Blackened death metal band Adversarial shake the earth with their third album, Solitude With The Eternal. Canadian death metal power trio Adversarial formed in 2007 and snapped out a demo the very next year. They pushed forward at a steady pace after that, with their debut long-player All Idols Fall Before The Hammer in 2010, and on to an EP and a couple splits heading toward their merciless follow-up record in 2015, Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism. Since then, a cold, dark emptiness has spread across the land, choking fans with its silence. Nearly a decade passed. Now ..read more

..read more

Ukrainian death-groove metal band Arhat have a new album coming out, their second full-length record, Secrets Of Ancient Gods. Formed in Kyiv in 2017, Arhat plays an approachable kind of death metal that combines grooves and thrash with fundamental death metal foundations, resulting in heavy music that crosses borders. They have released an EP previously, and Dead Life, their debut long-player. Talking about the new record, Arhat says, “This album is a journey into the world of ancient gods and mysterious rituals, reflecting the depths of wisdom of ancient civilizations. Each composition of t ..read more

..read more

Death metal band Cutterred Flesh have a new album coming out, the tenderly titled Love At First Bite. Cutterred Flesh is a brutal death metal band from Czechia. They have been around since 2001, and they have released five previous full-length albums – most recently, 2021’s Sharing Is Caring – a couple of demos, and a split with Smashed Face. Their music is complex, rugged, depressing, and entirely irresistible for death metal and deathcore fans. The band is Jiri Krs (vocals), Vitali Novak (guitar), David Krombholz (guitar), Ondrej Klaban (bass), and Jakub Bayer (drums). Before the needle eve ..read more

..read more

Knoxville metal band Summoner’s Circle sharpen their focus on their latest album, Cult. I was introduced to Summoner’s Circle at Tennessee Metal Devastation in 2022. They are a theatrical occult metal band, and they infuse black metal, death metal, and doom into their darkly fantastic music. They have been around since 2015, releasing an EP and three previous long-players. The performance I witnessed left an impression on me, and I was delighted to see them again the very next year at TMD. The only thing that has been missing is a new album, and now we have that, too. The band is Blind (vocal ..read more

Death metal rained down hard and heavy at The Forge on Thursday night from Dying Fetus, along with 200 Stab Wounds, Kruelty, and Full Of Hell. Dying Fetus On their latest tour, Baltimore grindcore band Dying Fetus brought along three very different acts ranging from noise to straight-up death metal. While I have seen Dying Fetus performances live many times, I had never witnessed any of the supporting groups in person. The opening band was Kruelty, a death-doom/hardcore quartet from Tokyo. I have heard most of their albums, demos, splits, and EPs, so I had some idea what was coming. Neverthele ..read more

Technical death metal band Cognitive bring out their fifth long-player, Abhorrence. From New Jersey comes Cognitive, a technical/brutal death metal band that has been together since 2011. They have produced four previous full-length albums and an EP. The band is indelibly engraved on my mind because I saw them a couple years ago in the unlikely venue of the E Street Pub in Richmond, Indiana. No disrespect – I like the bar and I used to go there a lot when I lived in the area – but I was surprised to see a band as well-known and accomplished as Cognitive make stop under the bridge in Richmond ..read more

..read more