When I read a name ending with osis, I always think about nasty diseases and gore grind or gore noise... well not even close considering this band. Formed out fire is what it means, Ekpyrosis, ancient Greek. A creative and a well-chosen name for the music these Italians make. Death metal with the 90s US style and some heavy doom influences from our...

16/09/2018

“Unto Hades” is The Slave Eye’s second album – the first was “Black Rust”. Raleigh, North Carolina, the city and state from where The Slave Eye originates, has been home to some really creative heavy bands over the years, Glass Casket, Between The Buried And Me had members from there, and going way back, I have to mention Prayer For Cleansing. The...

12/09/2018

Try imagining a bulldozer heavy sound of guitars mixed with fat bass. Add super fast blasting and relentless double bass drum beats in combination to groovy 4/4 interleaves. Finally... Add a growler that knows how to twist his vocal chords in different turns exhaling and inhaling all kinds of growls possible, a dirty and itchy production and there...

11/09/2018

Having been battling against the odds in the underground Belarus death metallers look to finally break through with their forth full length album "S.I.N.". A fine crafted death metal album which honours the death metal traditions (IE Old School) but delivers a modern take in technicality and production all tied together with melody with a black met...

10/09/2018

Aborted Fetus return with a scathing release entitled “The Ancient Spirits of Decay”, and it’s sure to be a release that will knock you out of your seat. These guys have been at it for awhile and they show no signs of letting up on their quest to audibly murder everyone on the planet. The riffs are standard for the material presented, but what stan...

07/09/2018

Posthuman Abomination’s “Transcending Embodiment” has everything a brutal death metal fan could ask for, but sadly, that is all the band, and this release, has to offer. There is definitely a skill and talent factor to consider here, yet, somehow, somewhere, these two things get lost in the immense stagnation that, from time to time, plagues this g...

06/09/2018

This split between US act Graveyard and Turkish act Kuaför Cengiz, the latter of which translates as Hairdresser Genghis, has a common factor of one band member playing in both acts namely RAz K, as he is called in Graveyard and as Al Bayrak in Kuaför Cengiz. It is not often I get a vinyl to review but this is the case for this split which comes as...

05/09/2018

Sacred Leather’s “Ultimate Force” shows that sometimes there is truth in a title. This is pure heavy metal heaven! Vibes from classic heavy metal and hair metal all the way to elements of power metal can be found throughout this album. This is my introduction to the band and I definitely like what I am hearing. Everything about this release is spot...

31/08/2018

Pure brutal death metal and grind they say is what they play. Well, I think I can agree with that one. The band is from Italy and active since 2002. 2008 was the start of bringing mayhem with their "Rigore Mortis" EP. 4 years later they spewed "Rotting Remnants" to the world being their first full length followed by "Viscera" in 2014. The 4th music...

29/08/2018

According to the founder Thomas Trampouras Darkest Color has been around since the late 80s but has had no actual material released as he left to join Flames in 1990 when the band broke up. Songs that were performed back then were never recorded, with the exception of 'Sea Of Blood' and 'Jesus Christ' which ended up on the Flames album 'Nomen Illi...

21/08/2018

Usually French extreme metal bands throw massive sonic curveballs at you but instead this debut release prefers to completely assassinate the listener with a textbook death metal demolition that you’d think was coming from a band with a number of albums already in their back catalogue. Hitting you square in the face is opener 'No Retreat', the bone...

20/08/2018

Continuing my run of reviews of releases from Support Underground this time I have Slovakian act Catastrofy’s second thrash album to chop through which is a hit and miss and affair during its 13 tracks which kicks off with the short high energy 'Špinavá Hra' with rampant vocals and rapid velocity riffing and almost acts like an intro before 'Príruč...

19/08/2018