Fresh outta high school, Chicago’s Starkill use fantasy artwork on the cover of their debut CD and title their songs things like “Sword, Spear, Blood, Fire.”
Seeing as how the continent is a vast, harsh, desolate, ice cold expanse of misery, it’s amazing that it’s taken this long for it to get its due from the metal world.
A double album of melodic death metal may seem like a headscratcher at first, but Soilwork fired a warning shot with their last album, The Panic Broadcast.
Before the phrase “Italian power metal” sends you screaming for the exits, know that Secret Sphere craft a pretty sweet Dream Theater-style instrumental opener.
I like an opening act that can work a crowd just as much as the next guy who arrived too early, and this Jersey crew has the talent to accomplish that feat.
The irony-free pomp and ponderous nature of most symphonic/prog/power metal usually gives me a limp noodle right quick, but I’ve gotta hand it to Angra.
Bow Down Before The Blood Court is packed with crushing, brutal death metal, with little room to breathe, like on the bludgeoning “Piled Up For The Scavengers.”
With Katatonia embarking on a trip into prog-land, we need bands like 40 Watt Sun and Daylight Dies to satiate our need for melancholy, mid-paced metal.
Superior black metal from the UK. Anaal Nathrakh mix in all sorts of extreme sounds into their attack, from grind to industrial, and they do it with style.
Axewound gathers Liam Cormier (Cancer Bats), Matthew Tuck (BFMV), Mike Kingswood (Glamour Of The Kill), Joe Copcutt (Rise to Remain), Jason Bowld (Pitchshifter).
Boilerplate metalcore from Down Under. Chasing Ghosts, is bound to wear on your nerves with “cute” song titles that reference PBR and Office Space jokes.
Your street cred will go through the roof (and your sex life through the floor) once you bust out that you have some UKRAINIAN BLACK METAL in your collection.
Lions Lions bring solid post-hardcore from Boston. The band’s focus on balance means that there aren’t many highs or lows, just a safe, steady middle ground.
The pride of the progressive Canadian sci-fi-themed cyber metal scene, Voivod stretch out on this nearly eight-minute track from their 13th studio album.
“For Your Vulgar Delectation” is prime latter-day COF, bringing a rock ‘n’ roll sensibility that sets them far apart from more “true” black metal recordings.