uneven. It doesn’t stand strong as a cohesive statement, but offers an energetic and fairly varied taste of the band’s distinct style.
Highlights: “KUKULKÁN WAKAH CHAN”
Despised Icon – Shadow Work
Genre: Deathcore
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5Review: Back after six years, Montreal’s Despised Icon make the wait plenty worth it. “Shadow Work” is an instant ambush assault of charging drums and demolishing guitars, rounded off with gut-punch grooves and a touch of bitter-sweet melody. The band’s hardcore influences are strongly represented throughout, and you also get a bit of slam and modern death metal, as if it wasn’t brutal enough already. There are a bunch of highlight tracks on this, standing strong as massive stone pillars, each bristling with furious energy and expressing it in a slightly different, yet equally punishing and impressive way. It’ll leave your brain rattled and senses overloaded.
Highlights: “Death Of An Artist” and “The Apparition”
Howling Giant – Crucible & Ruin
Genre: Stoner/psychedelic metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: On their third full-length, Nashville’s Howling Giant pull you into a harmonious, isolated world of understated wonders, and take you exploring in leaps and bounds as well as gentle treks. This is a gorgeous sounding album that will have you delighting in the classic, tasteful instrumentation as well as the enveloping atmosphere. There is a mild prog-ness to the rhythms, but nothing distracting or overly complicated, and a warm, doom-like patience to the progression. This will effortlessly capture your attention and likely leave you wanting more as it rounds off.
Highlights: “Beholder I: Downfall” and “Hunter’s Mark”
One Of Nine – Dawn Of The Iron Shadow
Genre: Melodic/atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Tolkien-themed, epic black metal sums this up pretty well, but doesn’t quite prepare you for the scope of it. The album’s feel is incredibly cohesive, even as both sadness, anger and contemplation are projected, and also invited from the listener. The instrumentation is very traditional, and not this project’s biggest draw, but the lofty, longing, majestic atmosphere and melody truly fleshes out the sound and conjures images of the rich fantasy setting that it’s based in.
Highlight: “Quest of the Silmaril”
Outlaw – Opus Mortis
Genre: Melodic black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Brazilian band Outlaw follow up their excellent 2023 release “Reaching Beyond Assiah” with an equally solid effort in their fourth full-length. This is black metal that dares to dream, and even though these dreams drip with melancholy, it’s not the venomous nor overly nihilistic kind we so often get from Northern Europe. There are just enough hints of a grand vision to make you sense the deeper dimensions of the sound. It sounds earnest and serious, and sells it by staying relatively modest, while delivering rock solid performances based on carefully considered songwriting.
Highlight: “Those Who Breathe Fire” and “A Million Midnights”
Primitive Man – Observance
Genre: Doom/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: The sound of being buried alive, trapped inside a massive industrial drill that’s digging deeper and deeper into the earthy blackness. There is no salvation, no silver lining, only mounting pressure and despair. At its best, it offers grating, frightening texture to the mostly funeral-paced descent, but there is also droning noise and repetitive patterns that seem like attempts to drive you mad. It’s a very specific sort of misery that fans of this kind of nihilistic punishment will no doubt appreciate greatly.
Highlights: “Seer” and “Devotion”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown October 24 – 2025
Reviews of metal albums released October 18 – October 24
This week we look at an album I shamefully forgot about, and a lot of playful and moody heaviness going up against each other.
An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City
Genre: Progressive/atmospheric death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5Review: This one belongs to last week, but somehow I managed the feat of zooming right past it (I know, I just have that certain talent). And considering the band, I couldn’t just leave it. 2022’s “Woe” was on the top of a lot of people’s AOTY list, and while I wasn’t quite as obsessive about it, it certainly opened my eyes wide open to the band. With this one, it’s tempting to resist getting dragged along with the wave of praise it’s already received, but there’s really no point. It’s really, really good, and deserves all the praise it gets. On the dot an hour of runtime feels just right for this kind of sound, which is the kind where the interlude is 3 minutes 46 seconds. It’s got amazing melodic depth, feels completely organic, and builds beautifully, both rapidly and slowly, to intensely satisfying climaxes of intensity. It’s impressively heavy as well as hypnotically atmospheric, with the kind of pull that has you “waking up”, as if from a trance at the end of it.
Highlights: “Like A Geyser Ever Erupting” and “Blackmurmur”
The Acacia Strain – You Are Safe From God Here
Genre: Deathcore/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: You may be safe from god here, but certainly not the chug, chug, CHUGS. This thing wants to pulverize the powder that was your bones before you hit play. It’s stark and dark, hostile and impatient, at least up until the end and the near-14 minute closing track. A bit weird, and not entirely earned, but the overall runtime feels on point. I could have wished for a bit more meat on the bones of some of the mid-album tracks, but the force is there all the way through, and you can feel the churning, destructively calculating mind behind it at any time.
Highlights: “A CALL BEYOND” and “MOURNING STAR”
Bonginator – Retrodeath
Genre: Death/industrial metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: This is death metal that you can imagine being played at the arcade – the one that’s real lax about the “smoking” restrictions. It’s a real ode to the 80s, with plenty of audial references to movies in particular, but the actual metal part feels much more modern, at least if you don’t consider the murky, bass-heavy production. There’s hardcore all over this thing, a fair bit of catchy industrial rigidity and also some modern slam and brutality, but the heart of the matter is still those killer riffs. It’s too bad they’re a bit muffled under all the layers, but the force of them still comes through. It’s a retro blast that does away with most of the OSDM tropes, and injects life and character in their place.
Highlights: “All Cops Are Biomechs” and “Pizza Time”
Conjurer – Unself
Genre: Progressive sludge/doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Conjurer follow up their 2022 masterpiece of unease “Páthos” with a further study of what can be found in the dark recesses of the human psyche. This one is sharper, more technically progressive in its rhythm approach, but also prone to long, slightly disconnected doomy sections that either feel like explorations of alternative spaces or simply time-outs in the otherwise violent, fairly dissonant expressions. As before, there is frail melody to juxtapose the crashing harshness, and they craft the transitions between the two in a way that make them seem like two sides of the same coin rather than two clashing personalities, although the contrast is just as strong as you’d hope for.
Highlights: “There Is No Warmth” and “Hang Them In Your Head”
Elettra Storm – Evertale
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: Italian power metal band Elettra Storm are already back with their sophomore release after last year’s really fun “Powerlords”. The highlights are still the strong vocals and adventurous, optimistic melodies. The playing is still moderately technical, approaching prog on certain songs, with mixed success, and they’ve got a decent amount of classic heavy metal groove. Still fun, ever so slightly more mature and varied, but perhaps not quite hitting the same glorious peaks as its predecessor.
Hostilia – Face the Fire
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Compared to the Testament album a couple of weeks ago, this is very far from “mature” thrash metal. But is that really what you want out of your thrash? Those treasuring the youthful exuberance of the early pioneers of the genre will have plenty to appreciate on Swedish band Hostilia’s debut. This is all about badass riffs, solos, and barking vocals. The production’s a bit shabby and it doesn’t exactly hit like a wrecking ball, but it’s fast, mean and focused, with plenty of groove, a good bit of aggression, and just the kind of mischievous feel you’d hope for.
Highlight: “P.T.D.”
Nine Treasures – Seeking The Absolute
Genre: Folk metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Are The Hu not quite metal enough for you, but you enjoy the traditional Mongolian style? I’d give Nine Treasures a go if I were you. This is lively stuff, with acoustic instruments and folk melodies led by Mongolian vocals forming the core, then dressed with riffs and a bit of modern groove. It doesn’t “conform”, per se, to any sort of easily identifiable metal formula, nor does it feel particularly “wild” or “tribal”. There’s a good bit of rock ‘n’ roll, but also heaviness, and an organic progression highlighting the group’s songwriting talents. It’s the best of both worlds, really, with each track standing on its own and telling a different story.
Highlights: “Seeking the Absolute” and “Real Dream”
Phaeton – Neurogenesis
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: I discovered this little instrumental prog band back in 2023 with “Between Two Worlds”, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s far from the boldest or most ambitious stuff out there. I just like it, and sometimes that’s enough. There’s a gentle simplicity to the melodies, and a curious, cosmos-gazing quality to the tone and feel of the whole thing. It’s not overly technical, so doesn’t feel like an extended jam session, but does leave you wanting a bit more substance.
Psychonaut – World Maker
Genre: Progressive/psychedelic metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Psychonaut’s third full-length flows steadily and constantly like an ocean current in the dead of night, carrying you along on a never-ceasing journey of sensory impressions you take in with your eyes closed and leaned back, floating under the stars. It is deeply immersive and gorgeously smooth, even when it builds to intense peaks. Therein also lies my biggest complaint, which is that it’s understated to the point where you’re left with blanks in your memory of the experience, simply because it doesn’t give you enough to pay attention to. It’s moderately complex and dreamily psychedelic, sacrificing some heaviness for the sake of said flow. It’s a pleasant and rewarding experience, if not the most memorable.
Highlight: “And You Came With Searing Light” and “Endless Currents”
Scorching Tomb – Ossuary
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Get ready to form the most savage stank face you’ve pulled in weeks. This thing was designed to detach your skull from the spinal cord by way of excessively forceful headbanging. What you’re in for is crisp, bloodthirsty death metal in the vein of Cannibal Corpse, but with a massive focus on meaty grooves. None of it is particularly original, but instead of digging themselves a deep, impenetrable and indistinguishable OSDM grave in a cemetery of hundreds just like them, they prioritize vocal and tonal definition, and modern production values that offer building-leveling power and translate the energy behind the performances brilliantly. As a bonus, if you wondered what the album title “Ossuary” actually means, the band has helpfully left the explanation in the title track.
Highlights: “Diminished to Ashes” and “Sanctum of Bones (Ossuary)”
Soulfly – Chama
Genre: Groove/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Soulfly’s latest can be fairly easily summed up as a kind of bubble or cloud made up of their signature tribal-vibe atmosphere, with a wildly thrashing multi-blade contraption at its core in the form of stark, rhythmically rigid riffs. There’s not all that much more to it honestly, and in the cases where the riffs either A: fall into some tasteful grooves, or B: go nuts and assault your with wild waves of rapid, ear-punishing chugs, it feels really worthwhile. But the rest of the time, there’s a bit too much purposelessness and empty calories for the whole experience to feel truly special.
Highlight: “Nihilist”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown October 17 – 2025
Reviews of metal albums released October 11 – October 17
This is a week of big comebacks and massive crowd pleasers looking to slay monstrous beasts of the underground.
Age Of Ruin – Nothingman
Genre: Heavy/melodic death metal/metalcore
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: A long-going US metalcore/melodeath project that’s now on their fifth full-length. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it feels disjointed, but stylistically it’s a meld of thrash, heavy, gothic, groove, metalcore and hardcore, aside from the melodic death center. The problem is that it doesn’t quite perform strongly in any individual one of these iterations of the sound. Melodically it’s a bit iffy, especially as far as the vocals go, but they’re significantly stronger going hard and rowdy, and serve up some cool riffs and solos.
Battle Beast – Steelbound
Genre: Heavy/pop metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Regular readers of mine will probably do a double take at me rating a pop metal album this highly. What can I say? It deserves it. It’s been a minute since I’ve encountered a start to an album that’s this much fun. Past the opening track, you’re served four energetic, modern- and retro-pop bangers in immediate succession, that’d get the sullenest trve cvlt basement dweller to start head bopping. Led by an awesome vocal performance and sprinkled with Finnish melodic shred, it really is a hoot of a time. I’m making a deduction for a less exciting second half of the album and a completely unimaginative album cover, but overall they’ve really won me over with this one.
Highlight: “Twilight Cabaret”
Carcosa – The Axe Forgets, The Tree Remembers
Genre: Deathcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: A bruising deathcore album that finds a middle ground between percussive harshness and symphonic, metalcore-melody. It’s tight, it’s sharply honed, and it’s not overly obsessed with chugs and breakdowns. I would say that there’s a bit too much filler around the big highlights, so non-diehards like me have to wade a bit to get to the big catch, but it successfully implements a bit of atmosphere and is varied enough to give off a dynamic feel, which certainly isn’t a given in this subgenre.
Coroner – Dissonance Theory
Genre: Progressive thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5Review: What’s this? Thrash that requires you to think? Fans who have followed this band since the start in the 80s won’t be surprised at this, but not having released an album since 1993, they’ll have drifted beyond the radar for a lot of people today. What you get is rather stark, almost industrial-toned thrash with deeply considered rhythm control, and an atmospheric depth far beyond what’s to be expected from the subgenre’s riff-obsessed core. It’s almost dreamy in parts, sending your mind wandering, and I do think that it’s a bit energy-zapping at times. The production also feels a tad subdued for what this likely aims to be. But as you adjust your expectations it starts to make more and more sense, and on repeat listens it gets more and more engaging. It’s truly fascinating to get all this deadly riffage, Testament-like groove and Kreator-like, snarling vocal work deftly navigating their way through a complex, yet organic and surprisingly melodic system of ebb-and-flow energy, and subtly layered moods. A masterful execution making for quite the comeback.
Highlights: “Symmetry” and ” Consequence”
Defigurement – Endbryo
Genre: Technical grindcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: A dizzying assault of frantically racing riffs and drum beats, that’s somehow less technically minded than I had expected. A good portion of this is the kind of chaotic savagery that’s considered vanilla in this subgenre, and only in select parts does it go nuts with odd rhythms and spacey vibes. If you want a bit of a sonic challenge, this will do that for you, but there was a lot of potential for uniqueness that I think it failed to grasp.
Erdling – Mana
Genre: Melodic industrial metal/hard rock
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: I first discovered Erdling while they were still small and edgy, and I thought they balanced their ultra-catchy iteration of Neue Deutsche Härte with a fitting amount of alternative mood. Now, of the charm and novelty is gone in the pursuit of sounding as big and accessible as possible. It does its job quite decently, but there’s nothing interesting about it.
Evoken – Mendacium
Genre: Doom/death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Seven years after their last release, funeral doom staples Evoken drop their seventh full-length descent into terror. And while, yes, the abyssal death metal elements make for an ever-ominous presence in the pooling blackness of this album*s underbelly, it’s also what makes it shift forwards in lurches and lunges, on squealing guitars and pouncing drums. And the solemn, darkly medieval atmosphere is enough to describe an entire odyssey crawling through catacombs and castle dungeons. The pace is agonisingly slow at times, but it feels like just the right kind of emptiness and space in the soundscape, and only adds to the mood of despair and hopelessness. It’s epic in a way, but not fated for any sort of glory, wonder or conquest, only horror, decline and dark fascination.
Highlights: “None” and “Matins”
Grailknights – Forever
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: Yes, you realize within the first five seconds that this is not to be taken seriously, and I’m sure the music videos are hilarious. But I don’t think they could have made the actual music much more predictable if they tried. It’s massively upbeat, cheesy as only the Germans know how to make it, and fun, outstanding tracks are offset by sleepy ballads.
Graveripper – From Welkin To Tundra
Genre: Thrash/black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Graveripper slapped me in the face in all the best ways with their 2023 debut “Seasons Dreaming Death”. It was an all-guns-blazing, rough-edged graveyard demolisher of a pissed-off blackened thrash album, promising great things for the future. Now they’re back, with a tone that’s clearly been hung to chill in the cooler, and a much cleaner and crisper production. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing I will leave up to individual taste, but some of the chaotic ferociousness has been lost in favor of precise, well-defined beats and riffs. It’s still highly aggressive, and definitely gets your head moving, track after track, but a few of the tracks do come off as fairly by-the-numbers blackened thrash. It’s a ripping good time, if not a bit too reined-in.
Highlight: “Bring Upon Pain”
Impermanence – Anicca
Genre: Technical death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: The debut album of a young, Polish blackened tech death band with plenty of instrumental chops, a good feel for tonal consistency, and no desire to play it safe. It comes off as experimental in the way it wriggles between different rhythm approaches and song sections. It’s not entirely bewildering, and somewhere in there might be a clear method, but there is a prevailing feeling of hesitance and disorganization, which the overall shape of the thing isn’t intentionally chaotic enough to absorb or mask. But the talent is clearly there.
Internal Bleeding – Settle All Scores
Genre: Death metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Old school, brutal slam sent bursting out of the sewer drains. It’s gritty as all hell, with strong hardcore roots and a great sense for hard-hitting rhythms. To me it’s a bit too much of the same kind of thing repeated several times, but it feels vital, and just as ready to cause damage as you need it to be.
Kaupe – Destroyer of Worlds
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: A (mostly) instrumental prog metal band out of Florida, here presenting their third full-length. It feels grounded, not massive in scope, but still conceptually solid and coherent, with a dry, warm sound that bears elements of heavy metal, hard rock and sludge. It’s not your typical shred-fest of colorful melody, rather something approaching classic doom and stoner in mood. That’s not to say it’s particularly understated, but while it’s decently adventurous and groovy, there’s a certain stoicism about it as well, which I find characterful. It doesn’t really offer any massive hits, but no two tracks feel quite the same, and tickle the mind in ways that will take you to both soothing and exciting places.
Highlight: “Unresolved Trauma”
Ladon Heads – Steel For Fire
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: Retro fantasy-metal with traces of speed and thrash, this gets the vibe just right, with a galloping sense of adventure. describing familiar lands of legend. The vibe extends to the vocal and instrumental performances, but nothing here really blows your socks off. It’s a bit too mellow, too concerned with style to go anywhere new, and there isn’t quite enough enthusiasm shining through. Still, a good time.
Sabaton – Legends
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Enough glorifying WW1, time to switch focus and create some crowd chants about tyrants and mass bloodshed from much further back in history. Templars are cool, right? And getting people all roused up about the exploits of Julius Caesar, Ghengis Khan, Napoleon and Vlad the Impaler sounds pretty much right on the money. There are few metal bands as epic-bombastic as Sabaton, and that hasn’t changed one bit on their eleventh full-length. This is all about the chest-beating feels. Forget that the lyrics are as dumb and wooden as the beach spikes in the “Troy” movie, forget the tedious realities behind the romanticized legends, this is about living a few minutes of phantom glory and belting your lungs out in front of a massive stage. And for that this is exactly what you want.
Sintage – Unbound Triumph
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: A glorious trip back to the 70s and the heyday of classic heavy metal. The raspy, high-pitched-vocals, galloping rhythms and soaring, feelgood solos – it’s all there. Just as depicted on the cover, this is stuff you imagine projected like a lightning bolt from the highest mountain peak, causing the denim-and-chains masses to converge in headbanging worship. The spirit is not quite as effectively evident in every single song on the album, but enough to be thoroughly convincing. It doesn’t go off the rails or really surprise you, but it stays on message and is willing to rock your socks off all the way through.
Highlight: “Electric Walls”
Tombs – Feral Darkness
Genre: Experimental sludge/black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: A style-indifferent, groove-amendable, crunchy, noisy and coarse amalgamation of sludge, black metal and a few other, related flavors into a beast of a record. It’s got grit pouring out of every crack and cavity, and a death-stare, anti-conventional gothic attitude radiating from the vocal performances and subdued melodies. It’s stronger the more aggressive and crushing it gets, with some of the atmospheric, spoken-word sections not feeling quite as convincing as they need to be compared to the blackened confidence of the harshness. But it provides character, and lets you know that there is more to this than just snarling nihilism and skull-grinding heaviness. It’s just unpredictable enough to keep you intrigued as well as feeling like wielding a sledgehammer.
Highlights: “Feral Darkness” and “Wasps”
Tribal Gaze – Inveighing Brilliance
Genre: Death metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: On their third full-length, Tribal Gaze load on the stomps and breakdowns. It’s still very much old school death metal, and it’s just as chunky and grimy as you’d hope. But now there’s an influx of contemporary dissonance and slam-like rhythms, which transforms it into a much more urban-feeling kind of monstrosity than 2022’s “The Nine Choirs”, which I dug pretty hard. It’s not the direction I would have asked for, but in the end it’s up to the band, and they do as they intend with a highly convincing level of investment. There’s still a good bit of that savage Soulfly-feel to it, and while some of the rhythms get a tad predictable, there’s so much bone-crunching brutality going on, and plenty of skin-ripping riffage, that you can’t help but be in awe.
Highlights: “To the Spoils of Fate” and “Ruling in a Land with No God”
Wretched – Decay
Genre: Technical/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: With their first full-length in 11 years, and fifth overall, Wretched want to savor your attention for as long as possible. This is melodic and technical death metal that doesn’t call undue attention to its musicianship, and doesn’t feel much at all like its Scandinavian genre peers. Those are both, at least in my book, two of its strongest qualities. Let’s just get it straight early on – this is an album that takes its time. At 1hr 5minutes runtime, it’s got no hurries getting to its destination, and while it’s not the richest, most moving or most intriguing hour you’ll spend listening to a metal record, it’s also not tedious. There’s always something going on, and it doesn’t feel tired or repetitive or unimaginative. There’s explosive aggression, rousing melody, doom-like atmosphere and intense technicality. And it all blends together really nicely. A bit lacking in focus, perhaps, but highly rewarding if you connect with it.
Highlights: “Decay” and “The Royal Body”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown October 10 – 2025
Reviews of metal albums released October 04 – October 10
A week of strong mood swings – from doomy seductiveness to riotous outrage to homicidal frenzy – it’s all worth paying attention to.
All Hell – Sunsetter
Genre: Black/thrash metal/black ‘n’ roll
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: A no-nonsense, riff-driven black metal project with elements of thrash, hardcore and rock ‘n’ roll. As “unholy” metal goes, this is mostly preoccupied with creating engaging music. You get blast beats and dry snarls, but the crisp drum work and agile energy are all about getting your head moving. Falling somewhere in between the reckless abandon of thrash and the simplicity of punk, it’s entertaining and to-the point, without turning too many heads.
Blindfolded And Led To The Woods – The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me
Genre: Technical/experimental death metal/deathcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: As has come to be expected from Blindfolded and Led to the Woods, this is a release with a lot to take in. Around random corners lurk shock-and-awe assaults of frantic, technical death metal, and moments of respite are filled with chant-y, staccato hardcore vocals, dissonant melodies and unpredictable rhythm approaches. The heavy parts take the form of barbarous death metal, chugging deathcore and abrasive metalcore, and they function as individual faces on a multi-headed beast, each one with a (at least partially) mind of its own, giving no warning of when it suddenly decides to cut in. It’s not as random an experience as I probably make it out to be – there is a method to the madness – but it’s not a style that lets you lean into one particular direction for very long. There’s awesome technical control, a good deal of groove, and it both rises into symphonic heights as well as dissolves into atmospheric mist. Above all, it’s punishingly heavy, and impressively dynamic.
Highlights: “Cafuné” and “The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me”
Boltcutter – Still Broke
Genre: Slam/brutal death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Loaded beyond the brim with soundbites and ping-snares, this is slamming death metal that understands the assignment, though doesn’t much bother to shake up the formula. It’s tight, with a fittingly lean production, making for a direct, un-fluffed impact with plenty of playful attitude.
Dead Heat – Process Of Elimination
Genre: Thrash metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: This thing screams Power Trip, but not in a derivative way. What I mean is that it takes some of the best aspects of that band as examples for its own way of performing, which comes through in the unfiltered attitude and raw energy that very clearly fuels it. This is a thrash-forward variant of southern Californian crossover, carrying elements of Slayer and Anthrax, among others. It delivers mid-and high tempo serrated-edge riffing with deadly accuracy, and to equally murderous levels of effect, which is a feat in itself. It doesn’t get repetitive or unimaginative, always pushing forward and, aside from a mid-experience interlude, never running out of steam. A pure banger with a killer instinct.
Highlight: “Hidebound” and ” By My Will”
Extortionist – Stare Into The Seething Wounds
Genre: Deathcore/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Extortionist make deathcore with a mind for other things than just breakdowns. The foremost of the split personalities are stompy hardcore and gritty grunge, but there are also fragments of Deftones-esque alternative, and a bit of Slipknot-y nu metal. In that regard their sound reminds me of a (much) less experimental version of Tallah. It’s got much of the same raw-throat, beat-heavy aggression, and alternates it with reluctant-melodic, grungy semi-clean parts that bring to mind the calmer side of Machine Head. Lots of stylistic elements to speak of, but it results in a very cohesive sound.
Highlight: “Cycle Of Sin”
Frayle – Heretics & Lullabies
Genre: Atmospheric doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: Frayle have really mastered their brand of stylized doom metal with this one. Saturated with abyssal synth, bulked up with crashing riffs and led by silky-smooth dark elven vocals, it feels (and looks) like toned down and doom-ed version of In This Moment – it just doesn’t quite sound like it. The album exists in a shadow-realm of insidious, ponderous melodies, luring you in with cushy pleasantness, only to trap you in its world of half-materialized horrors. It’s tonally exquisite and extremely well produced, although a bit stuck in the same exact mood throughout.
Highlights: “Boo” and “Souvenirs Of Your Betrayal”
Heartlay – The Alteration
Genre: Industrial/alternative metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Review: Like a reserved, industrial-gothic and (per today) heavier version of Lord of the Lost, this is black-clad, slightly sad, metalcore-catchy alternative metal that feels well-rounded and able to avoid the biggest clichés.
Katakomba – The Second Death
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Imposing Swedish death metal that comes roaring out of the gutter-drains, hungry for living flesh. It’s an old-school-leaning thing, but doesn’t get lost in style-adulation, bringing a dark edge, with traces of hardcore, lots of grim energy and plenty of-low-end firepower. It feels ferocious, with a hunting predator’s demeanor, always advancing, be it prowling or bounding along. There’s plenty of raw groove, and some really strong choruses, with a more than decent level of variation in rhythm, tempo and playfulness between songs.
Highlight: “Atropos”
Morke – To Carry On
Genre: Avant-garde/melodic black metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Medieval-themed, and with a very specific, reverb-heavy and dreamy style, Morke stands on its own in the world of underground, atmospheric-melodic black metal. The un-harmonious-yet-serene, distracted-sounding melodies will not be for everyone (I simply can’t vibe with it), but it’s very likely not quite like anything you’ve ever heard before, and somehow matches very well with the bitter harshness that comes sweeping in every now and then.
Sanguisugabogg – Hideous Aftermath
Genre: Death/extreme metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Review: The Bogg is back, still downtuned, still brutally heavy and still outrageously grisly. But this is a step away from the style-faithful, grimy-brutal death metal that we got on 2023’s “Homicidal Ecstasy”. The ping-snare is there, but not quite as prominent. The chug-breakdowns are there, but not feeling quite as routine. It’s crisper, starker, more openly and sincerely hostile. It’s loaded with guest performances, and while they’re noticeable, it seems their contributions are very much in line with the vision for the album, because if you didn’t know about them, I doubt you’d be able to point it out on a blind listen. I’m gonna say it: It feels mature, if such a thing is possible with track titles like “Erotic Beheading”. There’s an industrial edge to a lot of it, even technical, giving a much more a feeling of considered songwriting rather than impulsive, live-oriented chug-piling. It’s a bit of a surprise, and still very much the kind of abomination I think the fans will go nuts over.
Highlights: “Felony Abuse Of A Corpse” and “Abhorrent Contraception”
Terjiz de Horde – Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone
Genre: Black metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Harsh, strung-out, Dutch black metal with a hardcore. punk-oriented edge. It settles into driving blast beats for the majority of the runtime, using them as its main means of transportation and adding nuances in different moods of melody and levels of viciousness from the vocals and riffs.
Testament – Para Bellum
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: From the very get-go, it’s clear that thrash old-schoolers Testament aren’t content with coasting along on old tricks and dusty laurels. They slap you in the face with blackened viciousness and shades of grindcore savagery, throw you for a loop with a full-on ballad, pull you along on a heavy metal joyride, and in between you get varying levels of thrashy groove and aggression. They’ve had ideas, that for sure. The question is if they’ve kept a few too many in, to the detriment of coherency and flow. The middle part of the album feels a tad directionless, as if they felt that the ferociousness of the first third (excluding the ballad) was getting too predictable. Things pick back up and return to more familiar territory towards the end, landing you good and loaded with impressions, with the highlights for the absolute most part overshadowing the flaws.
Highlights: “Infanticide A.I.” and “Havana Syndrome”
Ültra Raptör – Fossilized
Genre: Heavy/speed metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Review: Cyber-dinosaur, speedy heavy metal out of Quebec, Canada, and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d hope for. Epic, light on its feet, with hard rock groove and plenty of retro charm. The limitations of the vocals and so-so melodic work are a bit of a bummer for me, taking me out of an otherwise very fun experience, but if you’re less sensitive to this then you’ll likely have a blast.
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown October 03 – 2025
We’ve got a divide this week, between those veering off the staked-out course to travel unknown waters, and those sticking to, and improving on, well-established turf.
Bloodred Hourglass – We Should Be Buried Like This
Genre: Metalcore/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5About as accessible as melodeath gets, this is superficial, metalcore-level heaviness on top of super-catchy, industrial-like beats, with plenty of synth-based melody as its centerpiece.
Breathe//Die – Gestalt
Genre: Death metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Heavy, abrasive, hardcore-rhythm punishment with crunchy death metal riffs and a strained vocal style that gives the impression of teetering on the edge of frantic rage. It’s a bit one-dimensional overall, but has a really satisfying drive.
Cruentus – End Without End
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5A Swedish extreme metal projects mixing black metal sharpness and dark folk atmosphere with classic death metal roughness. It sounds like they’re on to something, especially in the mid-tempo sections where the mood tends towards doom, and they get to really explore what the music is supposed to be about.
Decayer – Memoirs Of Despair
Genre: Technical deathcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Decayer blends ferocity with symphonic loftiness on their newest album, meaning you get your obligatory, exceptionally hard-hitting breakdowns as well as a sense of monstrous scale. But in addition to the expected, gargantuan crashes, they also field an army of agile, furious fiends that both charge right at you and skip around to stab at your throat from unexpected angles. What I mean to say with that is that there’s a good deal of super-aggressive, speedy tech-riffing on progressive rhythms, and while some of it feels a bit forced and just for the show-off factor, it keeps the music feeling super-active, always on the move and never satisfied with the same approach for long. A few aspects of their sound does feel borrowed from what the big names are doing at the moment, but I feel like they’re on the cusp of really nailing their own identity with this one.
Highlight: “Opulence and Obsidian”
Dispossessed – Dêmocide
Genre: Doom/sludge/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Dark, cumbersome sludge that’s half a step away from death doom, it’s near-inconceivably heavy, like a city-sized worm bulldozing its way through the roots of mountains. Lacking variation and contrast, it does make 32 minutes feel fairly long, but its temperament is just the way you want it – ominously smoldering.
Dissona – Receptor
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5While you’re never in doubt about which subgenre of metal this belongs to, the band makes a commendable effort to instill personality into the music, and keeping it feeling vital by constantly tugging at the rhythmic, tonal and stylistic reigns. The sense of direction suffers a bit as a result, but It’s always going somewhere, and purposefully so. And the more you get to meet the different shades of its disposition, the less you care about the destination. It’s all about what comes around the next corner. It’s an album that is both frivolous and solemn, technical and atmospheric, vicious and gentle. All the while, it retains substance, suggesting that there always was a twisted vision for its final form, or at least the different flavors that would bloom out from its core identity.
Highlight: “Incisor”
Enragement – Extinguish All Existence
Genre: Technical death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Better hold on to something, it’s about to get hairy! Entrapment is a Finnish death metal band that plays a technical, modern-brutal and intensely fierce variant of the subgenre. I had nice things to say about their 2022 release “Atrocities”, and I’m delighted to be able to repeat the praise this time around. The production is crisper and more detailed, it’s even more ferocious than before, which is saying something, and it doesn’t get lost in technical showmanship. While not quite as convincingly malevolent as last time around, it makes up for it with sheer aggression, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake. Delivering massive riffs, a good variation of harsh vocal styles and just the right amount of precision vs. savagery, it’s a beast of a record that will most likely leave you spent and in need of a sonic time-out.
Highlights: “Natural Mass Asphyxiation” and “Harbingers of Degradation”
Gorotica – Daily Grind Of The Medieval Age
Genre: Grindcore/death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5I have a soft spot for grindcore that knows how to have fun, and this thing is just riotously entertaining. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hyper aggressive and savagely heavy, but instead of starting each short track with the intention of simply causing damage in a slightly different, but equally punishing and straightforwardly chaotic way, these French(?)-Australian lads craft an 18-long series of flavorful, outstanding chapters in a mildly unhinged tale of cannibalism and medieval sadism, that’s about as serious as a Tarantino-film. While retaining the coarseness and relentlessness of deathgrind, the songs are structured like, or otherwise infused with, hardcore, punk, garage rock, melodeath and classic heavy metal. From acoustic, folk-instrument interludes to absolutely frantic outbursts of roaring fury, this is a massively enjoyable feast of tongue-in-cheek morbidity.
Highlight: “Connoisseurs Of Human Flesh” and “Nothing Left To Penetrate”
Hangatyr – Sumpf der Fäule
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Not to disparage the craftmanship, but this is pretty much what it says on the packaging – German atmospheric black metal. You get snarls and howls, plenty of blastbeats and icy, mournful melodies carried on winds from the desolate mountaintops.
Hooded Menace – Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration
Genre: Death/doom/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Now, I’m in no way a Hooded Menace expert, but it doesn’t take a deep familiarity with their discography to tell that this is a bit of a departure from well-established ways. Yes, it’s still old school death doom at its core, but a far cry from funeral-paced abyssal misery. The main differentiator is the appearance of a highly influential classic metal spirit that ups the tempo, groove, sense of adventure and occasion, and the use of guitar solos. It’s got that mildly synth-y 80s feel plastered all over it, with the horror feel of that era as part of the package, which suits the style very well, and it’s not overdone. Speaking of which, you get parts where they seem to be holding back in honor of their past almost as much as parts where they really let go, and embrace the galloping ride-to-battle bravado. The inclusion of a Duran Duran cover on a mere 7-track album underlines the offshoot thinking of the project, and while I’ve certainly heard far less tasteful flavor blends than this, I’ve also heard them less muddled.
Highlights: “Pale Masquerade” and “Into Haunted Oblivion”
Ofermod – Drakosophia
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This thing must be like 90% blast beats. While being very riff- and drum-focused, the main draw of this band’s style is the darkly mythical feel that permeates every song on the album. For me there’s too much of a feeling of repetitiveness with how the songs feel and progress, but if you’re into cult-y fantasy black metal, then you’ll likely find this to be a solid, confident effort.
Orbit Culture – Death Above Life
Genre: Groove/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Orbit Culture continue to utilize their talent for successfully combining the catchiest elements of heavy groove, melodeath, deathcore and metalcore into moderately anthemic, wall-shaking, systematized shockwaves. Not too harsh, not too soft, they strike a near-perfect balance of uncomplicated, energizing modern extreme metal that’s not too extreme for beginners and not too cringeworthy for the thoroughly initiated. The cleans and choruses are, at least in my book, their foremost weakness, lacking in both dynamism and originality, and like before my overall impression comes from weighing the appeal of massive bangers against far more lackluster and generic efforts. In the end, the entertainment factor is far too great to ignore, and it scores massively on the most important areas of chugging grooves and headbang-ability, but with their single tracks being some of the least interesting, they’re approaching a point where they’re in danger of growing stale. But not yet.
Highlights: “Bloodhound” and “The Storm”
Ribspreader – As Gods Devour
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5One of them many, many projects that bears the Rogga Johansson signature, you know very well that you’re in for solid crunchy, murky, groovy old school Swedish death metal. Apart from being fairly poorly produced, this one absolutely has its moments, but not quite enough to dispel the slight feeling of fatigue.
Rotting Demise – The Unholy Veil Of Silence
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Offering a mix of gothic-like blackness and driving death metal ruthlessness, Rotting Demise aims for those that are attracted to the catchier and more melodic side to blackened death metal. More technically minded and less conceptually fleshed out than Rotting Christ, it’s got traces of thrash, save for the playfulness.
Sothoris – Domus Omnium Mortuorum
Genre: Blackened death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Polish blackened death metal that’s technically tight, working through lightly chaotic, unholy sections of blast beats and ritualistic harsh-chanting to get to ripping riffs and sharp solos. Nothing massively outstanding, but a good hit of scorched anger and blasphemy.
Vimic – Open Your Omen
Genre: Groove/alternative metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Sadly not to be finished in his lifetime, it is finally time for the debut album of Joey Jordison’s Vimic to see the light of day, Being the product of a tumultuous creation process and, now, being less about an actual, coherent starting point for the band and more of a service to fans, there’s no denying it’s a mixed bag. A bunch of ideas and stylistic inputs are represented on this 15-track, 64 minute chunkster of an album, and while the production is quite good, it could definitely do with a bit of editing. Forceful, enthusiastic, technical brilliance has to co-exist with unfocused, lackluster material that sometimes sounds like it’s by a different band altogether. But aside from the lack of a strong, guiding creative vision, there’s plenty to enjoy. Bursting with groove, alternative edge and moody, grunge-like melody, it’s hard not to think about what this could have formed the foundations for.
Highlight: “Parasite Persona”
Wode – Uncrossing The Keys
Genre: Black/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Wode are back with their fourth full-length, and, to a significantly higher degree than on 2021’s “Burn In Many Mirrors”, they’ve paired their jagged black metal core with a strong influx of classic heavy metal, in mildly experimental fashion. A good deal of the primal. hard-hitting savagery of earlier releases has been sacrificed in favor of a nimbler, leaner and more flexible sound. When supported by doomy groove and riff-happy cool, this really works, fully proving the potency of the style shift and the band’s versatility. But they also tend to get lost in meandering, wander-tempo aimlessness and contemplative, warm-toned melody that contrasts rather oddly with the sharp, mean-spiritedness of the dominant aggressive sections. Overall, it’s a bit uneven, but still a highly worthwhile listen for blackened heavy metal fans.
Highlight: “Under Lanternlight”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown September 26 – 2025
A week for those who think that extreme metal needs as many notes and riffs as possible, and to preferably be saturated in melody.
Abraded – Ethereal Emanations From Cthonic Caries
Genre: Death metal/grindcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This is harsh, unyielding, merciless punishment, on the verge, I would say, of crossing into war metal. Some would probably say it’s already there. It’s deathgrind of the ferociously aggressive variant, like a frenzied gang of rabid, demon-possessed dogs let loose inside a packed mall. If it didn’t have perhaps the most annoying snare sound I think I’ve ever heard, I would give it a higher rating.
After Earth – Dark Night Of The Soul
Genre: Melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5I had a great time with the band’s 2023 debut album “The Rarity Of Reason”, finding it to be a sweet-spot modernization of the early 2000s melodeath sound, blending modern and more traditional elements with some ultra catchy riffing and plenty of aggressive energy. Unfortunately, perhaps in an attempt to sound grander, this album is slower, with a more solemn feel, which highlights some fairly unimaginative riffs and rhythms, and lacking the melodic playfulness to make up for it.
Amorphis – Borderland
Genre: Melodic folk/death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Let me just preface this review by stating that I’m both a massive fan of melodeath in general, and a decently big fan of this band. For some reason I never took the time to properly listen to 2022’s “Halo”, so my last real reference point is 2018’s “Queen of Time”, which I loved. With all that being said, I’m struggling to find almost a single song on this album that elicits more of a reaction from me than “that’s nice, I guess”. And I insist it’s not entirely because this is a very, very soft and bright iteration of the band we’re getting on “Borderland”. I find most of the rhythms unengaging – many of them pop/rock-oriented and mid-tempo, and the melodies, while vivid, pretty and emotional, mostly remind me of stuff I’ve heard from them before. Some of the choruses are straight out of a mediocre symphonic metal album, and at that point you’ve lost me. Objectively, there’s not a lot the band is doing wrong, and for what it is, it does sound rather good, but apart from the mellow direction there’s very few surprises to be had. It’s like the embrace of an early, lightly breezy Finnish countryside summer morning.
Highlight: “Light And Shadow”
Cosmic Reaper – Bleed The Wicked, Drown The Damned
Genre: Doom/psychedelic metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Here’s some dark, crushing psychedelia, which I feel like I haven’t been able to dig into for quite a little while. This is absolutely doom, with noticeable traces of stoner, but the way the tone of the riffs and solos flows and swirls around the bass, being pressed forward by the drums, feels a bit like a mind-warping spiral slowly descending into the deep. It’s crunchy and solidly heavy, with a vocal style that brings to mind a blank-eyed, joyless Ozzy. Which fits the vibe of the music perfectly well. It keeps up the quality throughout, even though you feel like you’ve heard the full range of the ambitions for the album a little before it concludes.
Highlight: “Hammer”
Darkness – The Death Squad Chronicles
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5A speed-loving, classic German thrash album that bounds and gallops along, serving up plenty of tasty riffs on the way. It’s to-the point, suitably coarse and aggressive, and has some decent, if not mind-blowing solos. But at over 52 minutes, being far from the most varied of thrash experiences, it could definitely do with some track trimming .
Demiurgon – Miasmatic Deathless Chamber
Genre: Technical death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This is technical death metal, but not “tech death”, if you know what I mean. It’s being driven by some very precise, violently forceful and rhythm-focused instrumentation, but it’s also very much about the savage, malevolent feel. It attacks you like some titanic, thousand-maws-and-claws predator, but not directed by a thousand different minds. It’s fairly mono-tracked in its destructive pattern, even as it brings a number of murderous limbs to the task at once. Not outstanding among its peers in any major way, it’s still a really well crafted and impressively hard-hitting effort that I’d love to see evolve into something slightly more distinct.
Highlight: “Aspiring to Omnipotence”
Dying Wish – Flesh Stays Together
Genre: Metalcore/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5If you don’t mind your metalcore wearing some barbed wire fighting gloves in the shape of crunchy, chugging riffs with a bit of deathcore/death metal heaviness and aggression (think Venom Prison), but still want a good share of clean choruses, melody and jump-around hardcore rhythms, then this is your kind of band, and absolutely your kind of album. While there are elements on here that I find formulaic, particularly the predictable, staccato breakdowns, and I think that Emma Boster still needs to work a bit on her harsh vocals to bring them further away from hoarse hissing and towards actual roars (her cleans are great), this is a concise, mature and hard hitting statement of a record.
Highlights: “Revenge In Carnage” and “Moments I Regret”
Hei’An – Kiss Our Ghosts Goodbye
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5To me this feels a bit like a mix between Haken and Leprous, just less caught up with instrumental acrobatics and with an alternative metal twist. It’s vibrant and young, but with a concise, stargazing tonality and great production. There’s a bit of pop and electronica and a cinematic scope, some of it reminding me of “A Thousand Suns”-era Linkin Park, but you also get metalcore-like aggression. In the end, it’s a little bit let down by its sometimes simplistic choruses and vocal lines, as they compete with expansive atmosphere, exciting melody lines and genre-fluid rhythmic twists and turns.
Highlight: “What a Shame”
Korypheus – Gilgamesh
Genre: Progressive/groove metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Korypheus are a young prog metal band out of Ukraine, playing an aggressive-yet catchy, riff-focused variant of the genre, bringing in elements of modern groove and metalcore. It reminds me of Fractal Universe, perhaps with a splash of Jinjer thrown in there, and a bit less conceptual and atmosphere-minded. While it’s not quite at a point yet where it stands clearly out in its own crowd, it does a lot of things right while building on familiar elements. It’s eager to play around with instrumental flourishes and different rhythm approaches, while staying on target and constantly moving forward, with an appetite for solos and a good mix of vocal styles. Perhaps not quite as mature as some other stuff you’ll hear this week, but I was left both entertained and impressed.
Highlights: “Sleeper” and “Odysseus”
Last Retch – Abject Cruelty
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5It’s been a while since a straight death metal band has scored this high on my banging-riff-o-meter. What is otherwise a perfectly murky, malevolent, mid-tempo affair with dry-gurgling vocals, almost sinking into doom on a few occasions, will on most of its tracks set off on a riff rampage that, at times, feels almost comically eager. Thanks to the tone and slightly more reigned-in drums it never really breaks character, and instead takes the best of the headbang-ability and groove from a death thrash sound and couples it with proper, cave-dwelling morbidity, It doesn’t score big on originality, but god damn is it a brutally good time.
Highlights: “Beasley Meth Merchants” and “Dissolved in Lye (Down to Rot)”
Mors Principium Est – Darkness Invisible
Genre: Melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5As a long-time fan, you’ll always find me thrilled at a new release from these Finns. Back with their first original album since 2020, It doesn’t take long to confirm that the band is on top form, certainly in terms of virtuoso technicality and their signature meld of vibrant, grandiose melody and ferocious riff-and-growl attack. It also doesn’t take all too long to conclude that, despite a few new flavors, it’s not what you’d call a daring effort. The familiarity factor is quite high, but, crucially, not to the point where it gets unengaging. Aside from a few tracks that do little but re-knead old glory, there are several genuinely fresh-sounding songs where different melodic and instrumental tonalities, tempos and levels of scope and aggression are utilized to great effect. I’d say that the gang is unquestionably at their best when going all-out fast and furious, but the extremes are more effectively highlighted with the use of contrasts, which is absolutely the case on this album. For people like me, who desire both more of what I’ve loved previously and attempts at branching out and evolving, this is like a personalized gift basket.
Highlights: “Beyond the Horizon” and “Of Death”
Overt Enemy – Insurrection
Genre: Thrash/groove metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Texas thrash metal that’s piled on some groove heft and hardcore attitude. The album brings to mind Incite and Kataklysm, but doesn’t go to the same level of heaviness, preferring to stay light on its feet and almost obsessively riff-focused. It’s not great on variation, and feels a bit stiff, but it’s got loads of energy.
Paradox – Mysterium
Genre: Thrash/power/speed metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5Veteran Teutonic thrashers Paradox has one of the most inconsistent release patterns I think I’ve ever seen, but I suppose that comes with the territory of popping in and out of activity. This is their 10th full-length, and it’s also far from the most consistent thing you’ll hear this week. It tries speed, attitude, loftiness, groove and and a bit of prog, and only really succeeds at half of it. What works is cool, but the rest simply contributes to a bloated runtime.
PeelingFlesh – PF Radio 2
Genre: Brutal/slamming death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: ?/5This is less of a review and more of a declaration of capitulation in terms of my ability to review slamming, brutal death metal. I’ll freely admit, I simply don’t get it. Take away the clip-on spoken-word soundbites, and to me this literally sounds like the same couple of tracks on repeat, just cut to slightly different lengths. I don’t dislike it, and I get that the main purpose of this is to be played live, but… there must surely be more tricks in the slammin’ tool box than this. If you’re into this band, you might as well go ahead and ignore every word I have to say about it.
Rage – A New World Rising
Genre: Heavy/power metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5A blazing fireworks display of a fun-focused, groovy-as-hell heavy metal album from these German veterans. The melodic vocal work is hilariously stunted, the choruses straight off the assembly line, and the lyrics hopelessly clichéd, but if none of that matters to you. it’ll light a fire in you.
Revocation – New Gods, New Masters
Genre: Technical death/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Following up 2022’s “Netherheaven” was always going to be tough, but then pretty much everything Revocation does sounds like they’ve set themselves some sort of high-bar, intricate challenge. On first listen of “New Gods, New Masters”, my overall impression was that they’ve overdone it, losing sight of the importance of flow, sense of direction and listenability in favor of instrumental and structural showmanship. Indeed, a lot of what goes on sounds like a kind of complex task-solving, and I must conclude that it’s not as consistent or overwhelmingly pleasing as its predecessor. But it’s not far off, and in some ways it’s more interesting – more layered, allowing you to appreciate different facets of it on each new listen. And when the groove aligns with the technical fury, it’s a beast like no other. While not mind-blowingly amazing, I still find it to be excellent, even considering this band’s sky-high standards.
Highlights: “Cronenberged” and “Dystopian Vermin”
Sundrowned – Higanbana
Genre: Atmospheric sludge metal/blackgaze
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5A gentle, atmospheric sludge/blackgaze album out of Norway that sails along on soul-nourishing, wistful melodies. The harsh vocals feel a tad forced at times, in that they whisk the surface of an otherwise pristine, harmonic pond, but work much better when the intensity builds.
Vintersorg – Vattenkrafternas Spel
Genre: Folk metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5After eight years, the blackened folk project that is Vintersorg re-emerges from the deep of the Swedish forests to deliver an hourlong insight into their world of pagan nature tales. Particularly given the distinct vocals of Andreas Hedlund, this is not a sound you easily mistake for anything else. It sets off on often peculiar rhythms and sudden transitions, and strikes an odd balance between primitive black metal riffs and epic, patiently trotting melodies complemented by mostly clean vocals that love to really draaaaag its words out. It doesn’t quite vibe with me, but it works on most levels for what it is, and fans will almost definitely enjoy it.
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown September 19 – 2025
We’re doomed! This week is all about the gloom, be it fuzzy and fantastical or hooded and malignant. With a couple of jokers here and there to shake things up.
Airborn – Lizard Secrets Part Three – Utopia
Genre: Heavy/power metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5It’s always good to be able to expand my awareness across the metal spectrum, not just of what’s the latest up-and-comers, but of the long-going, hard working troopers that have so far flown under my radar. Airborn (not to be confused with Australia’s Airbourne) are an Italian power metal band that’s been going since 1995. Their latest release definitely harkens back to bygone eras, but doesn’t feel like it’s coasting on past glories, and does surprisingly well in terms of tropes and clichés. What I will say is that it’s overly mellow, lacking the enthusiasm and vigor to go with the positive tone and fun, cyberpunk concept.
Ancient Thrones – Melancholia
Genre: Progressive/technical death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5A fairly fresh prog death band that, despite the inclination for technical-minded performances, does not conform to the clean, razor-sharp and ultra-detailed sound that typically goes with it. This is slightly rough, with coarse vocals and a tone that dips to blackened depths at times. The album is a bit unevenly structured, not super well produced and not avoiding as many tropes as I would have liked. But it’s got a few stand-out songs, a good melody/brutality balance, and overall I find it a highly promising concept.
Castle Rat – The Bestiary
Genre: Doom/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5If I was to try and sum up what Castle Rat does so well within the fantasy doom genre is that they don’t make music ABOUT an imaginary realm, describing it in the role of storytellers, or poke half-ironic, half-loving fun at the concept from a meta standpoint. Their music IS the fantasy realm. Yes, it is described by distinctly doom- and heavy metal means, but the way the instrumentation and vocals are allowed to shape the dramatic progression, ebbs and flows of energy, scope and feel of this sonic world, it feels just as natural as if it was an orchestra performing the score of an epic, and sometimes, at least to me, even more vivid. The band’s proficiency at this was already proven with last year’s “Into The Realm”, but this time around the vision is bolder, richer and more unpredictable. The songs feel like chapters in a saga, each spinning their own little tale as part of a comprehensive tapestry. I could wish for even greater dramatic highs and more aggressive turns, but as a step in expanding their sound this is nothing short of excellent.
Highlights: “WIZARD” and “SIREN”
Chaoseum – Life 4 Sale
Genre: Nu metal/metalcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5This is Korn meets In Flames at their most accessible, meets metalcore, and the result is obviously very, very catchy. While the sound is not the most distinct, they avoid the biggest clichés, and deliver a good mix of punchy aggression and entertaining melody. Unfortunately, the middle album is a bit of a downer, but it picks back up.
Evilcult – Triumph Of Evil
Genre: Blackened speed metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Charm-offensive speed metal of the corpse-paint-and-candles variant, charging at you from out of Brazil. You get a bit of that NWOBHM epic flair, and a couple of mid-tempo tracks that flirts with some atmosphere, but other than that it’s speed demon business as usual.
Gawthrop – Kuboa
Genre: Sludge/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5I love how this album makes me feel, even though it’s in no way pleasant. Think buried alive in a cemetery where all the corpses start slowly tunneling their way towards you. What I will say though, is that I get my fill of this vibe from the first three songs, and then the remaining four just keeps doing more or less the same. It’s nasty, borderline death doom, raspy, rumbly stuff, where each track has one, simple job. Nothing more, nothing less.
Heretoir – Solastalgia
Genre: Blackened/progressive metalcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5A highly introspective, moody and melodically saturated album, vaguely in the style of blackened, atmospheric metalcore (I know it’s post metal, I just object to that term in general). It feels a bit like swimming upstream in a river full of emotionally laden debris. There are rapids, but these are outweighed by the calmer sections, which slow down the experience far too much for me, especially towards the end. Love the album art though.
Igorrr – Amen
Genre: Experimental extreme metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5It’s a difficult sometimes with bands like Igorrr to decide if their music is becoming more conventional, or if you’re just getting attuned to it. I want to say that Amen, at the very least, sounds like the most coherent album I’ve listened to of his to date, and that’s not saying it feels in any way tamed, or even housetrained. The flow writhes and glitches along in typical, spasmic fashion, and, long story short, it’s a great fucking time. As suggested by the title, you’re getting a conceptual sprinkling of religious solemnity, with backing choirs and the feeling of big, high-ceiling space. What goes on in this space though, I wouldn’t qualify as particularly reverent. This is a beast of a record, with tons of aggression and extremely well-produced layers of force and finesse. Everything from the 12 second, rabid explosion “2020” to the acoustic folk interlude “Étude n°120”, and varying levels of catchy, electronically infused insanity in between, around and beyond. If you’re on board with the style, you’re in for a whole load of treats with massive replay value.
Highlights” “Headbutt” and “Mustard Mucous”
Kamra – Unending Confluence
Genre: Atmospheric black/death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5This one snuck up on me, then proceeded to ensnare me with its multi-limbed, malignant embrace. It’s a monumental, barely controlled series of half-dissonant, darkly atmospheric waves of unholy cacophony. And, worryingly, it makes more and more sense the longer you listen to it. You get a variety of vocal styles, from spoken-word chanting to rabid snarls, and an equally varied rhythm approach. It should probably be labeled as experimental, but you get the feeling that this is how it’s “supposed to be”, as decreed by some terrible, pagan deity. It’s got the venom and hatred of early black metal, and the bestial bloodthirst of death metal, and combines the two in fluid fashion, drawing more from the essences than the superficial techniques. An album that will fascinate and disturb you in equal measure, without going overboard with neither the level of randomness nor ugliness.
Highlights: “Of Pillars, Walls and Mutilation” and “Unlightment”
Krigsgrav – Stormcaller
Genre: Melodic black/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This Texas band with the Norwegian name and fairly Scandinavian sound has been moving steadily forward under the radar since 2004, and are now on their eighth full-length. They deal in doom-paced, melodic black metal, borrowing quite a few traits from solemn, forest-dwelling melodeath. With that, this latest album is already fairly well summed up, as there isn’t a heap new going on, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound good. It’s a full, punchy sound that highlights the chunky riffs and rumbling bass, enveloping and propelling the melodies, both when they’re slowly drifting and cutting through as wailing guitar solos. It’s a little short on ideas, but generous on immersion.
Highlight: “Ghosts”
New World Depression – Abysmal Void
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Here’s an old school death metal banger out of Germany, but sounding like a stripped-down version of Obituary meets Vader. This is mostly all about the riffs, of which I wish there were even more. It’s just the kind of malevolent, driving sound that you’d expect, with a moderate and highly fitting amount of groove.
Novembers Doom – Major Arcana
Genre: Gothic/doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Chicago’s Novembers Doom strike again, for the first time in six years, and so they’ve made sure to strike hard. This is still monumental, riff-heavy, gothic doom, but the tap controlling the influx of melodic extreme metal has been given a liberal yank. There is still room for closed-eyes, nihilistic serenades from atop the darkened manor staircase, but the band’s sludgy roots seem much more interested in breaking through the floorboards and tearing the place apart. The whole album feels like a statement of strong melodies, organic-but-catchy rhythms and powerful clean/harsh vocals. It’s epic and confidently bombastic, but still comfortably within the confines of melodic doom.
Highlights: “Major Arcana” and “Ravenous”
Paradise Lost – Ascension
Genre: Doom/gothic metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5You’re getting a few different iterations of Paradise lost as you make your steady way through their mammoth 17th (!) album. Not that this is some massively style-morphing thing, but it’s definitely got more to offer than just their current, signature gothic doom style. Death doom and melancholic melodeath make strong entrances, as well as more proggy goth and a bit of groove. Nick Holmes’ voice ties it all together, even as he demonstrates an impressive range to suit the different musical moods. It is long, and feels long, with the heaviest tracks being front-loaded, and mostly every song having that stare-into-the-distance feel of taking as long time as is necessary. Even so, it’s not what I would call over-indulgent. There’s plenty of purpose and contrasting moments that show the veteran band’s ability to play around with their own formula.
Highlights: “Tyrants Serenade” and “Silence Like The Grave”
Sunniva – Hypostasis
Genre: Sludge/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5A hostile, smoke-wreathed, lumbering sludge doom album that every now and then fools you into a false sense of security with some ethereal, floating calm, only to heap the misery back on over you my means of mountainous riffs and grating vocals.
Tithe – Communion In Anguish
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Now on their third full-length, Tithe play murky, blackened death doom, quite often (perhaps contradicting) at grindcore-level speed and ferocity. The cool part is that, even with longer, dragged out sections of scouring abuse, the whole thing wraps up at just over 35 minutes. This feels like just enough to fully appreciate the duality of this beast’s malevolent mood, which is evenly represented throughout. There’s a hunger and bitterness to it that comes through effectively both in the pained crawls and the bared-teeth stampedes. They don’t quite manage to avoid a measure of repetitiveness, but the rawness and hostility is highly convincing, and overall I’d say it’s a solid step forward for the band.
Highlight; “At The Altar Of Starving Children”
Vittra – Intense Indifference
Genre: Melodic death/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5In my opinion, there are few things as badass as good death thrash. And, as evidenced by this fun-loving Swedish bunch, it certainly doesn’t have to take itself all that seriously in order to achieve said bad-assery. This actually reminds me a lot more of Finnish bands like Children of Bodom, Ensiferum and Mors Principium Est when they’re in their more playful moods, but, to be fair, also fellow countrymen like Witchery. What this album basically does is patch together a Mad Max-style vehicle of melodeath muscle and thrash metal arsenal of guns and spinning blades, and then drive it with a rock ‘n’ roll upbeat and carefree attitude. As you might imagine, it’s all riffs with lots of light-hearted cool, but enough bite to leave a few marks.
Highlights: “MOFO” and “Transylvanian Buffet”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown September 12 – 2025
Prog metal has a big surge this week, and isn’t so weird or smug that it’s can’t co-exist with a good bunch of more straightforward and predictable stuff.
Between The Buried And Me – The Blue Nowhere
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5I’m all for prog metal feeling a bit bonkers, but not when it results in complete aimlessness. I don’t think that’s the case with “The Blue Nowhere”, but it’s also far from the most coherent thing you’ll ever hear. I think the aim with this album was to have fun. To seriously stretch some creative muscles, not just technically but also in terms of songwriting. To push the limits of flavor while still remaining, unmistakably, Between The Buried And Me. And to me, the prog masters most definitely succeed in their experiment. Yes, it’s wild, and by stuffing it full of jazzy, cabaret-like musical elements it will inevitably stretch some listeners’ tonal tolerance past the breaking point. If you call it over-indulgent, I totally see what your mean. But, critically, to me the variety doesn’t feel random for the sake of randomness. I get slightly different iteration of the band with every song, and a new surprise at almost every turn. It’s got heaviness, aggression, dazzling instrumentality, excellent interplay, impactful melody and a good dose of catchiness. And because it doesn’t get lost in atmosphere or repetition, I don’t actually notice that it’s well over an hour long, which a feat in itself.
Highlights: “Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark” and “Absent Thereafter”
Demon Hunter – There Was a Light Here
Genre: Metalcore/groove metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5If what you’re looking for is emotionally anchored, riff-based, groove-focused metalcore, Demon Hunter is a safe bet, and this hasn’t changed with their latest release… the key word here definitely being “safe”. There are some genuine feelings being dealt with on this album, which is probably its strongest suit, but songwriting wise there’s a LOT of interchangeability. It doesn’t necessarily feel repetitive, but it all sort of blends together, with very little to distinguish it.
Der Weg Einer Freiheit – Innern
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Black metal that takes the atmospheric and/or melodic direction can, I think, broadly be divided into two groups – the “thin”, focused and stripped down bunch and the “full-bodied”, layered and expansive one. This definitely belongs in the latter group, and that’s not at all saying that it’s some ostentatious, overproduced thing. It’s soaked in dusk-tone melody and builds and fades with complementing layers of instrumentality and atmospheric elements. It can be harsh and aggressive, and peaks with plenty of force, but it’s not an overwhelmingly negative minded thing. There’s wonder and constructive thought mixed in with the bleakness, making for a fuller spectrum of tonality than you might expect. In that regard, it’s not as convincingly dark or hostile as a lot of other black metal, but also far from tame, and offering far more than just one, narrow-minded approach.
Highlights: “Eos” and “Marter”
Electromancy – Visions of Utopia
Genre: Robotic black/doom metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5Is this the only trve industrial black metal? Electromancy is a duo that, despite chronic disability, plays avant-garde, experimental black metal with touches of doom and death, assisted by robotics as means of performing. Does that make the music sound… robotic? Of course, but instead of trying to mask this, they lean into it. It’s odd, but strangely not as experimental as you might expect.
Exelerate – Hell For The Helpless
Genre: Power/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5A cheeky Danish classic metal band that soars for the power stars on thrashing wings. So to speak. The vocals and solos speak epic, and the riffs speak “razorblade between the teeth”. It all melds together pretty well into something half-seriously adventurous, although in need of keeping a good flow in mind.
Helstar – The Devil’s Masquerade
Genre: Heavy/speed metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Try to imagine Judas Priest falling head over heels in love with the sound of Merciful Fate, but deciding that it needs to be faster and thrashier. This album might very well have been the result. I’m tempted to call it occult, guitar-happy power metal. It’s lofty, but instrumentally very direct, jumping straight into racing riffs and licks the moment the short intro track is over, and clearly realizing that the target audience will be happy with them keeping this up till the end. You do get tempo variation, but the guys don’t slow down for long, and only at a point in the runtime when even the most riff-starved listener will be satisfied. I would say that it’s an album you remember as a whole rather than for a set out outstanding tracks, and it’s not in any way revolutionary, but it’s committed, and above all else highly entertaining.
Highlight: “Seek Out Your Sins”
Heruvim – Mercator
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Here’s a Ukrainian debut old school death metal album that sounds like it’s traveled all the way from the late 80s and picked up traits from some of the more influential bands along the way. Beginning with that mildly progressive Death technicality, and then adding to it with some early Swedish groove, and then coating it all in a very light layer of grime. It’s a sound that knows how to get you going, but also sets higher goals for itself, like this is the start of building its own little world where it has total control, and can subject you to whatever it so desires. For now, the world is quite small, but radiates all the charm it needs to pull you in and keep you there, and once you’re in you’re completely enveloped. I get the feeling that when this this evolves, it’ll take a turn for the uglier… which is exactly what you want. And it might very well be magnificent.
Highlights” “Gnosis” and “Mercator”
Lorna Shore – I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me
Genre: Technical/symphonic deathcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5With a band like Lorna Shore, there’s little surprise that the prevailing philosophy for evolution is MORE. More, more, more. More melody, larger scope, deeper darkness, bigger contrasts. And despite all this, it’s immediately recognizable. Even borderline formulaic. That’s not to say that it’s remotely boring, but I also can’t say that I sense any risks being taken. “Well, would they?”, I hear you say. Don’t change a winning team, and all that. And yes, this is still very, very high quality deathcore. But, as a non-diehard fan, if it wasn’t for the Fleshgod-like boost of piano-led drama infused into proceedings, I would struggle to tell a good handful of these songs apart from earlier material. This is also the band at its most accessible and cinematic, which explains a lot of the things I’ve just pointed out. Technically though, you can’t help but grin and shake your head appreciatively at the excellence. And there is, indeed variation to be had. You can tell that the guys are trying. Maybe not exactly new things, but slightly different things, and it’s more than enough to notice. And god damn is this thing majestic.
Highlights” “Forevermore” and “War Machine”
Mortal Scepter – Ethereal Dominance
Genre: Blackened thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5If you’re looking for the opposite of bombastic, thickly layered and overproduced, then this will scour your palate clean from fluff in a heartbeat. French thrash isn’t exactly something you stumble across every day, but here it is, and it’s in a very Spanish mood. Meaning that it hurls itself at you at breakneck pace, brimming with enthusiasm and lacking any intention of letting up. But while it’s clearly not some cerebral or deeply conceptual thing, it’s also not completely straightforward. There’s an air of prestige, and a tendency of wanting to flesh things out beyond the dagger-storm of riffs and hyperactive drums. There’s darkness, but in that cosmic, uncaring universe sort of way rather than demonic, and it’s not without a sense of adventure. It’s accompanied by very fitting, barking vocals, and offers technical showmanship in spades while keeping it solidly integrated in the song structures, so it’s not flow-breaking or in your face. I never stopped enjoying myself, and if you’re a thrash fan I don’t think you will either.
Highlights: “Ethereal Dominance” and “Into the Wolves Den”
Motherless – Do You Feel Safe?
Genre: Sludge/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Deep, crushing riffs and sharp, strained-throat vocals with heavy hardcore rhythms and dark doom groove is the recipe for this Chicago sludge project. It feels raw and coarse, but at the same time well-rounded and with plenty of low-end stopping power. You don’t feel like you’ve been miles away coming out the other side, more like spending some quality time in a closed-down, restricted area where everything takes on the same, distinct, overwhelming flavor. Despite its heft, it moves well and has the energy to get your heart going, not getting lost in exaggerated use of noise, miserable tonality or oppressive atmosphere.
Highlight: “Reptile Dysfunction”
Nicolas Cage Fighter – I Watched You Burn
Genre: Hardcore/metalcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This Nick Cage-approved metallic hardcore project is back to shake your skull off the spinal chord and have the rest of the audience pass it around like a beach ball. It’s a fighter for sure, with boundless energy, unrelenting fury, and the muscle to make it all land with bruising effect. It’s not inventive, but it keeps on giving and giving, even picking up the savagery factor towards the end, creeping into death metal borderlands. These are not the kind of moshpits you emerge unscathed from. There’s not a ton more to say about it, other than that I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Highlights: “Death in Bloom” and “I Watched You Burn”
Revelator – Light The Devil’s Fire
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5A slice of peppy Canadian black metal with a thrashy death engine. The production is not great, and it’s a bit uneven in how rewarding the songs are, but at it’s best it’s a big charmer, mixing rowdy groove with raw, cutthroat determination.
Schreigarm – Mara Comes and Darkness Shall Reign
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5As black metal goes, this is a fairly vibrant kind of sound. Deeply infused with melody and folk-leaning atmosphere, the harshness feels almost insincere. It’s got the right tone, some great riffs and proper, aggressive vocals. But it seems to prefer to slow down and soak in emotion, which takes the edge off a bit. Sounds good though.
Unaligned – A Form Beyond
Genre: Technical/progressive death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5A lot of tech death debuts that I’ve listened to are typically preoccupied with instrumental precision, speed and complexity above all – including any sort of artistic traits that might imprint a bit of personality. I understand why they do this though. A tech death album simply can’t be sloppy. Unaligned must therefore be patient enough to have honed their sound over long enough time, or simply talented enough to hit the ground running, all guns out and with a clear plan in mind. I won’t say that they avoid bringing to mind a good number of their peers, but “A Form Beyond” is neither trying too hard nor lacking in terms of craftsmanship. The technicality has been utilized in enabling a moderately progressive approach to structure, and this has been executed tastefully. It’s not a wild album, but it’s certainly dynamic. Aggressive yet melodic, and avoiding an impressive number of tropes, it’s not instantly memorable, but will grow on you, and oozes potential.
Highlight: “Ruins of Lunacy”
Yotuma – The Final Void
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5A brutal-ish, energetic death metal project that incorporates modest amounts of a few different styles, like groove and hardcore, but mostly staying on bloodthirsty, pummeling course. It’s feels a bit muddled and indecisive at times, but delivers big on riff satisfaction and filthy tone.
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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Weekly rundown September 05 – 2025
A truly unpredictable, full-spectrum week where you can find something to match whatever mood you might be in at any given moment.
Ambush – Evil In All Dimensions
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This is about as classic as metal gets, and yet it’s not fine-tuned to any specific point in history, instead showcasing a moderate breadth of stylistic traits from the 70s and 80s, both from traditional heavy metal and its chest-beating, quest-obsessed cousin power metal. The most important things to point out is that it’s really well written, and also, thankfully, totally unpretentious. On the less impressive side, it’s not what you would call boundary-pushing in the technical department, with mostly half-relaxed rhythms and epic ballad-flavored melodies. But then that’s also a big part of the charm, and even when they go full-out ballad, it’s done well. No real surprises, but it’s a committed effort that does pretty much everything right within expectations.
Highlight: “Come Angel of Night”
Before The Dawn – Cold Flare Eternal
Genre: Melodic death/groove metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5After returning post-pandemic with their first album in 11 years, Finnish melodeathers Before the Dawn have revitalized that early 2000s sound (think In Flames’ “Reroute to Remain” and “Soundtrack to Your Escape”). This is committedly melodic, with clean choruses and a fairly bright tone considering the subgenre. For anyone recognizing the style it’s sure to be a delightful shot of nostalgia, although those hoping for a good balance between hard-hitting brutality and immersive melody will find it lacking in the former of the two departments.
Bent Sea – The Dormant Ruin
Genre: Grindcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5The grind supergroup that is Bent Sea, consisting of Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth), Sven de Caluwé (Aborted) and Shane Embury (Napalm Death), present here their first actual full-length record since starting out in 2011. Considering the lineup, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that this isn’t straight grindcore, but something slightly more experimental. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it completely unpredictable, but it certainly weaves in and out of ominous-toned death metal, extreme, dissonant prog and a touch of groove and doom. It’s a lively one for sure, particularly in the drum department, and given that it’s 20 tracks long, it’s a huge plus that they’ve managed a high level of variation, even incorporating a couple of atmospheric interludes. It’s grind where you get to use your brain a bit, and have it properly scrambled as a reward.
Highlights: “Curtailer Of Conceit” and “Sharpen The Blade”
Cult Burial – Collapse Of Pattern, Reverence Of Dust
Genre: Blackened death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5A British blackened death metal album of the decidedly new school, with hyperactive drums and brutal vocals competing with the mean-spirited tone and abyssal doom elements. The balance isn’t struck brilliantly, but if what you’re looking for is ominous punishment, you won’t go wrong with this one.
Crypt Monarch – Codex Pestilentia
Genre: Doom/stoner metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5Costa Rican doom with a thick coating of sludgy, tar-thick stoner groove. You can easily imagine some sort of alcohol-fueled, dusk time ritual going on, and it mostly sounds like a good time. While the music is fairly predictable, the tone and atmospheric elements are on point.
Faetooth – Labyrinthine
Genre: Atmospheric doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5If dark, dreamy shoegaze working itself up into sludgy, slow-burn fury sounds like just your kind of thing, then… I suppose you already know about this band and their newest album. But or everyone else, this is an all-female atmospheric doom band from Los Angeles, here releasing their second full-length, but sounding like they’re working with a good decade’s worth of experience. Apart from a few overly long buildups and fairly predictable song structures, this is a very well-balanced experience, where the transitions between mellow and coarse feel otherworldly smooth, allowing you to properly immerse your mind into a world of blissful gloom without fear of getting jarred when the intensity builds. That being said, this is still very much a heavy doom album, just not quite approaching death levels of punishment.
Highlights: “Hole” and “Death Of Day
Falling Leaves – The Silence That Binds Us
Genre: Melodic death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5An album like a walk through a dark autumn forest, with a terrible storm raging just beyond the tree line and shaking the canopy. It’s got that Finnish epic-melancholy-melodic quality, although the band is actually from Jordan (now based in Dubai). The rhythm work is a little short on finesse and I could have wanted some more dynamism to the vocals, but it’s got several strong sections and is well worth the listen for fans of atmospheric melodeath.
Gjallarhorn’s Wrath – The Silver Key
Genre: Symphonic black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5This is all dark, heavy bombast from start to finish. Like a modern death metal/deathcore band donning corpse paint and given control over an orchestra. It’s got tons of that Fleshgod Apocalypse and Septicflesh dramatic and brutal-catchy appeal, just not quite the same cleverness in terms of songwriting at this early stage, this being their debut. The rhythm sections stumbles ever so slightly now and then, but for the most part the flow is great, and it never gets dull.
Green Carnation – A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5Veteran Norwegian prog band Green Carnation are back after five years with their seventh full-length, and it’s a delightful mix of jazzy cool, doomy groove and evolved progressive black metal not totally unlike Enslaved (speaking of which, vocalist Grutle Kjellson makes an appearance on “The Slave That You Are”, and it’s pretty great). This variation is absolutely one of the album’s stronger suits, but not everything the band tries works quite as well. The melodies are mostly impactful, but don’t always harmonize perfectly with the vocals, and the rhythms feel a bit understated overall, at least outside the more intense sections. Overshadowing this however, is the obvious willingness to take chances and not getting bound to one, narrow approach. It’s just weird enough to stand out, and well thought out enough to be memorable.
Highlight: “In Your Paradise”
Jord – Emellan Träden
Genre: Atmospheric black/doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Wander down a path that will take you through ages past and realities that only exist in the shadowy corners of your imagination. The band confidently carries on the Swedish tradition of high quality, non-clichéd melodic extreme metal, without feeling the need to overly constrain itself with genre conventions. It’s black metal, and it’s also very much doom, but first and foremost it’s storytelling that takes on a multitude of dark shades, touching on feelings of loss, hopelessness and rage, but also resilience. It feels effortlessly epic without being the least bit silly, and serious without trying too hard. The more you listen, the deeper you sink in, the more rewarding it gets.
Highlights: “Dimma” and “Prinsessan och Hästen”
Korp – And Darker It Shall Become
Genre: Black/death/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Just low-fi enough to feel properly underground, but catchy enough to get a large crowd moving, this is Swedish black metal wildly chasing thrash riff-happiness and old school death metal relentlessness. To be fair, there’s a good deal on here that the well-versed will have heard before, but the tropes aren’t overused to the point where they dominate the experience. It’s all about getting in the right mood, and then having the fury unleashed upon you. The band serves up banger after banger with just enough melodic backing to give it some depth, but for the most part preferring to keep things relatively straightforward.
Highlights: “The ritual” and “Feast upon the spineless”
Nailed To Obscurity – Generation Of The Void
Genre: Melodic/progressive death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5Nailed to Obscurity keep evolving their sound, and have never sounded bigger or more ambitious than on their latest release. Stepping comfortably into Katatonia-levels of accessibility and leaning fully into Opeth- and Leprous-like progressive-mindedness, this is a many-faceted sound that doesn’t end up over-complicated. It’s steadfastly melodic throughout, with as much (if not more) clean vocals as harsh ones, and both complement their respective sections beautifully. Neither the melodic death metal nor the doom is lost, but the latter of the two is now approaching more of a tonal influence, although there are absolutely slower parts. To those who can stomach the fact that the band is edging its way out of extreme metal, although certainly not fully leaving it behind, this is a bountiful experience of engaging highs and lows with impressive technical work and obvious effort involved.
Highlights: “Clouded Frame” and “Overcast”
Nuclear Dudes – Truth Paste
Genre: Experimental grindcore/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5This is about as nerdy as death metal can get. Fired off at an impatient grindcore pace, it grafts synthetic beats, blurts and background melody lines onto punishing, noisy riff and drum assaults, and then goes wherever its fancy takes it. For extended sections it can come off as terribly distracted and aimless, which at times feels like a bit of a waste of the very limited runtime. But the entertainment value makes up for the most of it. It’s loaded with dorky song titles, whacky tangents and big contrasts, and therein lies the appeal. If you can appreciate this level of silliness, then you might just end up loving it.
Highlight: “Dirty 20”
Pestilential Shadows – Wretch
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Solemn, classic black metal from this long-going Australian band. Not the first place you’d be looking for black metal, perhaps, but this is solid stuff, clearly inspired by the Nordic origins, but taken in a more atmospheric, less folk-influenced direction. It’s fairly subtle, but this is a different flavor to the stuff you get out of Scandinavia, something subgenre enthusiasts/cultists will surely appreciate. The brilliant album cover caught my attention instantly, and the music matches the looks pretty spot on. I wanted it to be a bit more daring, a bit more different, but this is much more one for the purists than the casual black metal listener.
Highlight: “Where Sunlight Goes To Die”
Primal Fear – Domination
Genre: Power/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5If all you want from a Primal Fear record is some new riffs accompanied by Ralph Scheepers’ vocals, then rejoice, because this album sounds like it’s made specifically for you. Yes it’s fun, and yes it’s epic as all hell, but it’s also quite tame, and woefully unoriginal and unengaging. Also, please get that AI-generated cover out of my face.
Ritual Mass – Cascading Misery
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5Death metal emanating from the absolute murk, somewhere deep down in the bottom layer of the earth’s crust. This is all growling, steamroller-pace, crushing misery that will exercise the last shreds of hope you have in a bright future. Not for those looking to avoid death metal tropes, but then this is absolutely a niche beast.
Tallah – Primeval: Obsession // Detachment
Genre: Experimental nu metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5I flat out loved Tallah’s 2022 release “The Generation of Danger”, primarily for its achievement in tapping into that wild, early Slipknot energy and honing it into something both technically sharp, exploratory and distinct. What they’ve done since then is continue the exploration from a point on the outermost fringes and onwards. That’s not to say that the downtuned, rhythmic heaviness is gone, but it’s no longer the dominant element. The unpredictability on this album has been drastically turned up, and particularly the rhythm section is doing its utmost part to veer the progress off the straight path as much as possible. It’s instantly recognizable as Tallah, which is a testament to their musical vision, and I can’t not applaud their boldness in going this weird on only their third full-length release. I miss the force and relentlessness of the predecessor, but as a redefinition of style and artistic statement, it’s still a heavy hitter.
Highlights: “as fate undoes” and “A primeval detachment”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
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