Hellhammer

Sarke – Gastwerso Review

By Dr. A.N. Grier on November 5, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Indie Recordings, Norwegian Metal, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, 16 comments

“Since 2016’s Bogefod, Sarke has been on a steady incline that includes clean/acoustic guitars, interesting key work, and female vocals. In and around it all, they use aggressive Hellhammer/Celtic Frost moments, cold first-wave tremolo pickings, and plenty of slumbering sinisterness. Bogefod and its follow-up, Viige Urh, were fresh cuts that sounded like siblings born moments apart from one another. But where is Gastwerso’s branch on this family tree? Is it the birth of triplets or is this a xenomorph C-section?” Horrific lineage.

Cultic – High Command Review

By Mark Z. on April 4, 2019 in 2019, American Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Eleventh Key Records, Reviews, Death Metal, Doom Metal, 77 comments

“Celtic Frost’s music was simple yet influential. But there’s a problem with simple yet influential music: it’s easy to play, and thus you’re going to have a lot of bad bands try to play it. Still, for the longest time I couldn’t really think of a particularly awful group that sounded like early Celtic Frost. Well, you know what they say: if you spend long enough poking around, you never know what you’ll dig up. Here, amidst the remains of half-baked riffs and ideas long ago discarded by young groups who knew they could do better, I’ve uncovered a true stinker of an album, a record that I question how it ever came into being: High Command, the debut full-length by Pennsylvania’s Cultic.” Celtic Lost.

Blackrat – Dread Reverence Review

By Dr. Wvrm on November 21, 2018 in 2018, Black Metal, Canadian Metal, Crust Punk, Reviews, Shadow Kingdom Records, Thrash Metal, Black Metal, Crust Punk, Thrash Metal, 25 comments

“For years, throwback bands have charted the many tendrils of 80s influence ad infinitum, probably so well that you already know what Dread Reverence sounds like, don’t you? Maybe you do, but Blackrat don’t give a mouse’s patoot. For your listening pleasure, their third record provides only the finest selection of blackened thrashened crustened crust/thrash/black cuts, curated to slip even the sturdiest of discs. Dread Reverence is lean, mean, sounds like it was recorded by Fenriz as a teen, and desperately wants to be your friend. Won’t you take a spin on the throwback machine?” Wayback machines of wrath.

Tank – Sturmpanzer Review

By Huck N Roll on November 13, 2018 in 2018, British Metal, Dissonance Productions, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM, Reviews, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM, 80 comments

“Sometimes we get what we want, and sometimes we get what we deserve. Here I am, trudging towards the end of the year, relying on headmistress Madam X to dole out the review rewards and punishments as she sees fit – except for this week. This week, she forgot about little old me, and what did I see lurking in the promo bin? Tank. How did Steel Druhm, my cohort in late-middle-age, not grab this? Both of us remember the original Tank from way back in the early 80s, with their punk/proto take on the whole NWOBHM movement briefly endearing them to many.” Tanked.

Ruin – Human Annihilation Review

By Diabolus in Muzaka on October 23, 2018 in 2018, American Metal, Death Metal, Memento Mori, Reviews, Death Metal, 31 comments

“The mystique surrounding Ruin — the band started in the ’90s, but members were incarcerated and institutionalized, and now their twisted musical vision is coming to life and they’re some sort of cult — seems, at the very least, exaggerated. To dive fully into — and thus to fully enjoy — their sophomore release Human Annihilation, we have to suspend our disbelief and think of Ruin not as a band but as a ‘death metal cult,’ as they would describe it. Only then can we dive into what they’re doing and what they seem to be trying to portray.” Metal from the big house.

DungeönHammer – Infernal Moon Review

By Dr. A.N. Grier on October 12, 2018 in 2018, Black Metal, Dutch Metal, French Metal, Me Saco Un Ojo Records, Pulverised Records, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, 112 comments

“Face it, there’s no one that sounds like Celtic Frost, or even Hellhammer before that. No one… Wait, what’s this?! A two-man band from France and Holland that praise the ground Hellhammer once walked on?! With a debut record called Infernal Moon?! And with the band name of… DungeönHammer…?? Wtf??” How’s the Hammer hangin’?

Diabolic Force – Praise of Satan Review

By Mark Z. on September 14, 2018 in 2018, Black Metal, Brazilian Metal, Hells Headbangers Records, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, 48 comments

“One dark and stormy night many years ago, some guy was in his attic listening to his vinyl copy of Bathory’s debut when he thought to himself, “I could make music like this!” It didn’t end there. It happened again. And again. And again. Now it’s 2018, and the number of bands that have taken influence from first wave black metal is so great you could probably build a bridge to Hawaii made solely from their goathead T-shirts. Diabolic Force is one of those bands, and if you thought this Brazilian trio were here to breathe fresh life into the style, you must have missed the fact that their new album is called Praise of Satan.” Satan is overexposed.

Sathanas – Necrohymns Review

By Mark Z. on July 20, 2018 in 2018, American Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Transcending Obscurity, Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, 114 comments

“My middle school biology teacher once said, ‘Once you stop growing, you literally start dying.’ His morbid sentiment was, of course, referring to one’s physical body, but in retrospect, I’ve adopted a more philosophical interpretation of that statement. In order to beat spiritual death, you need to continue growing, and that means continually pushing yourself. At first glance, this seems exactly the ethos Sathanas live by.” D.I.E. (Death in effect).

Vomitor – Pestilent Death Review

By Mark Z. on April 25, 2018 in 2018, Australian Metal, Death Metal, Hells Headbangers Records, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, 55 comments

“What’s that? You’re tired of the progressive melodoom or whatever foofoo bullshit we’re giving Record o’ the Month to these days? Of course, you are. You want something heavier. Faster. Rawer. Something that feels like eating stale Chinese food out of a back alley garbage can while a stray cat gives birth in the background. We’ve all been there, and the solution is simple: Vomitor.” Vomitor, repeat as needed.

Schafott – The Black Flame Review

By Ferrous Beuller on August 31, 2017 in 2017, Black Metal, German Metal, High Roller Records, Reviews, Thrash Metal, 28 comments

“Welcome, AMG Readership, to our sanguinary sect of worship. Feel at home in our black conventicle as we anathematize all of those who oppose us. Don’t summon the Devil, don’t call the priest. If you need the strength, then conjure Germany’s Schafott, whose debut album, The Black Flame, is set to smolder the soul with classic blackened thrash.” Devotees will carve Slayer in their arm before returning to the cvlt.