Feb 122025
 

(written by Islander)

Carcolh is the name of a mythical beast from French folklore, a large snail-like serpent that oozed slime and grasped with hairy tentacles. Carcolh is also the name of a powerhouse French doom metal band from Bordeaux/Herbignac. They have two albums to their credit so far, and are about to have a third one released on February 14th by Sleeping Church Records. Its name is Twilight of the Mortals.

Thankfully, the band and the label didn’t put too much weight on the name of our site — because Carcolh‘s Sebastien Fanton sings the words (in a voice that is truly spine-tingling) — and so we have been invited, and have happily agreed, to premiere the entire album today.

The new album is an honorable devotional to the old gods of traditional doom metal, but with a steadfast orientation toward musical narratives that earn the adjective “epic.” As we discuss in greater detail below, they have created dynamic music that is earth-quaking in its heaviness, pulse-pounding in its surges, and melodically sinister and stricken, glorious and gutting. We venture to predict that it won’t be soon forgotten. Continue reading »

Feb 122025
 

(Andy Synn has a storm of praise for the new album from Storm Death, out now)

One of the great things about writing here (and, trust me, there’s a lot of them) is that we aren’t beholden to anyone or anything – not PR firms, not labels, not advertisers, not deadlines, etc – when it comes to what we cover, or when we cover it.

Case in point, we have the freedom to cover, say, a pretty big name like The Great Old Ones or the highly-anticipated (and much hyped) debut from a band like Retromorphosis, only to then pivot entirely to a much less well-known, but no less deserving, band like Chilean death-dealers Storm Death, whose new album, Chaos Will Reign!, came out just last week.

Continue reading »

Feb 112025
 

(Below you will find Wil Cifer‘s review of a new album by the German black metal band Morast, which was released last week by Ván Records.)

I have an odd relationship with Black Metal. If you asked me what my favorite sub-genre of metal is I would have to say Black Metal. The caveat here is certain types. This German band Morast certainly captures what my type is.

When most people think of Black Metal they think of blast beats, tremolo-picked guitar, and the production quality of a room mic in a dank dungeon. That is the sound that bores me to death. It also feels odd that a genre dedicated to misanthropy and non-conformity to mainstream metal trends would repeatedly follow a formula because “that’s how Black Metal should sound”.

Morast do a wonderful job capturing the needed worship of darkness and misery to make me smile — anguish as depressive black metal. Yet they paint a sonic picture of a junkie’s despair in a manner we have not seen done with this kind of authenticity since mid-2000s Nachtmystium. Continue reading »

Feb 102025
 

(written by Islander)

The well-known descriptor “caveman death metal” connotes big dumb knuckle-dragging riffs, big dumb indecipherable grunts, and club-wielding drumwork that also seems primarily designed to break rocks. No pretense, no sophistication, no appeals to our higher faculties, just red meat for the reptile brain.

Sometimes, however, music that attracts that descriptor reminds of the long-running Geico commercials in which cavemen in modern settings become offended by the phrase “It’s so easy a caveman could do it,” because they are actually more sophisticated than their appearances suggest.

Which brings us to Cavernous Maw, a new Minnesota-based project created by guitarist/vocalist Niilo Smith (Sky Island) and drummer Ben Fagerness (Sky Island, Graveslave, Gloryhole Guillotine). Outwardly, they have no pretense — just look at the name of their debut EP (Primitive), the bloody cover art by Misanthropic-Art, their own proud brandishing of the “caveman death metal” label (though they do add “blackened” to that descriptor), and of course the band’s own name.

But their music turns out to be a whole lot more than a good soundtrack for breaking rocks and clubbing people senseless. Continue reading »

Feb 102025
 

(Andy Synn discusses questions of legacy and rebirth while singing the praises of Retromorphosis)

Look, there’s no way to talk about Retromorphosis without also talking about the elephant in the room.

After all, a lot of people feel (with good reason) that Psalmus Mortis is basically the long-awaited 4th Spawn of Possession album in all but name, especially since four out of five of the people behind the recording are ex-Spawn alumni (although only guitarist Jonas Bryssling and vocalist Dennis Röndum are SoP originals).

This, however, creates two potential problems for any budding reviewer.

On one hand you’ve got the question of how to address the expectations of the group’s fanbase, some of whom have already declared it “Album of the Year”, while others are convinced there’s no way it can live up to the band’s legacy – both prior to actually hearing it, I might add – without pandering to or dismissing their concerns.

Then, on the other, there’s the issue of how to put the album in its proper context – after all, it’s been just under thirteen years since SoP‘s third (and final) album was released, and during that time the Technical Death Metal scene has mutated and metastisized so much, spawning (no pun intended) a myriad of new strains and new variants, that it’s understandable if you’re wondering where exactly Retromorphosis are going to fit in.

Well, wonder no longer, because you’re about to find out all that… and more!

Continue reading »

Feb 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Another Sunday arrives, and with it another brain-wrecking task of making choices for this column, a task made even harder than I was expecting when I woke up to find that Rennie Resmini had climbed back into the starkweather Substack with a bunch of new recommendations I hadn’t already discovered (more on that later).

It’s obvious (maybe painfully obvious to some of you) that I am prone to great enthusiasm about music. I know I’m less critical than lots of other listeners, and even other writers at our putrid site. I still use my own kind of filter, but it seems more porous than those of others. Or maybe I see more clearly just how much fucking creativity and talent continue flowering in the metal underground, week after week!

(Somehow my enthusiasm for music is unabated even though the country where I live is rapidly going down the shitter.)

Here’s a severely cropped snapshot of what’s enthused me in recent days from the blacker realms. Continue reading »

Feb 082025
 


Revocation – photo by David Brodsky

(written by Islander)

Bookends: solid objects firmly in place, resistant to the pressure of adjacent warped spines, bulging contents, and the changes in atmosphere and time that cause such pressures. I have a pair of musical bookends on each end of today’s musical shelf. In between are a few exceedingly interesting small volumes that caught my eyes and ears this week. I hope you’ll give them all a chance so they can catch yours too.

REVOCATION (U.S.)

Surely, Revocation need no introduction, so I won’t provide one. Let’s see and hear what they’re up to now, the focus being on the video released for a new single named “Confines of Infinity“. Continue reading »

Feb 072025
 

(Here, our contributor Zoltar shines a light on the recently released split Doomed To Rot by two death metal devastators — Druid Lord from the U.S. and the German/Swedish group Rotpit.)

Split releases may appear like a thing of the past but, Satan be thanked, some cool bands and underground labels out there carry on that long tradition, let it be by pure opportunity or, in today’s case, simply to show each other some good old respect. And why the hell not? Especially when the two bands in question aren’t exactly playing what you would call, well, half-ass death metal.

Here in the US, you’re probably more familiar with DRUID LORD: Formed over fifteen years ago by former EQUINOX and ACHERON veterans Peter Slate (guitar) and Tony Blakk (bass & vocals), completed since 20016 by KILLING ADDICTION’s Chris Wicklein (guitar) and MASSACRE’s Elden Santos (drums), they’ve been growing in strength over the course of three albums and a whole bunch of splits, showcasing their heavy-as-fuck doom/death take on the classic Floridian style.

On the flipside, you’ll find the Swedish/German supergroup ROTPIT, spearheaded by Ralf Hauber from REVEL IN FLESH, assisted by his partner-in-crime in HEADS FOR THE DEAD Jonny Pettersson (the man of a thousand bands/projects like WOMBBATH, HUMAN HARVEST and so on) and, on drums since last year, Erik Barthold from LEFT HAND SOLUTION. Last November, the lads released Long Live The Rot, a downtuned delicacy of epic proportions that would make BLOODBATH barf and run for cover. Continue reading »

Feb 052025
 

(On February 28th Transylvanian Recordings will release the self-titled debut album by Stress Test from Portland, Oregon. What we have for you today is Todd Manning‘s review of the album and our premiere of its title song.)

With all the blends of sub-genres that make up the metal world today, grindcore and old-school thrash metal is a combination that doesn’t often pop up. But Portland’s Stress Test make it sound natural, like we all should’ve been doing this all along.

After a brief intro, “Degrees of Violence” vomits forth a tirade of crust and blast beats. The song is 30 seconds long, as it should be, and is awesome in all the standard grind kind of ways. “Coward” follows and at first glance seems similar to what came before. But there are moments that upon closer examination have a thrash feel. Continue reading »

Feb 052025
 

(On January 31st Iron Bonehead Productions ushered in the return, after 30 years, of the German band Naked Whipper, and now we’re providing Zoltar‘s review of their new album.)

I know better. Fuck, I was there. So don’t believe those claiming they were right from the get-go into Blasphemy and their likes back in the mid-’90s because they weren’t. Truth be told, back then what was to be called ‘war metal’ and their likes had very few disciples. Even if death metal was on its way out, I guess most of them hadn’t come to terms with the new definition of what extreme metal stood for and what the heck this both annoying and fascinating corpsepainted kid known as black metal had to do with it.

What I do know though is that when Naked Whipper‘s first full-length Paintreaks unexpectedly dropped in 1995, most of us dismissed it, including me. Their only claim to fame was that their bass player and vocalist was briefly Blood‘s frontman for their cult Christbait album released three years later but that was about it. As a matter of fact, the result sounded to my ears like a more satanic-flavored and primitive version of Blood, and thus was immediately suspected of jumping on the left hand path band-wagon, especially since it was being put out by MMI Records off Germany (Morbid Records‘ little brother if you catch the reference), then first and foremost renowned for putting out ugly death metal and grindcore, such as Avulsed, Dead or Deranged. Continue reading »