News

Oh, and happy 30th anniversary to Metallica’s second or third best album today. 

Hear the Atlanta black/death/doom demons’ return after an extended recording hiatus. 

And if you worry you are late to the Phobia party, the ludicrously huge Decades of Blastphemy will bring you up to speed. 

Get to know Mörk Grinning with this quick essentials list.

Missing out on this is sort of like missing out on last call at the bar. If they gave you extra beers at the same price, that is. 

We teamed up with FreqsTV, the all-original rock and metal documentary channel on YouTube, for some pavement-crushing tour videography. 

Normally, this is the spot where time would be taken to give an introduction to the band, but guitarist Jeremy Perkins took the baton and ran with it like a motherfucker when we sent Montreal’s Éohum a few questions about having a full time French horn player augmenting their doomy black metal.

There will be shred. 

Are you an axe wielding, headbanging, record collecting design enthusiast who has a passion for print?

Formulated to serve as a brutal antithesis to what the band views as the pervasive conformity and repressive theology of its Mormon-majority home state, the upcoming debut full-length from Salt Lake City atheistic agitators Making Fuck A Harrowing End brings on the dark via an unusually expansive, roiling maelstrom of doom and sludge metal accented and emboldened by guest spots courtesy SubRosa violinist Kim Pack. 

Up the (digital) decibels for free!

Take a journey into the outer limits on ex-Overcast/Shadows Falls’ members Transient spaceship on today’s Demo:listen…

“German – Greek friendship at its finest! A grindcore/crust/death/black metal sonic attack is provided with this split release! 

A side-splitting interview with the insane owner of Headsplit Records, a (mostly) tape label specializing in obscenely putrid death metal and uncomfortably inappropriate grind. You’ve been warned.

Stream a new EP from the Canadian duo Unbowed.

Get a taste of the newest full-length from these Canadian grindsons.  

One game to go, one prediction to rule all the other morons making predictions.

Hope you like Seinfeld. You like Seinfeld, right?

If the name Divinity is an unfamilar one, you’d be forgiven for your ignorance. Have you tried to familiarize yourself with every band out there? It’s a bit of a tough task, even when the band in question has spent time on both the rosters of Nuclear Blast and Candlelight. 

Finnish melodic death metal mainstays Omnium Gatherum are mere weeks away from dropping their seventh LP, Grey Heavens, and their timing is impeccable: it’s cold as balls out there. To celebrate, the boys have dropped a new video for the album’s second single, “Frontiers,” and we have the exclusive U.S. premiere.

Stream the title track from the upcoming doom opus from Japan’s Funeral Moth. 

One more round of ol’ (alleged) HGH Neck vs. Dreamboat. And another game you don’t care as much about.

Yes, that title does refer to the two styles of music and the trading card game. 

We were tempted to post a mid-’80s photo of German thrashers Exumer. But, alas, this would be a misrepresentation of the reality of time. Actually, that’s not entirely true. For the better part of two decades Exumer has parlayed Euro-centric thrash into solid gold. That’s right, from 1985 to 2016, the Germans have transcended time and trends to make what is arguably the best thrash album to hit the public since Exodus’ Force of Habit.

“Spain’s superb hardcore punk misfits clash with Finland’s finest grindcore deviants on this unforgivingly brutal split 7” that’s going to pummel you into submission from the very first notes.”

** After a late night driving session with a friend trying to trick me into falsely identifying Finnish melodic death/rock outfit Fall of the Leafe’s third album, Fermina, I figured the Deciblog could use some Finnish mastery. Though this piece would go nicely to complement my cover story on Finland (HERE), it’s really too hard to forget how great Fall of the Leafe were. Early on, they held the tenets of melodic death metal tight–with flair–but as they matured, so too did the music. OK, so albums from Fermina on were light on death metal, they were heavy on wicked riffs, oddball songwriting, crazy singing, and emotion. Check out my favorite Fall of Leafe tunes below!

In the second installment of DEMO:LISTEN we resurrect two 2015 demos worthy of attention from the discerning metalhead.

More readers than Antonio Cromartie and Mel Gibson’s kids combined! 

Featuring ex-members of Transistor Transistor, Trap Them, Landmine Marathon, and Abigail WIlliams, the immersive, affecting debut from True Cross, Pure Divorce, deftly imbues majestic layered soundscapes situated somewhere between My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain, Dinosaur Jr and Slowdive with the power and transfixing sway of its primal predecessors. 

It’s a legit Zelda Rubinstein-style multidimensional experience — which is to say even as you feel the warmth of the light and the strange, ethereal allure of the other side it is pure sturm und drang all along the path.

Change is good: Ketzer progress beyond the confines of black metal in a very Tribulation-esque movement.