American Metal

The Black Dahlia Murder – Deflorate Review

The Black Dahlia Murder – Deflorate Review

The Black Dahlia Murder is becoming a veteran band among this new wave of melodic American death metal/metalcore or whatever the hell you want to call it. To get this out of the way right away: I think that The Black Dahlia Murder has been treated unfairly by a metal community sad to see the disappearance of the old school metal guy anywhere except brutal death metal. Modern American metal has come to be dominated by short-haired, tattooed hardcore lookin’ kids who often have super diverse taste in music and have never donned a leather jacket or a goatee in their lives. These hardcore lookin’ dudes put on shows that have an energy that often times metal dudes lack in their own live performances, and they’re gaining notoriety with their blending of brutal death metal and stupid core breakdowns. The Black Dahlia Murder has been lumped in with these guys because of tattoos and plugs, but they are certainly not akin to these bands. No, The Black Dahlia Murder is easily one of the best melodic death metal bands the United States has ever produced and despite them sounding a lot like At The Gates plus blast beats, I think they do it very, very well and very consistently.

Threat Signal – Vigilance

Threat Signal – Vigilance

Three years after their initial release, after being a true Internet success story, Threat Signal is back with a new album called Vigilance. I never got to review the first album, and I must admit that this style is a little bit too sugary sweet for my tastes, but I was pleasantly surprised with what I heard contained within the borders of Vigilance: a band comfortable in their own shell, producing music that skates the fine line between pop metal, metalcore and thrash. This record is sure to bring delight to those among us who aren’t fans of the more heavy hitting, brutal or technical things that are flooding the market these days.

Swashbuckle – Back to the Noose Review

Swashbuckle – Back to the Noose Rating: 3.0/5.0 Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | USA) Websites: myspace.com/swashbuckle | swashbuckle.info Release date: July 24th, 2009 (EU) | August 11th, 2009 (USA) Pirates are becoming an all-too-common and all-too-silly theme in our current society—sort of a strange zeitgeist, if you will. Everything from the pirates in Somalia to […]

Between the Buried and Me Done with New Record

Tommy from Between the Buried and Me has posted a message on their MySpace page updating about their studio process. After 5 weeks of recording they have finished with their new album, The Great Misdirect. It is scheduled to be out on the 27th of October. Here’s the post: hello everyone… writing to update everyone […]

Atheist – Live at Wacken Track on Myspace

Tech metal legends Atheist has posted a track on Myspace off of their forthcoming Unquestionable Presence: Live at Wacken DVD which is set to be released on the 21st of July (in the states) via Relapse Records. You can check it out here: www.myspace.com/kellysatheistwebsite. Unquestionable Presence: Live At Wacken track listing (first disc only): 01. […]

Suicide Silence – No Time to Bleed Review

Suicide Silence – No Time to Bleed Rating: 2.5/5.0 – Excellence offset by core Label: Century Media Websites: myspace.com/suicidesilence | suicidesilence.net (last updated 2005) Suicide Silence is a study of opposites—a dichotomy of sorts. On the one hand, they appear to be a talented band, musically varied, very interesting and capable of building intense grooves. […]

Angry Metal Guy’s Classics: #1

Angry Metal Guy’s Classics: #1

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken time to go back and listen to classic albums that totally influenced me and lead me down The Path that Rocks! (As opposed to the Path of Righteousness.) But it’s something that I should do more often, and it started today when a buddy of mine over at the WMA Forums posted his now playing: Type O Negative – Bloody Kisses. I was suddenly overcome with a compulsion to go back and listen to this masterpiece of metal from when metal wasn’t even remotely cool, from a period where having long black hair and digging Iron Maiden meant sort of living in the closet–well, at least if you were a middle-school kid in the Midwest, anyway.