Finnish folk metal band Finntroll have returned with sixth album, “Blodsvept.” Back in the day I never listened to much Finntroll because they didn’t sing in English. I can enjoy albums that are not in English...

Chosen is an Irish melodic death metal band and “Resolution” is their full-length debut. The band also has a number of well-received EPs dating back to 2005. Well this was certainly a nice surprise.

In 2011 Anthrax released “Worship Music” which heralded the return of singer Joey Belladonna after a 20 year absence. I only ever really liked the Belladonna years, so that was great news for this metal fan.

Lowbau is a band from Vienna, Austria and "A Darker Shade of Blues" is their debut full-length album. They describe the music on the album by referring to the album title. What exactly does that mean?

Progressive Norwegian black metal band Vreid has just released their sixth album, “Welcome Farewell.” I have been waiting for this album for months and now that I finally have my copy I am well pleased.

Black Crucifixion is a Finnish black metal band and “Coronation of King Darkness” is their third album. I hadn’t heard of these guys before receiving the promo from Spinefarm Records, but the album art intrigued me... 

Gormathon is a Swedish melodic death metal band and “Lens of the Guardian” is their 2010 debut album. I am also including the single “Land of the Lost” and the three-song EP “Celestial Warrior”, both of which were released in 2012. 

Mage is a Stoner/Doom metal band from the UK and “Black Sands” is their first album. Lately I have been cruising Bandcamp for interesting new releases from bands that I haven’t heard before. There is a nice mix of...

Funeral, a doom metal band from Norway, has recently released their sixth full-length, “Oratorium.” I must admit that despite such a simple sounding name and a history dating back over twenty years 

Incantation is an American death metal band that has been around for over twenty years, and today they are releasing their ninth album, “Vanquish in Vengeance.”

Sterbhaus is a Swedish thrash/death band from Stockholm and “Angels for Breakfast and God for Lunch” is their second album.I have to start by saying I love the album title, “Angels for Breakfast and God for Lunch.” 

Aeon is a death metal band from Sweden and “Aeons Black” is their fourth album. When I think of Swedish death metal, I think of melodic death metal. Bands like... 

Graveyard is a Swedish retro hard rock band, and “Lights Out” is their third album. Their second album, “Hisingen Blues” was released early in 2011 and made big waves with their 70s styled blues rock. 

I am not generally a fan of live albums, but there are some bands, and some tours, which truly make for a great live album, and Machine Head just happens to be one of those bands, and any tour with Machine Head is bound to be memorable. 

I was thrilled, as I am sure many metal fans were, to learn there was an animated TV series that revolves around a death metal band. Metal has perpetually received second-class treatment from the rest of the world, but Metalocalypse...

“Effigies of Evil” is the third album from Finnish death-doom band Hooded Menace. I have been waiting since September to slip this into the rotation somewhere, and the time has finally arrived.

Anaal Nathrakh, from the UK, is back with their seventh album of extreme metal, “Vanitas.” This duo has been on my radar for years, yet I have never given them much attention. Despite the band receiving praise from the metal media...

There was apparently a lot of anticipation for “Time I”, Wintersun’s second album; fans had to wait eight years for this second installment. I may have a copy of the first album somewhere, but I was oblivious to the anticipation...

Bison B.C. from Vancouver, British Columbia (the B.C. in the band’s name) have returned with their third album of stoner sludge metal, “Lovelessness.” 

Greetings! Hurricane Sandy has passed and I have awoken from my slumber to find that today is the best holiday of the year, Halloween! What better to review on Halloween than...

Stoner metal band The Sword has returned with their fourth album, “Apocryphon.” I have been eagerly waiting to hear this album for several months. I am not disappointed.

Montreal’s Cryptopsy have returned with their seventh album of brutal/technical death metal (or is it their sixth? Wink, wink.) I joke about it being their sixth because...

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the first My Dying Bride album, “As the Flower Withers.” I cannot believe it has been 20 years already...

Frost Giant is from Boyertown, Pennsylvania and “When Myth and History Merged into Mystery” is their first EP. They play a mix of folk metal and death/hardcore. 

British melo-death band Sylosis have returned a year and a half after their last album to give us their third album, “Monolith.” It takes something really special to get me excited about...

For years I have been mostly ignoring Between the Buried and Me because I thought they were some crappy, cookie-cutter metalcore band. I must have been confusing them with some other band...

I have been eagerly waiting for the new Daylight Dies, and today it finally dropped. I was unable to track down an advance copy, so like the rest of the world I had to wait for it to hit iTunes...

Enslaved is a band that should need no introduction. This Norwegian band has been around since the beginning of the Scandinavian black metal scene and was one of the early bands to hoist the Viking metal...

Satan’s Wrath is the new band featuring Tas Danazoglou, formerly of Electric Wizard. “Galloping Blasphemy is the band’s first album and it sounds just a wee bit different than Electric Wizard.

I did not receive a bio with this album, other than a little blurb on the download page, so I did a little looking around online. Information about Abstracter was pretty sparse. Here is what I found...