Tag Archives: Death Doom

ALBUM REVIEW: Gateway – Galgeendod

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Distortion and volume alone do not equate to heavy. Heaviness is the feeling these sounds invoke. Sonic alchemy can be oppressive, horrifying, depressing, creepy or somehow unsettling; Gateway finds themselves touching on all of these feelings on their new album Galgeendood (Transcending Obscurity Records). Belgium is not at the top of my list when it comes to places I might expect this kind of subterranean death doom to emerge from, but here we are. This album is the follow-up to Robert Van Oyen’s 2015 debut, under the Gateway moniker.Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Fleshvessel – Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed

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Anyone can make a concept album (which is not to say that it’s easy, but that it doesn’t depend on a particular musical style). That said, when it comes to the rock-opera-style concept album, the tendencies towards elaborate instrumental explorations and grand, dramatic spectacle often found in progressive rock and metal, provide particularly fertile ground. Pink Floyd, Queensryche, The Who, and many others have followed this path (coloured by their own particular musical approaches).

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ALBUM REVIEW: Radien – Unissa Palaneet

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Since forming in 2014, Sludge band, Radien have released a range of different releases displaying their power and skill in creating their own devastating blackened influenced sounds. Their latest album Unissa Palaneet, despite only being five tracks long, lasts a tremendous forty-six minutes, almost half of which is taken up by the final track, clocking in at twenty-one minutes. As you can tell from the get-go, this isn’t a band with dreams of hitting the charts. It is clear from the offset of their music, these artists have a creative vision of the brutal and animalistic sounds they can present to the world.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Vomitheist – NekroFvneral

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Vomitheist. It’s a band name that you hear or see and know exactly what you are in for. What exactly is a Vomitheist? Is it an instrument or a profession? Is it like an Atheist? Do they not believe in vomit, or do they worship it? Perhaps they are well-versed in all things regurgitation. Regardless of how or why they came up with their band name, what I can assure is that Vomitheist can write some sick ass and filthy Death Metal.

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REVIEWS ROUND-UP: Through The Cracks Of Death (January – March 2023) – Faithxtractor – Maze of Sothoth – Cadaver Shrine – Astriferous – Nothingness – Tentacult

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Decades pass without incident, and we dare to hope that the door is closed forever… but hope is a coin that buys only disappointment. Richard Benton returns once more from the lands beyond, six new horrors fast at his heels.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Predatory Void – Seven Keys To The Discomfort Of Being

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No matter how rotten the State of Denmark ever was, the fecundity of fetidity seems ever more prevalent in the Belgian ward of Ghent; more specifically within the parish boundaries of the Church of Ra, is something far more foul. Missionary for ruinous, dark, and heavy music, six-string dire wolf Lennart Bossu presents a new vehicle to spread the word of power of exacting, challenging, but ultimately rewarding, dark metallic music captured and presented under the guise of Predatory Void, a quintet of local luminaries to Bossu who have helped mould and shape a new, slightly more straight-forward, yet no less demanding than Amenra, force.


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EP REVIEW: Beyond Extinction – Nothing More Wretched

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The last couple of years have been a whirlwind for the Essex-based Beyond Extinction, who dropped their first EP The Fatal Flaws Of Humankind in 2021, then hit a packed New Blood Stage at Bloodstock for their first festival appearance in the same year. Since then they’ve continued to hit the road with full force, playing shows with an impressive roster of bands including Viscera, Cancer Bats, The Five Hundred, and Our Hollow Our Home.

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EP REVIEW: Dirge – Dirge

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When an EP is presented, it’s easy to cast it off as a minor installment added to a band’s overall body of work. But Dirge composed four independent, uniquely structured tracks that makes their self-released, self-titled opus bigger and more complex than what the runtime would suggest.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Oak – Disintegrate

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Gaerea had a 2022 about as good as any Extreme Metal band, with the release of their third full-length album Mirage driving forward their sound and eloquently merging ferocious Black Metal with elements of heavy “post-” music to create a unique style, on a record that was one of the finest of the year. And during this period of creativity vocalist and guitarist Guilherme Henriques would continue to develop his Oak side project with former drummer Pedro Soares, which had begun when the two were writing and recording Gaerea’s debut album Unsettling Whispers in 2018.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Grief Symposium – …In The Absence of Light

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What was the first bit of heavy music you ever heard in your life? Did you level up, gaining mana from the ear-peeling riffs and shouts? Lovers of extreme metal surely have had experiences like this in their lives, where their entire world is tossed upside-down a new band, or a clutch of new demos from an emerging scene. This is how my ears felt hearing Grief Symposium, with a new take on the Death / Doom sub-genre with their debut, …In The Absence of Light (Church Road Records). Although mysterious and secretive, they did not set out to reinvent extreme music, but rather invent themselves, and a sound that should echo for a long time.

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