Every now and then, you stumble upon new music entirely by accident, and that’s exactly how I discovered Ulthima’s debut album on YouTube. Information about the band is surprisingly scarce, but what I did find suggests that Ulthima is a Mexican‑Finnish collaboration. Guitarist Ricardo Escobar and bassist Antonio Valdès founded the band in Mexico roughly a decade ago before relocating to Finland, where they completed the lineup with vocalist...
More than four decades have passed since Accept released their self‑titled debut in 1979, yet the band continues to push forward with remarkable vitality. Lineup changes have been frequent over the years, and since The Rise of Chaos, founding bassist Peter Baltes has departed, leaving guitarist Wolf Hoffmann as the sole remaining original member. Even so, Accept proves they still have plenty of fire left. Too Mean to Die...
I should start by noting that information on Mordkaul is surprisingly limited, but what is known is that the band hails from Belgium and was formed around a shared passion for early‑to‑mid ’90s Swedish melodic death metal. Their debut album, Dress Code: Blood, has been in the works for several years. The drums were recorded by Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates/The Haunted), and none other than Dan Swanö handled...
This has been my most anticipated release of the year, and after a long and difficult wait, it has finally arrived. Work on Nucleus began roughly seven years ago, but the project was halted when founding member Erik Lindmark tragically lost his battle with sclerosis in 2018. Much of the music, written by Lindmark, Craig Peters, Ivan Munguia, and Darren Cesca, had already been recorded and partially mixed over...
I have to admit I wasn’t familiar with this Ukrainian band before now, despite Scythian Stamm being their fifth full‑length release. Formed in 2005 under the name Hellion and rebranded as Hell:On in 2007, the band has clearly been active for quite some time. Without having heard their earlier work, I can’t comment on their evolution, but Scythian Stamm immediately grabbed my attention with its strong songwriting, tight execution,...
German tech‑death veterans Profanity return on December 4th with their fourth full‑length studio album, Fragments of Solace. The record was tracked during the first half of 2020 across several studio locations before being mixed and mastered by Lukas Haidinger at Deep Deep Pressure Studios. Active since 1993, the band set out to blend the spirit of the most influential death metal releases from the early ’90s onward with their...
Mors Principium Est now enters its third decade as a band with the release of their seventh full‑length album, fittingly titled Seven. After numerous lineup changes over the years, the group has effectively been distilled down to vocalist Ville Viljanen and British guitarist Andy Gillion. Gillion recorded the guitars and orchestral arrangements in his home studio, while drums and vocals were tracked at Ansa Studio in Finland. The album...
Some bands never seem to run out of inspiration, and Communic is firmly among that rare group. Hiding From the World marks their sixth full‑length album, their second release through AFM Records, and once again they deliver a level of consistency that has become their trademark. Where Where Echoes Gather struck me immediately back in 2017, the new material took a bit longer to fully reveal...
Astralborne is a melodic death metal trio from Toledo, Ohio, formed in 2018. Their debut album, Eternity’s End, was originally self‑released in November 2019 but is now receiving worldwide distribution through Prosthetic Records. Some may argue that Astralborne isn’t reinventing the genre, and while that may be true, sheer quality is impossible to overlook. In fact, Eternity’s End is one of the strongest melodic death metal albums I’ve encountered...
Swedish epic doom/heavy metal outfit Sorcerer delivered an excellent album with The Crowning of the Fire King in 2017, and now they finally return with a brand‑new release. Formed back in 1988, the band issued a couple of demos in the late ’80s and early ’90s before fading from the spotlight, eventually reawakening in 2015 with their long‑awaited debut album. Their sound is often labeled “epic doom metal,” but...