Season of Mist

Defiled – In Crisis Review

By Angry Metal Guy on January 18, 2011 in 2011, 4.0, Death Metal, Japanese Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, 0 comments

I’ll admit it, I’m a biased motherfucker. When I think of Japan, I think of anime and J Pop and bands like over-the-top shit like X Japan and the crazy clown lookin’ girls, not brutal death metal bands like Defiled. I guess I should have learned this lesson already from bands like Gore Beyond Necropsy and Sigh and others who break against this stereotype in their own way, but no, my bias remains. Though I guess you can really say that Defiled is over-the-top, as they are an excellent, but also very brutal and pretty technical death metal band that is releasing their fourth full length. However, I can say that I was right surprised to get this record since I had no idea it was coming out and it has been 8 years since their Season of Mist debut Divination. But whether or not I had warning, Defiled has put out another ball breaking slab of death metal crushingness.

Silent Stream of Godless Elegy – Návaz Review

By Angry Metal Guy on January 15, 2011 in 2.5, 2011, Doom Metal, Folk Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Doom Metal, Folk Metal, 1 comment

The world of music is so big and this Angry Metal Guy is really so very, very small. This is my excuse for having never listened to Silent Stream of Godless Elegy before receiving this record from Season of Mist. And really, I think I probably should have at least checked them out before. Having formed in 1995 they’ve been playing a variety of folky, doomy metal that, to be honst, I’m surprised wasn’t picked up by Napalm Records back in the day when they were on their kick of picking up every female fronted band ever. But I digress [What? Me digress? – AMG].

Drudkh – Handful of Stars Review

By Angry Metal Guy on October 18, 2010 in 2010, Black Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Atmospheric Black Metal, 3 comments

This post has been removed because it promoted Nazi or Nazi-adjacent metal bands or musicians. We apologize.

Severe Torture – Slaughtered Review

By Steel Druhm on July 1, 2010 in 2010, 3.0, Death Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Death Metal, 2 comments

I have to admit right up front that I wasn’t overly familiar with Severe Torture and their cadaver of work prior to getting tasked with this review. I had heard bits and pieces of previous albums but nothing about them ever really grabbed my attention or made me feel the need to track down their material. So as I got familiar with Slaughtered, this Dutch death metal band’s fifth platter (or should I say splatter), I was pretty shocked by the quality of the material on display. Maybe I simply missed the boat on their earlier stuff but this is a solid enough release that I plan to go back to investigate much more carefully in the near future.

Watain – Lawless Darkness Review

By Angry Metal Guy on June 3, 2010 in 2010, 4.0, Black Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Swedish Metal, Black Metal, 5 comments

This Angry Metal Guy rips on black metal a lot. One of the most overdone and ill-performed genres in the history of metal has to be black metal. The problem is that when black metal is performed poorly by individuals who are not invested in it, then black metal is boring, simplistic and uninteresting. But when black metal is performed with the force and fanaticism of Sweden’s very own Watain, then it is a force to be reckoned with. And finally Lawless Darkness the new full-length from this Uppsala/Stockholm, Sweden-based black metal act is here and it is a force be reckoned with. It harkens back to the days of yore, when black metal was new, vile and most importantly, dangerous and excellent.

Cynic – Re-Traced Review

By Angry Metal Guy on May 4, 2010 in 2010, 4.5, American Metal, Avante Garde, Progressive Death, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Progressive Metal, 4 comments

I make no bones about it, I have a total love affair with Cynic. Long have I been a sucker for good progressive metal and Cynic is about as good as progressive metal gets. While I was a bit young to really have appreciated Focus when it came out, I re-discovered it later and fell in love with it. When Traced in Air came out in 2008 I pretty much fell over myself with joy. That record has maintained a constant place on my playlists since it was released and ranks among my top 10 albums of the last decade. So when I heard that they were going to re-do some of the tracks in different styles as an EP I was justifiably excited, but skeptical at the same time. I grew up in the age of the Nine Inch Nails re-mix album: I know what happens when jackasses mess around with an already winning formula. Nothing good.

The Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis Review

By Angry Metal Guy on March 25, 2010 in 2010, 4.0, American Metal, Avante Garde, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Sporadicore, Hardcore, Mathcore, Metalcore, 1 comment

The Dillinger Escape Plan’s fourth record, Option Paralysis, has been one of the most anticipated records of this year so far. And for good reason, people are really taken by this band and their unique style. DEP has released some seriously wacky, sporadic records in the past that are both crazy and challenging and yet so very enticing and addictive, even teaming up with Mike Patton (and others) on an EP called Irony Is a Dead Scene. They’re a very hard band to stick into a genre, bordering on technical metal and hardcore as well as pulling in influences from industrial, jazz, acoustic rock and well, you name it, they can do it. That makes them feel very fresh, but can they maintain that freshness on Option Paralysis.

Rotting Christ – Aealo Review

By Angry Metal Guy on February 18, 2010 in 2010, 3.5, Black Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, 6 comments

There aren’t many bands that can claim something that Rotting Christ can claim: they have more buzz around the band now than they have ever had, and this is their 10th album. Now the hardcore, or the old school fans, will claim that they’re not nearly as good as they were “back in the day,” but I think the band has done a lot of development since the “old days” and really planted themselves firmly on the border of modern, mainstream metal. I mean, even their label is calling them just “dark metal” now, though I think there are some things that still hold them in the black metal category. Aealo is the follow up to the band’s 2007 masterpiece Theogonia, a record which lit their fanbase aflame and which saw the band broadening their appeal to new fans all over the world. It is fair to say that Rotting Christ has continued on the heels of Theogonia with Aealo, because the majority of the stylistic themes which ran through the previous album and made it great remain.