Reviews

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Know Your Doom Metal Roots with TROUBLE's Psalm 9

ThrowbackThursday

Each week on ‘Throwback Thursday’ we dust off a crucial but underrated album, without which heavy metal’s evolution would have turned out quite differently.

This week we creep into the mausoleum of doom, there to awaken the stiff-limbed undead corpse of Chicago’s Trouble and their genre revitalizing eponymous debut, later known as Psalm 9. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: WORMED Exodromos

Wormed - Exodromos

If you can picture yourself sitting in the darkest space imaginable for years with nothing more than a pen to record and isolate your thoughts you would barely begin to scrape the cell splitting, mind melting insanity that is about to melt you like a subatomic bomb. Earth is dead. Too bad you're not. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: IMPERIUM DEKADENZ Meadows of Nostalgia

Imperium Dekadenz Album Art

All in all, it's a great time to be a fan of heavy music. There are an abundance of bands out there who are either pushing the boundaries of their respective sub-genres or perfecting their sound to reach the pinnacle of Trueness. Unfortunately, you've probably never heard of any of these bands. I'm not saying that as a slight against your metal cred, but as a statement of fact. The incestuous nature of the metal writing community all but guarantees the majority of underground bands remain that way as writers rely on Haulix promos and PR releases to dictate what bands get coverage. I understand that it's hard (if not impossible) to make a living as a metal journalist in the digital age, and I know bloggers have to chase trends to ensure constant website traffic. But the end result is that many bands are left out in the cold as the same handful of buzz bands and albums get coverage from all of the major heavy metal news outlets from week to week. Imperium Dekadenz is one such band that's been largely ignored. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP Opium Morals

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The slow tempo of a bass drum jolts on like a heartbeat through the speakers as the bass throbs and feedback wails. Wasting almost no time the droned, fuzzy guitars and throaty vocalist kick in. The tempo picks up slowly only to build more and more. Suddenly the song becomes a frenzy as the band chugs along like a demented locomotive only to dive and slow down once more. It twists and turns throughout, trudging through sludge one minute and blasting the next until a pulverizing finish. And that's just the first song. (more…)

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Definitive Thrash from EXODUS with Bonded By Blood

ThrowbackThursday

Each week on ‘Throwback Thursday’ we dust off a crucial but underrated album, without which heavy metal’s evolution would have turned out quite differently.

This week we slam-dance with an album that by all rights should be overlooked by no one (but somehow still is) due to its central role in the Bay Area thrash metal scene: Exodus' conclusive sonic document of the style, Bonded by Blood. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: INCENDIARY Cost of Living

3ue5_IncendiaryCostOfLiving

When I first discovered Incendiary on the first edition of MetalSucks' NYC Sucks sampler, their track "Victory in Defeat" instantly made them my new favorite hardcore band. They managed to add just the right amount of metallic crunch and heaviness to add to the ferocity of their hardcore attitude, while still retaining a definite identity as a NY Hardcore band. Incendiary's sound can best be at first described as satisfying: heavy as 1000 Mack trucks, and aggressive as a bloodthirsty lion on the Serengeti. Another good word would be, well…alive, in that they take hardcore and keep it vibrant, exciting, and fresh, rather than being just ripping off Madball or Death Threat like so many other bands do. So with that massive reservoir of support from me, I approached Cost of Living hoping that Incendiary would provide a solid, consistent hardcore record. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: SEVENDUST Black Out The Sun

SevendustBlackOutTheSun

After spending some time in other projects for a short while, the members of Sevendust have gotten back together and produced a new album. Normally, in these cases, a band’s sound can totally change for better or for worse. And Sevendust fans come back album after album for their particular brand of catchy alt metal. I’m sure they’re all hoping that after a stint in other projects that they’ll still be able to amaze them. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: FINNTROLL Blodsvept

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In case you haven’t heard the news or the teaser material, Finnish humppa-metallers Finntroll—Vreth, Trollhorn, Beast Dominator & Co.—are back with their seventh studio album, after making us wait three years for the pleasure. But dammit the wait was worth it. Although, when I first listened to the album, I noticed that something was different. The band’s sound had changed in some almost imperceptible way. I mean, they’re still Finntroll; you can tell across every album when you’re hearing Finntroll, they’ve forged their own signature sound. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: KVELERTAK Meir

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You'd be hard pressed to find a metal band more hyped than Kvelertak in the last two years. Having released their self-titled debut in 2010 through Indie Recordings, it wasn't until that album was released in the US in March 2011 that shit really started getting nuts. Following a number of high profile gigs during SXSW that year and a subsequent full scale tour, Kvelertak fever had taken hold in America. The band's live reputation became so formidable that it almost seemed like an afterthought when a follow up record was finally announced late last year. (more…)

Reviews

EP Review: NO SALVATION Faith

No Salvation - Faith - cover

Southern Lord would eat these guys up. No Salvation play a sludge/stoner-friendly hardcore that doesn't fit neatly into one category but would immediately gel on the current SL roster. For now they're self-releasing their debut EP, Faith, through Bandcamp (ie. digital only, which is where Southern Lord needs to step in… this is eminently vinyl-worthy). (more…)

METAL Injection Music Reviews

Album Review: NECROCURSE Grip of the Dead

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An ominous chorus begins to swell as a deadpan drum is beaten in the background. A voice comes onto the microphone like a demonic preacher and begins to spew sermon. Staring at the album's cover and listening to the prophetic banter, suddenly things start to come together. The grounds will crack, the dead shall raise and the world shall be in the grip of the dead. Necrocurse is upon us! (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: BATILLUS Concrete Sustain

Batillus

Two years after breaking through with Furnace, Brooklyn's finest, Batillus, are back with Concrete Sustain, a collection of six fairly lengthy but surprisingly lean and focused updates on the band's industrial sludge repertoire. Representing more of a refinement of the existing Batillus sound rather than an evolution per se, Concrete Sustain dials back the atmospherics just a smidge without sacrificing any of the bottom end. Heavy is and always will be the Batillus stock-in-trade. (more…)

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Rock Until You Drop With RAVEN

ThrowbackThursday

Each week on ‘Throwback Thursday’ we dust off a crucial but underrated album, without which heavy metal’s evolution would have turned out quite differently.

This week we’re smashed, banged and walloped by the seminal New Wave of British Heavy Metal trio, Raven: self-proclaimed creators of “Athletic Rock” and twisted uncles to thrash. (more…)

Reviews

EP Review: ANTHRAX Anthems

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If their recent history is any guide, Anthrax has made a great comeback. After a string of mediocre albums and a some time spent in line-up hell, Anthrax emerged with Worship Music, an album by an older band that was actually worth listening to! With a successful album and a string of tours with their big 4 brethren, Anthrax has the momentum of a strong, relevant metal band. Their new EP, Anthems, presumably serves two purposes: keep the iron hot with their fans, and have some fun playing cover songs. (more…)

Reviews

Album Review: JUNGLE ROT Terror Regime

VR678-CD

Having been on Victory Records through an entire album cycle now, and with a cover of D.R.I.'s classic "I Don't Need Society" in the track listing for the new record, heads were abuzz with thoughts that Jungle Rot might just go full on 'core this time around. Yeah, not really. Terror Regime is if anything latter day Rot-by-numbers, mid-paced but never plodding, workmanlike to a near fault yet scrappy and not without a certain charm… there's a very specific itch that Jungle Rot scratches. (more…)

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