Category Archives: Death Metal
Ossuarium – Living Tomb (2019)
Ossuarium demonstrate the existential crisis that has beset many new death metal bands. Like bargain-bin patchwork quilt, their influences cover the gamut of popular stylings in contemporary metal: from cavern-core dissonance to ambient tinkerings to somewhat bathetic transformations into Candlemass-lite … Continue reading →
Garroted – Of Damnation And Abyssal Terrors EP (2018)
Roiling, churning, riff-intense progressive death metal is what Garroted play on this their second recording. The band should be praised for overcoming the distractedly frenzied nature of debut demo In The Court Of Nyarlathotep; the new songs have an equally … Continue reading →
Ares Kingdom – By The Light Of Their Destruction (2019)
By The Light Of Their Destruction On their new album, Ares Kingdom have traded the anthemic qualities of their first three albums for a deliberately spacier and obscure sound. Appropriately, the band has mined its own past for inspiration; as … Continue reading →
Prosanctus Inferi – Pulpit Sycophants (Demo, 2019)
Prosanctus Inferi return after five years with a collection of demos in anticipation of a proper full length later in the year. No other contemporary band in death metal has quite managed to capture the idea of music as blasphemy … Continue reading →
A Sinister trek through the last fifteen years
One of the most rhythmically expressive of all death metal bands, Sinister‘s career trajectory is widely assumed to have flatlined after classics like Cross the Styx, Diabolical Summoning, and Hate in the 90s. Frequent line-up changes, to the extent that … Continue reading →
Consume The Forsaken, a tour de force of brutality
Having talked about brutal death metal in less than glowing terms previously, I am now about to plump for what is widely considered as the quintessential brutal death metal band. Disgorge from California pushed the Suffocation template to its extreme, … Continue reading →
Death Metal Battle Royale Round 2: Sinister’s Cross The Styx vs Deicide’s Legion
This Round 2 battle pitches two albums similarly intense in death metal rhythm guitar playing. Sinister, and Dutch death metal in general, were inspired by genre developments in North america, and perhaps in no small portion by Deicide themselves. … Continue reading →
Ugra Karma – Mountain Grinders (2015)
Ugra Karma – Mountain Grinders This brief EP from foundational Nepalese death metal band Ugra Karma is so elementary as to seem out of place in the current time. That might read like an inconsistent statement; after all, a good … Continue reading →
Zealotry – At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds (2018)
Zealotry‘s first two albums are fine case studies in modern, technical death metal. The Charnel Expanse combined influences from Demilich and Immolation in groove and chord shape without being as firmly rooted in the concise song format of either band. … Continue reading →
Thy Feeble Saviour – And Darkness Fell (2018)
Texan death metal represents the most uncompromising face of the genre today. Dark, gritty, and relentlessly confrontational, this is not music for those perpetually seeking new thrills or those satisfied with shapelessness masquerading as innovation. Rather, a band like Thy … Continue reading →