Unique Leader

Rings of Saturn – Lugal Ki En Review

By Kronos on October 7, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Deathcore, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, Deathcore, Technical Death Metal, 29 comments

“I want one thing to be perfectly clear in your mind before you begin reading the body of this review: I hate Rings of Saturn. The band is the antithesis of everything I like about heavy music: they’re popular, smug, and have a fanbase largely made up of teenagers with gauged earlobes and fitted caps. Their guitar tone is incredibly clean, their drums make St. Anger look like The Destroyers of All, they have no bassist, and they throw around breakdowns as often as they throw around new age/horror sci-fi horseshit lyrics.” Kronos has a deeply conflicted relationship with this band. Please support him as he works through his issues.

Internal Bleeding – Imperium Review

By Al Kikuras on September 24, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, 17 comments

“Internal Bleeding helped to pioneer the much maligned (but somewhat loved) ‘slam’ death metal genre over 20 years ago, and are by most accounts the first band to use the term. As the premiere slam band alongside Suffocation, they’ve been divisive since day one.” Love em or hate em, they’re back to get all Strong Island on your ass.

Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails Prevails: A Review of the DR10 Master

By Angry Metal Guy on August 12, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Blog Posts, Death Metal, Progressive Death, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, Progressive Metal, 68 comments

“It’s been around a month since I panned Fallujah’s incredibly ambitious The Flesh Prevails on account of a gratuitously loud mastering job, and now that the storm that battered the review’s comments section has passed, the staff at Angry Metal Guy have all agreed that it’s time to take another look at the album. But this time it’s not quite the same album. How so? We have an alternate master, provided for us with consent from Fallujah by Zack Ohren, the man behind the knobs for The Flesh Prevails.” Does a more dynamic mastering make that much of a difference? You may be surprised.

Omnihility – Deathscapes of the Subconscious Review

By Kronos on July 16, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Rating, Reviews, Unique Leader, Technical Death Metal, 4 comments

“Most of the time, technical death and progressive death pretty much go hand in hand. Anyone with the chops to play at breakneck speeds and shred with the best of them will want to show off not just their technical skill, but their ability to bring something new to the table, and this mentality has only gained adherents as the style has flourished. But occasionally there arises a group of musicians who want nothing more than to play in the style of Cannibal Corpse but do it at twice the speed. That’s where Omnihility fits into the picture.” Kronos continues his campaign to review every tech-death act on the Unique Leader roster. FIGHT!

Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails Review

By Kronos on July 14, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, 134 comments

“The hype train chugs along, never stopping, continuously boarding and ejecting passengers. Such is the way of the metal press; we collectively run to cling on to the sides of the cars as they pass by, only to jump from their doors days later, hit the ground rolling, and dust ourselves off as we search for a new ride. Recently, as you’ve probably noticed, coal has been heaped into the firebox as metal zines blow the horn for the juggernaut’s latest destination, Fallujah’s The Flesh Prevails.” The Hype Train is a fickle mistress.

Inanimate Existence – A Never-Ending Cycle of Atonement Review

By Kronos on June 22, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, Technical Death Metal, 26 comments

“Hey gang, it’s time to play a game. A fun game – but also a dangerous one, so make sure you’re qualified for it. In order to play you’ll need a few things: a bucket, a glass, a strong liver, and a large amount of (ideally) a slightly less strong drink. That’s right, we’re about to engage in every tech-death nerd’s plastering procedure: the Unique Leader Records drinking game! Here are the rules; I’m going to review an upcoming album from Unique Leader, and every time a Unique Leader trope appears, you take a shot.” Everybody grab a Zima and brace yourselves!

Pillory – Evolutionary Miscarriage Review

By Kronos on June 5, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, Technical Death Metal, 3 comments

“Promos come in and promos go out, and amongst the parade of CDs labelled as heavy metal, re-thrash, or ridiculously specific (read: nonexistent) black metal genres, there’s a disappointingly low number of tech-death releases. The last few years have been pretty good for tech-death, so it’s no surprise that the release schedule for the genre is in a lull right now, but that doesn’t make me any less sad. Thankfully, Pillory are breaking the silence with their sophomore effort Evolutionary Miscarriage.” Here’s some tech-death to noodle you into paste!

Beneath – The Barren Throne Review

By Madam X on April 27, 2014 in 2014, Death Metal, Icelandic Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, 6 comments

“The Barren Throne sees us heading back to Reykjavík, Iceland for a re-boot of brutal tech-death band Beneath. You should remember from my last review, or not, that Beneath is built up from the dregs of some of Iceland’s top metal bands (Sororicide, Changer, Diabolus and Atrum) and a mere 2 years after the release of Enslaved by Fear and the loss of frontman Gísli Sigmundsson, they’re about to make an aggressive comeback.” Madam X assumes The Barren Throne, will she delight in causing heads to roll?

Soreption – Engineering the Void Review

By Grymm on January 25, 2014 in 2014, Death Metal, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Unique Leader, Death Metal, 6 comments

Technical death metal. You know the images and sounds those three words conjure up: endless sweep arpeggios, slapped bass with only the freshest of strings, fast double-bass drumming, an album cover that utilizes colors on the cooler side of the Color Wheel (mostly hues of purple and blue) and has an alien somewhere in it, the band logo in a sharp, nigh-symmetrical font…. And for the most part, you know what to expect when someone tries to take the throne from the likes of Decapitated, Gorguts, or Necrophagist. We’re all about the Color Wheel here at AMG, but only the cool side. We also appreciate some good tech-death. Does this qualify?

The Kennedy Veil – Trinity of Falsehood Review

By Kronos on January 14, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, 12 comments

“For every Voivod album that teaches us not to judge a book by its (horrendously poorly made) cover, there are dozens of other albums with laughably bad artwork that also contain laughably bad music. This was somewhat the case with The Kennedy Veil’s debut disc, which hid uninteresting death metal behind a photoshop abomination. They can’t be faulted for this, seeing as the it was self-released, but it’s nice to know this time around they’ve put forth a properly constructed, though again clichéd face for themselves.” Sometimes we make note of album artwork, but Kronos really takes that to a new level of visual obsession. Fortunately, he also reviews the music… eventually.